I 



Habit and Instinct, 459 



stands irresolute. For a while the impulse to follow me 

 and the impulse to follow my brother are equal. Then the 

 former impulse prevails, and he bounds to my side. He 

 has exercised a power of individual choice. If any one likes 

 to call this yielding to the stronger motive an exercise of 

 free-will, I, for one, shall not say him nay. What I wish 

 specially to notice about it is that we have here a sign of 

 individuality. There is no such individuality in inorganic 

 clouds or empty bottles. Choice is a symbol of indi- 

 viduality ; and individuality is a sign of intelligence. 



But though I decline here to enter into the free-will 

 controversy, I may fairly be asked where I place volition 

 in the series between external stimulus and resulting 

 activity; and what I regard as the concomitant physio- 

 logical manifestation. I doubt whether I shall be able to 

 say anything very satisfactory in answer to these questions. 

 I shall have to content myself with little more than stating 

 how the problem presents itself to my mind. 



I believe that volition is intimately bound up and 

 associated with inhibition. I go so far as to say that, 

 without inhibition, volition properly so called has no 

 existence. When the series follows the inevitable sequence — 



Stimulus : perception : emotion : fulfilment in action 



— the act is involuntary. And such it must ever have re- 

 mained, had not inhibition been evolved, had not an 

 alternative been introduced, thus — 



„^, , ,. ^, ^ fulfilment in action. 



Stimulus : perception : emotion < j^^^ibition of action. 



At the point of divergence I would place volition. Volition 

 is the faculty of the forked way. There are two possibilities 

 — fulfilment in action or inhibition. I can write or I can 

 cease writing ; I can strike or I can forbear. And my poor 

 little wounded terrier, whose gashed side I was sewing up, 

 clumsily, perhaps, but with all the gentleness and tender- 

 ness I could command, could close his teeth on my hand 

 or could restrain the action. 



I have here, so to speak, reduced the matter to its 



