THE ELEMENTS OF MIND 209 



lively. Or, perhaps, it is the resultant of the 

 impulses actuating a mind at any particular 

 instant. Whatever volition is, it is the same 

 thing in the insect as in the man. Non-human 

 beings have been observed to pause and deliberate 

 and to make wise and momentous decisions in 

 the twinkling of an eye. A chased hare will 

 decide to squat, to go straight ahead, or to do 

 something else which the emergency demands, 

 just as unmistakably as a human fugitive. In the 

 sense of being the power to act differently from 

 the manner in which a being actually does act, 

 there is no such thing as freewill. The will of the 

 worm is just as free as the will of the judge not 

 in the sense that it is as varied in the directions 

 of its activity, but in the sense that the character 

 of its activities is determined inevitably by the 

 character of its antecedents. All will, whether 

 human or non-human, invariably acts in the 

 direction of the strongest motive, just as a stone 

 or a river invariably moves, if it moves at all, in 

 the direction of the strongest tendency or force. 

 It is impossible that this should be otherwise. 

 For, if the will in any case elects to overthrow 

 this fact by arbitrarily discarding a stronger 

 motive for a feebler, in the very motive of the 

 election are concealed elements which transform 

 the feebler motive into the stronger. All motion, 

 voluntary and involuntary the motion of bullets, 

 beings, societies, and suns takes place along the 

 lines of least arrest. Every being is compelled to 

 decide as he does decide and to act as he does act 



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