«H. XVII.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. 176 



entity acting under conditions, then no comparison can be 

 made between caused volition and constrained behaviour. 

 If instead of " The Will " we look at the act of willing— 

 which is not an entity, but a dynamic process— then it be- 

 comes absurd to talk of this act as being either free or not 

 free, and we must seek for some other word than " freedom " 

 by which to designate its alleged want of causal connection 

 with preceding psychical states. 



Now the tendency to erect relations and processes into 

 entities is a tendency which modern metaphysics has in- 

 herited from a mischievous mode of thought current in 

 ancient times and rather loosely known as "Eealism." 

 Among metaphysicians, unused to the habits of thought 

 which science nurtures, the tendency is an almost irresistible 

 one. Civilization, for example, is obviously a process, but 

 Dr. Whately continually speaks of it as if it were a thing 

 which could be handed about from one nation to another, or 

 hidden away for a time in some dark corner. And upon 

 this amusing misconception he builds a wonderful theory, 

 which, however, it is not worth while for any busy man to 

 stop and refute. It is in a similar way, and owing to the 

 same realistic tendency, that there has arisen the conception 

 of such an entity as " The Will," the existence of which 

 modern psychology does not recognize any more than it 

 recognizes the lapidity of stones or the uhication of points 

 in space. Modern psychology is concerned only with the 

 'process of will, or volition. As Dr. ^Maudsley observes, " it 

 is not man's function in life to think and feel only : his 

 inner life he must express or utter in action of some kind 

 — in word or deed. Keceiving impressions from nature, of 

 vhich he is a part, he reacts upon nature intelligently, 

 modifying it in a variety of ways. . . As the spinal cord 

 reacts to its impressions in excito-motor action, and as the 

 sensory centres react to their impressions in sensorl-motor 

 action, so, after the complex interworking and combination 



