1877.] ORIGIN OF THE WILL. 4st 
to certainty, or supposed certainty in affairs, is faith diminished 
in its scope. 
It is evident then that, abstractly speaking, occasions must arise 
in human experience where a decision between two alternatives is 
dependent on choice alone. That these occasions have arisen, and 
the choice been made, is shown by the existence of the altruistic 
class of actions. The number of these occasions may not be very 
great, but the consequences are very important. In whatever 
direction these decisions are made, long series of automatic actions 
are organized. 
Although the existence of the altruistic class of acts affords the 
clearest proof of the origin of will, it isnot denied that correspond- 
ing situations may not occur in other directions. It is also prob- 
able that will, once organized as a faculty of consciousness, can be 
exercised in many acts in opposition to habits, differing in accord- 
ance with the constitution of the individual; and that it can be 
inherited like any other quality of mind. But I will show later, 
that the organization of altruistic habits has narrower limits than that 
of those of the appetent class, because self-preservation depends 
on the latter, and not on the former, so that the appetent qualities 
are more certain to be inherited and survive. 
The conclusion of this portion of the subject is, that that depart- 
ment of mind called the feelings’ is the primary source of action: 
that they act automatically with or without the aid of the reason- 
ing powers, when dealing with the known; but when dealing with 
the unknown may develop, in self-conscious beings, the state of 
faith, and acts of will: that this freedom is born of tension of the 
affections and of inability of the intellect. 
Thus have the irregular and fortuitous decisions of animals 
been replaced by volition, as the highest quality of the mind, and 
therefore the crown of evolution. No new “physical.” force is 
here called into requisition. The determination of the direction 
of such forces already existing in or passing through the brain in 
executive action, need flot add to nor subtract from them. Will 
is, under these circumstances, looked upon as developed conscious- 
ness. 
All this is of course opposed by the doctrine of the origin of 
moral excellence by development, on the basis of the utilitarian 
5 Which appears to be identical with what Schopenhauer calls the will. 
