WILL. 533 



pousal of an energy so little premeditated by us that we 

 feel rather like passive spectators cheering on the display 

 of some extraneous force than like voluntary agents, is a 

 type of decision too abrupt and tumultuous to occur often 

 in humdrum and cool-blooded natures. But it is j^rob- 

 ably frequent in persons of strong emotional endowment 

 and unstable or vacillating character. And in men of the 

 world-shaking type, the Napoleons, Lutliers, etc., in whom 

 tenacious passion combines with ebullient activity, when by 

 any chance the passion's outlet has been dammed by scru- 

 ples or apprehensions, the resolution is probably often of this 

 catastrophic kind. The flood breaks quite unexpectedly 

 through the dam. That it should so often do so is quite 

 sufficient to account for the tendency of these characters to 

 a fatalistic mood of mind. And the fatalistic mood itself 

 is sure to reinforce the strength of the energy just started 

 on its exciting path of discharge. 



There is a fourth form of decision, which often ends 

 deliberation as suddenly as the third form does. It comes 

 when, in consequence of some outer experience or some 

 inexplicable inward charge, ive suddenly pass from the easy 

 and careless to the sober and strenuous mood, or possibly the 

 other way. The whole scale of values of our motives and 

 impulses then undergoes a change like that which a change 

 of the observer's level produces on a \dew. The most 

 sobering possible agents are objects of grief and fear. 

 When one of these affects us, all ' light fantastic ' notions 

 lose their motive power, all solemn ones find theirs multi- 

 plied manj'-fold. The consequence is an instant abandon- 

 ment of the more trivial projects with which we had been 

 dallying, and an instant practical acceptance of the more 

 grim and earnest alternative which till then could not 

 extort our mind's consent. All those 'changes of heart,' 

 'awakenings of conscience,' etc., which make new men of 

 so many of us, may be classed under this head. The char- 

 acter abruptly rises to another 'level,' and deliberation 

 comes to an immediate end,* 



* My attention was first emphatically called to this class of decisions by 

 my colleague, Professor C. C. Everett. 



