THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL qq 



them : that is here taken to be an effect which 

 is partly a cause. But the facts of psychical 

 heredity make it very highly probable that, could 

 we reach the initial point of the individual life, 

 we should there find an independent germ of 

 personality {^Selbstdndiger) which cannot be de- 

 termined from without, inasmuch as it precedes 

 all external determination.' 



" We readily accept this doctrine of Wundt. It 

 possesses the advantage of showing, on the one 

 hand, that free will, considered in its essence, is a 

 noumenon ; and on the other hand, that on the 

 ground of experience the fatalistic and the ordi- 

 nary view are not irreconcilable ; but, inasmuch as 

 the ultimate roots of the will repose in the uncon- 

 scious, we may suspect such a reconciliation, but 

 we cannot establish it. We will abide by this con- 

 clusion. We have elsewhere endeavoured to show 

 — and we will not repeat our argument — that 

 psychology, even experimental psychology, must 

 admit a certain element which comes before us as 

 a fact ; this we call the ego, the person, the charac- 

 ter: no other word will designate it properly, but 

 of it we can only say that it is that which in us is 

 inmost, and which distinguishes and differentiates 

 us from what is not ourselves ; this it is by which 

 our ideas, our sentiments, our sensations, our voli- 



