COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



wonderful theory, which, however, it is not worth 

 while for any busy man to stop and refute. It 

 is in a similar way, and owing to the same re- 

 alistic tendency, that there has arisen the con- 

 ception of such an entity as "The Will," the 

 existence of which modern psychology does 

 not recognize any more than it recognizes the 

 lapidity of stones or the ubication of points in 

 space. Modern psychology is concerned only 

 with the process of will, or volition. As Dr. 

 Maudsley observes, " it is not man's function 

 in life to think and feel only : his inner life he 

 must express or utter in action of some kind — 

 in word or deed. Receiving impressions from 

 nature, of which he is a part, he reacts upon 

 nature intelligently, modifying it in a variety 

 of ways. ... As the spinal cord reacts to its 

 impressions in excito-motor action, and as the 

 sensory centres react to their impressions in 

 sensori-motor action, so, after the complex in- 

 terworking and combination of ideas in the 

 hemispherical ganglia, there is in like manner a 

 reaction or desire of determination of energy 

 outwards, in accordance with the fundamental 

 property of organic structure to seek what is 

 beneficial and to shun what is hurtful to it. It 

 is this property of tissue that gives the impulse 

 which, when guided by intelligence, we call vo- 

 lition ; and it is the abstraction from the parti- 

 cular volitions which metaphysician? personify as 

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