84 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



color experiences made in the second, and the third 

 factor namely, those experiences immediately con- 

 nected with the act of choice operates upon a 

 substratum provided by the first and second fac- 

 tors. The third factor must be regarded as relatively 

 insignificant to the second one. In an experienced 

 person, it is the last link in a long chain of color 

 experiences. Its importance lies in the fact that it 

 seems to be the cause of the choice, while in reality it 

 is the obtrusive determinant and only a small ele- 

 ment of the essential cause. The antecedent color 

 impressions may, in their entirety, have been a 

 thousand times as prolonged or intense as the final 

 one which apparently effected the choice. Yet 

 these many impressions are not singly remembered, 

 but, if recalled at all, are fused into a vague and 

 indefinable memory hi such a way as not consciously 

 to enter into my choice. Yet despite this apparent 

 unobtrusiveness, it is this past experience in its 

 entirety which is the actual basis of my choice the 

 act of choice being merely an elaborate automatic 

 reaction in which the colors before me act as excitants. 

 I feel my choice to be free because I am conscious 

 of a desire to reach a conclusion and of satisfaction 

 in having reached it. But I quite fail to recognize 

 (without deliberate and unwonted analytical effort) 

 the real, underlying cause of my choice. When I 

 come to reflect on the entire history of this little 

 option in color, I am unable to convince myself that 

 I have been in reality free at any point in the pro- 



