CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE WILL 79 



that the rational, common-sense, pragmatic view is 

 that the brain process precedes the psychical phase 

 if only by an infinitely small period and is the 

 cause of it. I confess also that I do not understand 

 how any person who has studied the facts relating 

 to education, sleep, general anaesthesia, alcoholism, 

 general paresis, and cortical stimulation can take a 

 different view, unless he is influenced by considera- 

 tions, not scientific, but religious or metaphysical 

 and wholly outside the limits of well-attested human 

 experience. 



If we admit that the physical processes in the 

 brain precede and cause the various phases of 

 psychical life, we are forced to the assumption that 

 the human animal is a conscious automaton. The 

 consequences of this hypothesis are far-reaching and 

 incisive. Let us consider them in their relation to 

 the idea of free will. 



Persons who have persuaded themselves of the 

 reality of human freedom have based their belief 

 mainly on two considerations: first, on the fact that 

 we are often conscious of exerting freedom of will; 

 secondly, on the alleged implication of freedom in 

 the moral consciousness. I think it can easily be 

 shown that neither of these feelings is a reliable guide 

 to truth as measured by those realistic standards 

 whose guidance we are compelled by common sense 

 to follow in practical life. Let us consider the case 

 of the consciousness of free will. No one will deny 

 that the feeling of being able to do as one pleases is 



