l 1884] Psychology, 1283 
___ Self-consciousness is regarded by Le Conte as peculiar to man. 
_ This may be, but we have not yet looked into the recesses of the 
minds of the lowest races of man, nor do we know the condi- 
tions of the minds of the chimpanzee and orangutan in this 
E respect. 
__ The author believes in free-will as that form of mental activity 
_ “in which consequences, especially moral consequences, are pre- 
sented to the mind and weighed; when impulses, solicitations, 
Motives, are weighed one against another; when all these mental 
conditions become themselves in their turn the objects of conscious 
thought, and we feel distinctly conscious that we ourselves deter- 
_ Mine, and are therefore responsible for, the final result,” etc. This 
- form of stating the case will naturally be regarded by the deter- 
_Minists as a fetitio principii. If the author of it had wished to 
_ Strengthen his position as fully as it is susceptible of support, he 
Should not have omitted the argument to be derived from the 
_ Condition of ignorance coincident with high intelligence, where 
the experience which is the condition of automatism is wanting, 
_ and when, therefore, if progress is made, acts must be free if they 
âre ever so. Though this hypothesis! is not a demonstration, it 
_ 18 as near to it as we shall ever get, and preferable to mere asser- 
tions of our belief in our freedom. In one paragraph, under the 
head of free-will, Professor Le Conte allows his theology to get 
ahead of his philosophy (p. 259). He says “ there is a free-will, 
Which is free only in the sense of self-determined, and therefore 
morally responsible, but is nevertheless unwillingly restrained by 
7 necessary to Gelieve that a freedom of will once gained need ever 
e lost. 
Finally, this supposed freedom of will cannot be attributed to 
mals, But it is far from certain that it is possessed by all men, 
at its assumption as a distinctively human characteristic is not 
*xact. It may be rather a possibility for men, and as such more 
*On the origin of the Will, by E. D. Cope. Penn Monthly, 1877, P- 435. 
VOL. XVIII.—=No, XIL Sr 
