152 VOLITION 



every decision that we form can without doubt be 

 connected with something that has occurred to 

 us. On the other hand, the theory appears to be 

 equally incapable of proof, for it cannot be shown 

 that the happenings to which it points as having 

 caused our action did not, in fact, merely have the 

 effect of conditioning it. I cannot eat unless I 

 have teeth : but I do not eat because I have teeth, 

 but because I wish to do so. A young man adopts 

 an Indian career after casually reading a book on 

 the Indian Services : if he had not chanced 

 upon the book, he might have lived his life in 

 England. But he goes to India not because he read 

 the book, but because he was disposed to try the 

 new. Had he not possessed this disposition, no 

 book would have moved him : possessing it he 

 is ready to receive from any source information 

 that enables him to see his way to a career to- 

 wards which his bent inclines him. It is, then, his 

 disposition, and not the reading of the book, that 

 is the true cause of his resolution : the latter is 

 merely a condition. 



But, it will be objected, this argument merely 

 shifts the cause further back: it is his disposi- 

 tion, not a choice of free will, that sends him to 

 India. It is true that we can hardly escape from the 

 sway of our instinctive impulses : but in man these 

 impulses are so conflicting and of so general a 

 character that they leave ample scope for the 

 exercise of free choice in giving play to them. 

 That we possess a measure of independance is 

 shown very clearly by the process of " fixing our 

 attention." Our attention may be attracted 

 by an object subconsciously, in which case, 

 of course, no question of spontaneity arises. 

 But it may also be fixed by an effort of will. We 

 are conscious, very distinctly indeed, of possessing 

 the power of fixing it upon anything that we please ; 



