156 Herbert Spencer 



which arouse the action; and as these psychical states constitute 

 himself at that moment, this is to say that these psychical states 

 determine their own cohesions, which is absurd. Their cohesions 

 have been determined by experiences — the greater part of them, con- 

 stituting what we call his natural character, by the experiences of 

 antecedent organisms; and the rest by his own experience. The 

 changes which at each moment take place in his consciousness, and 

 among others those which he is said to will, are produced by this 

 infinitude of previous experiences registered in his nervous structure, 

 co-operating with the immediate impressions on his senses : the effects 

 of these combined factors being in every case qualified by the physical 

 state, general or local, of his organism.' 



Our doctrine is that the will indeed necessarily follows 

 the stronger motive, but that the soul has, on certain occa- 

 sions, the power of intensifying one motive at will, and so 

 making that motive, for the time, the stronger. As Dr. 

 Carpenter has justly observed, much of the mind's work is 

 done by its ' automatic faculties,' but ' their direction is given 

 by the Will, in virtue of its power of intensifying any idea 

 or feeling that is actually present to consciousness, by fixing 

 the attention upon it.' Asserting, as we do, the substantial 

 and persistent Ego, we have no hesitation in affirming that 

 that Ego occasionally does ' determine the cohesions of the 

 psychical states which arouse ' an action, and, at . the same 

 time, in denying ' that these psychical states determine their 

 own cohesions.' Mr. Spencer's error lies in not distinguishing 

 between perceptions and emotional states which cannot but 

 produce an effect in direct proportion to their strength, and 

 that faculty of wiU which our consciousness tells us is not, 

 when in act, a mere impotence arising from incomplete ad- 

 justment, but a conscious exertion of power adding to the 

 strength of such emotional states or such perceptions, as may 

 be selected for intensification. But the want in Mr. Spencer's 

 mind of any perception of true morality is so complete that 

 he looks upon the absence of moral freedom as a positive 

 gain. He says : — 



