THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL 



97 



different form. We have already seen that he 

 protests against conclusions drawn from statistics, 

 showing that in human acts there is a vari- 

 able element which statistical science may rightly 

 enough overlook, but which the psychologist must 

 endeavour to reassert ; that, moreover, if statistics 

 disclose to us the external causes of voluntary 

 activity, they leave us in absolute ignorance of 

 its internal causes. These internal causes consti- 

 tute what Wundt very well denominates the per- 

 sonal factor {der personliche Factor^ 



" External factors, he says, we denominate mo- 

 tives, but not causes of will. ' Between motive 

 and cause there exists an essential difference. A 

 cause necessarily produces its effect ; not so a 

 motive. It is true that a cause may be neutral- 

 ized by another cause, or transformed into its 

 effect, but in this transformation we can always 

 track the effect of the prior cause and even 

 measure it. A motive, on the other hand, can 

 only either determine or not determine the will ; 

 in the latter case, we have no means of knowing 

 its effect. The uncertainty of this connection 

 between the motive and the will is based solely 

 on the existence of the personal factor.' 



" What, then, is this personal factor which thus 

 mysteriously breaks in on the series of causes and 



H 



