WILL. 669 



our Self, we say, let it he a reality. To the word *is ' and 

 to the words ' let it be ' there correspond peculiar attitudes 

 of consciousness which it is vain to seek to explain. The 

 indicative and the imperative moods are as much ultimate 

 categories of thinking as they are of grammar. The ' qual- 

 ity of reality ' which these moods attach to things is not 

 like other qualities. It is a relation to our life. It means 

 our adoption of the things, our caring for them, our stand- 

 ing by them. This at least is what it practically means for 

 us ; what it may mean beyond that we do not knoM . 

 And the transition from merely considering an object as 

 possible, to deciding or willing it to be real ; the change 

 from the fluctuating to the stable personal attitude concern- 

 ing it ; from the ' don't care ' state of mind to that in which 

 'we mean business,' is one of the most familiar things in 

 life. We can partly enumerate its conditions ; and we can 

 partly trace its consequences, especially the momentous 

 one that when the mental object is a movement of our own 

 body, it realizes itself outwardly when the mental change 

 in question has occurred. But the change itself as a sub- 

 jective phenomenon is something which we can translate 

 into no simpler terms. 



THE QUESTION OF 'FREE-WILL.' 



Especially must we, when talking about it, rid our mind 

 of the fabulous warfare of separate agents called ' ideas.' 

 The brain-processes may be agents, and the thought as such 

 may be an agent. But what the ordinary psychologies 

 call ' ideas ' are nothing but parts of the total object of 

 representation. All that is before the mind at once, no 

 matter how complex a system of things and relations it may 

 be, is one object for the thought. Thus, ' A-and-B-and-their- 

 mutual - incompatibility - and - the - fact - that-only-one -can- 

 be-true-or-can - become- real-notwithstanding -the-probabil- 

 ity-or-desirability-of-both ' may be such a complex object ; 

 and where the thought is deliberative its object has always 

 some such form as this. When, now, we pass from delib- 

 eration to decision, that total object undergoes a change. 

 We either dismiss A altogether and its relations to B, and 

 think of B exclusively ; or after thinking of both as possi- 



