SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



appreciable period of tension, then the acts once 

 conscious and voluntary become involuntary and 

 automatic. 



Now the state of consciousness called Desire 

 is accompanied by a nascent excitement of the 

 nerve fibres distributed upon the muscular ap- 

 paratus whose activity is requisite for the attain- 

 ment of the desired object. There is a tendency 

 to go through with the movements needful for 

 realizing the desire ; and this tendency, unless 

 neutralized by an antagonist tendency, must 

 end in action. In the language of dynamics, 

 tension, when not counteracted by opposing 

 tension, must pass into vis viva. This passage 

 of nervous tension into nervous vis viva con- 

 stitutes volition, which may for practical pur- 

 poses be regarded indifferently as the final stage 

 of emotion or as the initial stage of action. 



Passing from the case in which a single de- 

 sire is operative, let us briefly consider the spe- 

 cial case of two conflicting desires, where the 

 gratification of the one is incompatible with that 

 of the other. In this case, two groups of motor 

 nerves are nascently excited. Here there are 

 two opposite tensions, and the resulting action 

 will depend on their comparative strength. l{ 

 they exactly neutralize each other, as in the hy- 

 pothetical case of the ass between the two bun- 

 dles of hay, no volition will ensue. But in a 

 complex aggregate, like the human or animal 

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