THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL iqi 



tary cause. Homer changed the manners of the 

 Greeks only because the Greeks made his poetic 

 creations their own ; and Alexander could never 

 have made his mark so deeply in history were it 

 not that his will had the same ground as the gen- 

 eral will.' 



" Both history and psychology, then, appear to 

 lead us to the conclusion that determinism does 

 not suffice to explain everything. But if we push 

 our inquiries still further, we are met by a fresh 

 difficulty. With regard to this personality — 

 whose true nature we despair of knowing, because 

 it rests in the unfathomable depths of the uncon- 

 scious — do we at least know whence it is, what is 

 its origin ? " ^ 



This question, Ribot declares, leads us to an 

 enigma which he will not attempt to solve. The 

 fact of freedom leads to the fact of personality, 

 and the individual personality leads at last to the 

 source of all personality. The most that we can 

 say is that we know that we are free, but that our 

 freedom is modified by heredity and environment, 

 and by the fountain of personality from which 

 we have sprung, but of which we know little. 



* Heredity, Ribot, pp. 341, 344. 



