n] The Triunity of Man 79 



my volitions, but nothing would link those volitions to 

 the self. The self would be conscious of derivatives of 

 itself in the volitions, but the volitions could not retro- 

 cede into the self again in fulfilment. And, in point of 

 fact, it is impossible to speculate on the origin of voli- 

 tions that were all from their very nature unfulfillable. 

 A volition can only arise as the result of some relation 

 between cause and effect 1 . Every wish implies that 

 wishes are capable of fulfilment. Even the child who cries 

 for the moon does so because his wishes for other round 

 white things, the breast, the rattle, the ball.-have been 

 satisfied because he knows that his wishes so often 

 meet with fulfilment. And, in fact, his wish for the 

 moon may Deceive satisfaction in a symbolic form, as 

 we shall see when we study the mechanism of the mind 

 from the Freudian point of view. 



Only by the self-fulfilment of volitions can the per- 

 sonality develope and progress as a conscious unity. It 

 is by wishing, and trying, in the certainty that the use 

 of the right means will ensure success, that man de- 

 velopes himself and advances beyond what he was. 

 Thus, then, we find that the personality which is becom- 

 ing, and exists in time, completes and fulfils itself, experi- 

 ences the emotion of satisfaction, and gains increasing 

 knowledge of its essential unity, by means of its free- 

 dom. By the reflex of this freedom the self is made more 

 glorious continually; more a self. The existence of the 

 vital impulse is evidence of God's purpose and His in 

 dwelling; man's personality is evidence of something 

 new the cooperation of conscious beings with God. 

 The spirit of man completes and perfects itself, working 



determinist; but I cannot feel that a determinist can see reality 

 as one whole; personality must appear to him as epiphenomenal, 

 or else some of its most prominent characteristics must be illusory. 

 1 More strictly, since we are endeavouring to see Reality* as a 

 whole, between ground and consequence. 



