98 



HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



effects ? It is ' the internal essence of the per- 

 sonality, the character.' There we must look for 

 the root of will. ' Character is the sole immediate 

 cause of voluntary activity. Motives are always 

 only indirect causes. Betwixt motives and the 

 causality of character there is this great differ- 

 ence, that motives either are or may readily 

 become conscious, whereas this causality is ever 

 absolutely unconscious.' Hence character — per- 

 sonality — must forever remain an enigma, so 

 far as its inmost nature is concerned ; it is the 

 indeterminable Ding an sick of Kant. * The mo- 

 tives which determine the will are a part of the 

 universal concatenation of causes ; but the per- 

 sonal factor, wherewith will commences, does not 

 enter into this concatenation. Whether this in- 

 most essence of personality, upon which, in the 

 last resort, rests all the difference between indi- 

 viduals, is itself subject to causality, we can never 

 decide on the ground of direct experience. 



" ' When it is asserted that the character of 

 man is a product of air and light, of education 

 and of destiny, of food and climate, and that it 

 is necessarily predetermined by these influences, 

 like every natural phenomenon, the conclusion is 

 absolutely undemonstrable. Education and des- 

 tiny presuppose a character which determines 



