EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



Spencer's theory that will is derived, in the indi- 

 vidual and the race, from reflex action. But it 

 need hardly be said that Spencer recognized and 

 considered the facts of the change from volitional 

 to unconscious and reflex action. These facts do 

 not in the slightest degree invalidate his contention. 

 The only alternative to the view of the founder of 

 psychogenesis is that all action is primarily voli- 

 tional and that all reflex action is a development 

 from volitional action. This view, which, indeed, 

 is favored by Wilhelm Wandt, of Leipsic, the greatest 

 of living psychologists, is beset with the most insu- 

 perable difficulties, and leads to the most difficult of 

 conclusions, as any one can see on a moment's con- 

 sideration. 



c. The Will-not-to 



To our consideration of reflex action must now 

 be added that of inhibition, the remarkable func- 

 tion of the nervous system which is superadded to 

 reflex action, as this leads, in racial and individual 

 development, to volition itself. 



The nervous system, as I have said, may be re- 

 garded as an infinitely complex congeries of reflex 

 arcs. But it may also be regarded as comparable 

 to the military or legislative system, wherein are 

 officers and officials of numerous grades, each with 

 authority over his inferiors, and each, save the 

 supreme head, in his turn under the control of his 

 superiors. It is to Dr. Hughlings Jackson, one of 

 the makers of neurology, that we owe this illumi- 

 194 



