SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



the Will. . . . Physiologically we cannot choose 

 but reject the Will : volition we know, and will 

 we know, but the Will, apart from particular 

 acts of volition or will, we cannot know. To 

 interpose such a metaphysical entity between 

 reflection and action thereupon would bring us 

 logically to the necessity of interposing a similar 

 entity between the stimulus to the spinal cord 

 and its reaction. Thus instead of unravelling the 

 complex by help of the more simple, we should 

 obscure the simple by speculations concerning 

 the complex." ^ As scientific inquirers, " we have 

 to deal with volition as a function of the supreme 

 centres, following reflection, varying in quan- 

 tity and quality as its cause varies, strengthened 

 by education and exercise, enfeebled by disease, 

 decaying with decay of structure, and always 

 needing for its outward expression the educated 

 agency of the subordinate motor centres. We 

 have to deal with will, not as a single undecom- 

 posable faculty unaffected by bodily conditions, 

 but as a result of organic changes in the supreme 

 centres, afi^ected as certainly and seriously by- 

 disorder of them as our motor faculties are by 

 disorder of their centres. Loss of power of will 

 is one of the earliest and most characteristic 

 symptoms of mental derangement ; and what- 

 ever may have been thought in times past, we 

 know well now that the loss is not the work of 

 ^ Body and Mind, pp. 22, 23. 



