294 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



unconscious, as contributing to the causality of free-will. From 

 these is evolved a feeling of independence stronger than any- 

 thing derived from impulsive actions, and this constitutes the 

 sense of freedom. Yet in this consciousness of freedom lies 

 the error into which the supporters of indeterminism have 

 fallen. The will is free, they say, because the conscience per- 

 ceives as constraint every opposition which the action excited 

 by the will encounters. This opposition is the collective will 

 of the community conflicting with the individual. These ideas 

 of an opposing community-will are always present in considera- 

 tions of a moral character ; as a matter of fact, in the vast 

 majority of human actions the community- will does not come 

 into account at all and makes absolutely no difference in those 

 numerous actions which are purely individual. Even if the 

 individual will should come into conflict with the collective will 

 of the community, the man who deliberates as to whether he 

 shall give offence or not, is after all only in the same position 

 as a setter deliberating when a hare gets up as to whether he 

 shall give chase. The decision is not free in either case, but is 

 the necessaiy result of the predominance of one or other of 

 conflicting motives. 



If the setter were in the field alone the lust of the chase 

 would so far gain the victory that he would start off at once in 

 pursuit, but in his master's presence the fear of punishment is 

 overwhelming, and, trembling all over, he simply gazes at the hare. 



A man is in precisely the same predicament when faced by 

 the choice of performing, or neglecting, some moral action ; on 

 the one hand, he is influenced by conditions in the external 

 world, and on the other hand by the dictates of his individual 

 organisation, his inherited character. In every action the 

 strongest motive turns the scale without its being always pos- 

 sible to recognise the motive in question. 



From the point of view of monistic philosophy no absolute 

 difference but only one of degree can be established between 

 the human and animal will, for both are expressions of the 

 psychical elements' entering into the organisation of the body, 

 and so are subject to the laws of nature. Every apparently 

 free action is, even in man, a necessary inevitable occurrence 

 for the performer. 



