x THE WILL IN DEVELOPMENT 175 



present, not only one, but two or more alternative ideas 

 are possible. Choice between them arises, and praise and 

 blame, suggestions of reward and punishment, can weight 

 choice by charging one of two ideas with new elements of 

 feeling. The domestic animals are in their degree suscep- 

 tible to stimuli of this kind, and the way in which a sensible 

 master treats them has its theoretic as well as its practical 

 justification. In sum, with the emergence of ideas 

 though they be only ideas of immediate ends directly con- 

 joined with present experience and serving as the term of 

 some course of action arising out of such experience there 

 arise Desire, the conflict of desires. Choice, Purpose, and 

 a function, and therefore a meaning, for the application of 

 praise and blame in a word, the elements of an ethical order. 

 Assuming these conditions and no others, we have an 

 order limited to the particular desires of the individual. 

 In the absence of a higher being distributing praise and 

 blame in accordance with a general rule, we have no instru- 

 ment for the control of present desire, no guide as between 

 conflicting desires standing above the needs of the moment 

 or the wants of the individual, and so correlating present 

 action with the requirements of life as a whole. We are 

 dealing with individual feeling, and the main lines of such 

 feeling are fixed by heredity. On the other hand, the 

 sphere of experience is by this time considerably extended. 

 Experience of results is more rapidly acquired and more 

 freely applied. It can discover new sources of pleasure 

 and pain and induce response to any regular training. We 

 may suppose that the retriever experiences a satisfaction 

 as real in bringing a dead bird to his master as he would 

 in eating it up himself. Further, the more vivid and 

 articulate character of experience builds up a true know- 

 ledge of the individuals by whom the agent is surrounded, 

 and with knowledge, the instinctive impulses and feelings 

 of affection, dislike, resentment, jealousy become focussed 

 on individuals. The dog has its regular circle of friends 

 towards whom its behaviour is graduated with some 

 degree of nicety. One is its master, there are others whom 

 it will follow, others, again, whom it greets with friendly 

 recognition but no more, others whom it tolerates and 



