x Self-control. 189 



tesimally, provided that it is not absolutely reduced 

 to nothing, it seems probable that it may be absolutely 

 reduced to nothing by the vital powers of the organism, 

 which infinitely excel all human art in subtlety. 

 Boussinesq's illustration from geometry, though not 

 suggesting how this can be done, appears to show 

 that it implies no mathematical absurdity. 



The freedom of which we speak is emphatically 

 called Moral Freedom ; all moralists agree that Moral 

 Freedom is manifested in self-control, and practically 

 means the power of self-control. We now see the 

 physiological ground and interpretation of this. Self- 

 control consists, primarily, in the control, by the 

 Will, of muscular actions which, without such control, 

 would have gone on in response to stimuli, as "in the 

 case of the patient who kicked when tickled on the 

 soles of his feet, though unconscious of the tickling. 

 Will or, if this word is thought inapplicable, 

 voluntary action is developed in animals to this 

 extent, namely, of voluntary control over their own 

 muscular motions. 



In my opinion, the step in development which 

 separates the human from the highest animal intellect, 

 consists in acquiring the power of directing thought 

 at will. 1 On this depends the power of abstraction, 

 and with it the ability to use arbitrary signs, and the 

 faculty of language; for, as Max Miiller has shown 



1 Max Miiller, in a letter in Nature of the 14th July 1887, 

 speaks of this view as being at least worthy of consideration. 



