THE WILL AND THE WAY 



direction and let some of the accumulated energy es- 

 cape. It can originate no energy, can add nothing to 

 the power of the response that the original impressions 

 have generated. The organism can give back no energy 

 it does not receive. But, as has been said, accumulated 

 energy from inhibited responses may be directed into 

 one channel with such force as to have the effect of 

 generated energy. Our every-day conduct is full of 

 illustrations. Most of our complex actions take place 

 in response to stimuli that in themselves are insignifi- 

 cant, but which gain importance through associated im- 

 plications; as when the housewife, seeing a speck of 

 dirt, responds by scrubbing the entire house. 



It is plain, then, that this Volition is the master 

 upon which depends the entire question of the mind's 

 active relations with its environment. And what is 

 more important it even enters into the passive or re- 

 ceptive functions also, in that it can decide as to such 

 movements of the organism as shall make the impinge- 

 ment of new impressions possible. In comparison 

 with such power, the other capacities of mind seem 

 to dwindle. This seems to be the domineering, the 

 all-important capacity. Of what could it avail that 

 the organism is intrinsically of the most sensitive; 

 that its impressions are fixed by memory as if graven in 

 marble; that its associations are wide and intense and 

 clear and logical if volition refuse to let them properly 

 respond, or decline to allow the organism to be placed 

 where new data can come to it through the senses ? 



This is precisely the rock against which the largest 

 number of brilliant minds are wrecked. Most of us 



