FREE WILL AND AUTOMATISM 283 



is an automaton. Practically, the slightest turn of the 

 head would be sufficient to save his life, for it would 

 attack the bundle then seen. 



But put a tempting dish of oysters as well as some 

 other equally tempting before a man. He might reflect 

 upon the possibility of the oysters being contaminated 

 and the consequent probability of some " illness " (an 

 abstract idea) accruing. His attention, conscious con- 

 centration of thought, are awakened. Abstract motives 

 enter his brain. He is fully alive to the importance of 

 exercising a prudent course of action ; and thus Volition 

 decides the choice. 



Besides our natal characteristics Mr. Mallock adds : 

 " As surely as our characters determine our will and our 

 brains determine our character, so do our physiological 

 antecedents determine the idiosyncrasies of our brain ".^ 



But we are not altogether and entirely so auto- 

 matic as all that ; though nine-tenths of all we do is 

 probably done automatically. Consciousness saves the 

 situation. 



It is quite true that a man known to be thoroughly 

 honest is certain to act honestly next week ; but we do 

 not know what contests he went through, what resolu- 

 tions his will had made, before he became the man we 

 know him as " automatically honest ". 



A man grows up it may be with certain inherited 

 qualifications (as drunkard's children are often predis- 

 posed to drink) but he was not born with his environment. 

 He grows up to be a man, and goes into business ; 

 temptations to dishonesty surround him. He sees others 

 dishonest and thriving accordingly ; but he fights the 

 inducements to go wrong. If he were solely an auto- 



'^Op. cit., pp. 93, 94. 



