THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL 



95 



gotten, there is in all cases the more fundamental 

 fact of an organism that is one."^ It is not clear 

 how the unity of the organism can affect the fact 

 of consciousness. A man's organism, whatever it 

 may be, does not affect the fact that he sees out- 

 ward objects ; and consciousness is the eye which 

 sees within. It does bear clear and positive evi- 

 dence to freedom. I am speaking of normal 

 states. There are, of course, diseases of the mind, 

 and abnormal states which are hardly as yet clearly 

 developed diseases. Of these I am not now speak- 

 ing. Consciousness is ultimate ; to challenge its 

 deliverances when they are uniform in all climes 

 and all ages is to launch out on the shoreless, har- 

 bourless ocean of utter scepticism. Now, scarcely 

 any deliverance of consciousness is more uniform 

 and universal — semper, iibiqiie, ah oiiinibiis — than 

 that of freedom. We — and all men — choose 

 spontaneously, without ever asking whether we 

 have the power of choice, any more than we ask 

 if we have sight when attention is directed toward 



... iJ'^ 



a specific obiect. The value of this testimony is . ^ x^ 

 recognized in all human mstitutions. Society .^^»*''°1-^>V'^ 

 organized on the presumption of freedom. Every '" 

 law on the statute-books of the world presumes 

 that it may be both obeyed and violated, and 



^ Body and Will, Maudsley, p. 37. 



