360 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



for although his will seems to be much freer than theirs, it is not really 

 so ; and yet, for a reason that I shall try to explain, individuals of his 

 species act very differently under similar circumstances. 



Since the will is always dependent on some judgment it is never 

 really free ; for the judgment which gives rise to it is a necessary 

 result of the union of its component elements, Uke the quotient in an 

 arithmetical operation. But the produce of a judgment must vary 

 in different individuals for the reason that the elements which enter 

 into the formation of this judgment are apt to be quite different in 

 different individuals. 



In fact, so many and various elements enter into the formation of 

 our judgments, so many are present which ought not to be present, 

 and of the proper elements so many are unnoticed or rejected from 

 prejudice, or are affected by our disposition, health, age, sex, habits, 

 propensities, state of our knowledge, etc., that the union of these 

 elements gives rise to very different judgments on the same subject in 

 different individuals. The fact that our judgments depend on so many 

 inappreciable elements has given rise to the belief that our determina- 

 tions are free, although in reality they are not so, seeing that the 

 judgments which produce them are not free themselves. 



The diversity of our judgments is so remarkable that it often happens 

 that a subject gives rise to as many individual judgments as there are 

 persons to discuss it. This variation has been taken for a freedom of 

 determination, and a mistake has thus been made ; for it is only the 

 result of the difference between the elements entering into the judgment 

 of each person. 



Yet there are subjects so simple and straightforward that the judg- 

 ments passed upon them are in almost universal agreement. But 

 these subjects are almost exclusively confined to what is outside of 

 us, and only known by the sensations which they excite or have excited 

 on our senses. Our judgments with regard to them involve scarcely 

 any elements other than those furnished by sensation together with the 

 comparisons which we draw between these and other known bodies. 

 Lastly, for this class of judgment there is very little call upon our 

 understanding. 



One result of the immense number and variety of the causes which 

 affect the elements entering into the formation of our judgments, 

 especially those which require various intellectual operations, is that 

 these judgments are usually erroneous and inaccurate ; and that 

 on account of the inequaUty between the intellectual faculties of 

 individuals these same judgments are commonly as varied as the 

 people who form them, each one importing different elements into 

 them. Hence it follows, moreover, that disorders of these acts of 



