THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 237 
is never solely the direct result of the external influence, 
but must always be traced to the corresponding reaction, 
and to the activity of the organism itself, which consists in 
contracting a habit, or practice, and in the use or non-use of 
organs. The fact that these latter phenomena, as a rule, 
have been considered distinct from the former, is owing first 
to the one-sided manner of viewing them already mentioned, 
and secondly to the wrong notion which has been formed 
as to the nature and the influence of the activity of the 
will in animals. 
The activity of the will, which is the organ of habit, of 
practice, of the use or non-use of organs among animals, is, 
like every other activity of the animal soul, dependent upon 
material processes in the central nervous. system, upon 
peculiar motions which emanate from the albuminous 
matter of the ganglion cells, and the nervous fibres con- 
nected with them. The will, as well as the other mental 
activities, in higher animals, in this respect is different from 
that of men only in quantity, not in quality. The will of 
the animal, as well as that of man, is never free. The 
widely spread dogma of the freedom of the will is, from a 
scientific point of view, altogether untenable. Every 
physiologist who scientifically investigates the activity of 
the will in man and animals, must of necessity arrive at the 
conviction that in reality the will is never free, but is 
always determined by external or internal influences. These 
influences are for the most part ideas which have been 
either formed by Adaptation or by Inheritance, and are 
traceable to one or other of these two physiological functions. 
As soon as we strictly examine the action of our own will) 
without the traditional prejudice about its freedom, we 
