FREE- WILL IN CHOICE 155 



the assimilating force of the imitative impulse. 

 Others have been derided, or neglected, and 

 forgotten. 







There are, however, limits to the spontaneity 

 of the most eccentric of men. His wildest vagaries 

 are circumscribed by the range of his experience. 

 So also with the inventive impulse : the most 

 original designer merely expands or applies ideas 

 that have been gathered by him from outside, or 

 combines several of them together. Free will 

 cannot, then, open a new and original path of action 

 for itself : it can do no more than select one out 

 of the various paths that are offered by instinct, 

 by habit, by imitation, or by reasoned inference. 

 It is, in fact, concerned not with invention, but 

 with choice. The questions with which we are 

 confronted differ immensely in complexity accord- 

 ing as they are concerned with alternative 

 methods of satisfying a single impulse, or with 

 conflicting impulses. Influenced by the instinct 

 of benevolence, we may be doubtful of the 

 particular charities to which we should subscribe : 

 we may hesitate over the dishes wherewith to 

 satisfy our appetite, or, having determined upon 

 a visit to France, over the advantages of the 

 routes by Calais or Boulogne. These are only 

 questions of method; but if the alternatives are 

 very nearly balanced, neither scale being weighted 

 by any strong feeling on our part, a distinct 

 effort will be needed to decide upon one or the 

 other. 



The strain upon the will is much greater when 

 the alternative that confronts it is not one of 

 methods, but of conflicting impulses, as, for 

 instance, between an impulse to show ill-temper 

 and an impulse to be kind, between an impulse 

 to take ease and an impulse to work. In such a 



