WILL. 675 



of science that tlieir efforts must be predetermined, is the 

 continuity of the latter with other phenomena whose pre- 

 determination no one doubts. Decisions with effort merge 

 so gradually into those without it that it is not easy to say 

 where the limit lies. Decisions without effort merge again 

 into ideo-motor, and these into reflex acts ; so that the 

 temptation is almost irresistible to throw the formula 

 which covers so many cases over absolutely all. Whero 

 there is effort just as where there is none, the ideas them- 

 ■selves which furnish the matter of deliberation are broughi 

 before the mind by the machinery of association. And 

 this machinery is essentially a system of arcs and path&, 

 a reflex system, whether effort be amongst its incidents or 

 not. The reflex way is, after all, the universal way of 

 conceiving the business. The feeling of ease is a passive 

 result of the way in which the thoughts unwind themselves. 

 Why is not the feeling of effort the same? Professor 

 Lipps, in his admirably clear deterministic statement, so 

 far from admitting that the feeling of effort testifies to an 

 Increment of force exerted, explains it as a sign that force 

 is lost. We speak of effort, according to him, whenever a 

 force expends itself (wholly or partly) in neutralizing 

 another force, and so fails of its own possible outward 

 effect. The outward effect of the antagonistic force, how- 

 ever, also fails in corresponding measure, " so that there is 

 no effort without counter-effort, . . . and effort and coun- 

 ter-effort signify only that causes are mutually robbing 

 ■each other of effectiveness." * Where the forces are ideas, 

 both sets of them, strictly speaking, are the seat of eftbrt — 

 both those which tend to explode, and those which tend to 

 check them. We, however, call the more abundant mass 

 of ideas ourselves; and, talking of its effort as oitr effort, and 

 of that of the smaller mass of ideas as the resistance,\ we 

 say that our effort sometimes overcomes the resistances 

 offered by the inertias of an obstructed, and sometimes 



* See Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens, pp. 594-5 ; and compare the 

 conclusion of our own chapter on Attention, Vol. I. pp. 448-454. 



f Thus at least 1 interpret Prof. Lipps's words: " Wirwissen uns natur- 

 gemass in jedeui iStreben umsoniehr aktiv, jc mebr unsar: ganzes Ich bei 

 dem Strebf'n belheiligt ist," ii. s. w. (p. 601). 



