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be in a position, when Mr. Spencer^ s arguments are swept out 
of the way, to look carefully and dispassionately at the whole 
matter. We shall find, I think, that here Mr. Spencer is 
singularly weak — so weak, indeed, that what he says scarcely 
deserves the name of reasoning. 
Let us, then, examine his theory. 
Mr. Spencer’s Theory of the Will is one of the most original 
and remarkable parts of his Philosophy. It will be remem- 
bered that he makes what is subjectively Mind to be, in its 
objective aspect, currents or motions of nervous molecules. 
He makes what we call Will, or an act of volition, to be the 
commingling, in one definite stream, of force, of a number of 
those nerve -currents, which, in a previous state of indecision, 
were colliding one against another. It is like many rivers 
debouching into a lake; they come rushing pell-mell; and 
this confusion in the currents represents, in its subjective 
aspect, the time of uncertainty ; until, at length, one adverse 
stream has neutralised another, the lake becomes calm, and 
the one unobstructed current flows on ; which current is the 
resultant of all the streams that there met. Thus it will be 
seen that Mr. Spencer’s theory utterly denies the existence of 
any determining element in the Will itself ; it makes the whole 
process to be merely mechanical, nothing more than the mix- 
ture of nerve-molecules. Or, to take another illustration of 
his theory from a contested county election. There are various 
polling places, where votes of various numbers are recorded — 
and these votes represent the different motives with their 
exact quota of weight — but the result is arithmetically deducible 
from the completed ]p oiling -ho oh s, and the delay in learning 
which candidate is returned arises, not from any contingency 
or uncertainty, but simply because time is required to arrive 
at the totals. 
That such is Mr. Spencer’s theory will be apparent from 
the following passages. He is describing what he calls Will, 
and he says : — 
“ On passing from compound reflex actions to those actions so highly com- 
pounded as to be imperfectly reflex— on passing from the organically-deter- 
mined psychical changes, which take place with extreme rapidity, to the 
psychical changes which, not being organically-determined, take place with 
some deliberation, and therefore consciously ; we pass to a kind of mental 
action, which is one of Memory, Reason, Feeling, or Will, according to the 
side of it we look at.” * 
* Princi2des of Psychology, vol, i, p. 495 (2nd edition, from which all 
quotations are made), 
