144 INTRODUCTION 



do not at the time deliberately contemplate that they 

 shall afterwards have this effect *. 



Moral and metaphysical Necessity. 



On the other hand, volition is not absolutely neces- 

 sitated as the system of Spinoza requires. Will is not 

 to be identified with the abstract understanding, whose 

 principle is that of contradiction. Will does not invari- 



1 Cf. Nouveaux Essais, bk. ii. ch. 21, 23 (E. 255 b ; G. v. 167) : 

 * We do not will to will, but we will to do, and if we willed to 

 will, we should will to will to will and that would go on ad 

 inftnitum. Yet we must not overlook the fact that by voluntary 

 actions we often contribute indirectly to other voluntary actions, 

 and though we cannot will what we will, as we cannot even judge 

 what we will, we may nevertheless so act beforehand that when 

 the time comes we may judge or will that which we would wish 

 to be able to will or judge to-day. We devote ourselves to the 

 people, the kind of reading, the conditions generally that are 

 favourable to a certain side, we give no heed to what comes from 

 the opposite side, and by these and many other directions which 

 we give to our minds, usually without definite intention and 

 without thinking of it, we succeed in deceiving ourselves or at 

 least in changing ourselves, becoming converts or perverts, according 

 to the experiences we have had.' 



There is an interesting suggestion of the views of Leibniz in 

 Montaigne's Essais, bk. ii. ch. 14. Leibniz may quite well have 

 read it. 'It is a pleasant fancy,' says Montaigne, 'to think of 

 a mind exactly balanced between two like desires. For it is 

 indubitable that it will never come to a decision, inasmuch as 

 determination and choice imply inequality of value ; and if we 

 should be set between the wine and the bacon, with an equal 

 desire to drink and to eat, there is doubtless nothing for it but 

 to die of thirst and hunger. To provide against anything so 

 inconvenient as this, the Stoics, when they were asked how our 

 soul comes to make choice between two indifferent things, so that 

 out of a large number of crowns we take one rather than another, 

 though they are all alike and there is no reason which disposes 

 us to a preferencethe Stoics reply that this motion of the soul 

 is extraordinary and exceptional, arising in us from a strange, 

 accidental and fortuitous impulse. It seems to me they might 

 rather have said that nothing comes before us in which there is not 

 some difference, however slight ; and that, to sight or to touch, 

 there is always some preference which tempts and draws us, 

 though it be imperceptibly : just as if we suppose a piece of 

 twine equally strong throughout, it is utterly impossible that it 

 should ever break. For in what part of it is the breaking to begin, 

 the flaw to appear ? And for it to break in every part at once is 

 against all nature.' Cf. New Essays, Introduction, p. 372. 



