THE HUMAN WILL 



publication of the Principles of Psychology in 1855, 

 wherein attention was for the first time directed 

 to the will of children, savages, and the lower 

 animals, will was treated as a prime fact, one can 

 not now plunge in medias res, but must devote 

 the most serious initial consideration to the gen 

 esis of will all our conclusions being thereby 

 affected. 



Nor can we go far, it may be found, without 

 impinging upon one of the great outstanding con 

 troversies of biology the inheritance or non- 

 inheritance of acquired characters. If I become a 

 drunkard and thereafter a father, is my child more 

 likely than he would have been to follow my ill- 

 guided steps? And if he is thus doomed, is it 

 because I have acquired a character which enslaves 

 him, or is it rather that he inherits a tendency 

 which, apparently acquired, was in reality innate 

 in me? And if innate in me, can it be traced to 

 the indulgence of one of my ancestors have / 

 inherited an acquired character or would I have 

 fallen in any case, whether my ancestor had yielded 

 to temptation or not? 



Then, again, what of the distinction between 

 instinctive and rational action? Is it true that 

 the lower animals act only by instinct, whereas 

 man is a rational animal ? And was Spencer right 

 in declaring instinct to be &quot;compound reflex ac 

 tion&quot;? Must I, in discuSvSing the human will, 

 define reflex action; and what answer can I then 

 make to the critic who may assert that, under a 



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