PROLEGOMENA TO ETHICS. 119 



to impressions but to wants. And a want is no 

 more identifiable with a motive than an impression 

 is identifiable with a thought. In a motive no less 

 than in knowledge, there is something non-natural, 

 not as though a motive were made up of animal 

 instinct plus self-consciousness ; for it is one and 

 indivisible, resulting from "the determination of 

 an animal nature by a self-conscious subject other 

 than it" (p. 95). 



Any one who is familiar with a certain long and 

 hopelessly confused footnote in Mill's " Utilitarian- 

 ism," on motives and intentions, will appreciate 

 the admirable clearness of Mr. Green's discussion 

 (sees. 103 and seqq.} and his criticism of the mis- 

 leading phrase, "the strongest motive." With the 

 clearer view of what motive means, the freedom of 

 the will, which is necessarily implied in morality, 

 becomes intelligible. We are not shut up to either 

 of the one-sided heresies of "determinism " or "in- 

 determinateness." Freedom in motive is not free- 

 dom from motive. It is not " some unaccountable 

 power of unmotived willing," nor is an act deter- 

 mined by character one that a man cannot help 

 doing. " It has no must, in the physical sense, 

 about it. The ' can't help it ' has no application 

 to it." To say, then, that a man's action is the 

 joint result of his character and his circumstances 

 is only true and compatible with human freedom, 

 if we recognize the existence of "a self-dis- 



