1895.] Psychology. 949 
“ higher types,” and much discussion has been expended on the ques- 
tion whether these also are found in the lower animals or not. 
The word “ voluntary ” is used in three quite distinct senses, but all 
contain a common element. In its broadest sense, any act is voluntary 
which is performed at the instigation of a thought. In this sense it is 
contrasted with “forced ” acts, such as those performed under physical 
compulsion with acts performed under physiological compulsion, such 
as reflexes, and with acts performed under what we may turn psychi- 
cal compulsion, as the instinctive. Many impulses, especially those 
which hurry into action without allowing time for reflection, are felt to 
be only partly voluntary. 
Now, at all times, one’s actual thought content comprehends two 
groups of elements—those originated from within by association and 
habit and those originated from without by the suggestions of the en- 
vironment. For the most part, the two blend into a harmonious whole 
and both find expression in conduct. But, occasionally, the two clash. 
If then, the environment wins the day and controls conduct, even 
though it be done through the intervention of thought, we are inclined 
to deny that the conduct is voluntary. If I surrender my purse at the 
the point of a pistol, I would not call the act voluntary, yet it is not 
involuntary in the same sense in which it would have been had the 
highwayman taken my hand and, by main force, thrust it into my 
pocket, closed it upon my purse, and withdrawn it. 
So of other cases. Control by the idea train invariably implies, in 
some degree, the ability to withstand the solicitations of the environ- 
ment. The adult feels most of those solicitations so slightly that he is 
scarcely aware of their presence. But it is different with a child. The 
child is ever “in mischief,” because his ideation has not developed 
far enough to offset the tempting invitation “ Eat me,” “ Break me,” 
“Set me on fire,” by foresight of the latter end. It is in those cases 
in which the inner control clearly gets the better of the outer that 
we feel the power of “will” to be manifested. This, then, is a second 
sense of the word voluntary. 
It is only through sensation and idea, on the whole, that the environ- 
ment can enter into a man’s mind and control his acts. The reflexes 
are exceptions, but they are, for present purposes, negligible. And 
its entrance is accompanied by a sense of conflict, as if the kingdom 
were divided against itself. Nowa similar feeling often arises in cases 
in which the influence of the environment as such is scarcely to be 
noticed. Every man’s mind is a polity, and its habitual usages and 
active principles not infrequently conflict. Then we commonly invoke 
