Summary . 
398 
this sense is not common among writers on psychology. Ob¬ 
jective motives are all of those facts, objects, perceptions, and 
feelings which are constantly present to the mind, and which 
tend in whatever way to influence its action. Subjective mo¬ 
tives are those which the mind actually accepts in intelligent 
choice, and are the inward reason in view of which the will acts. 
But the subjective motive by eminence is the intrinsic good 
which the mind accepts or rejects in the exercise of freedom. 
At this point error of statement is common. Joseph Cook in 
commenting upon a boy climbing a tree to steal apples said, 
“ The apples are the objective natural motive, the boy’s appe¬ 
tite the subjective natural motive, his intention the moral mo¬ 
tive.” The serious trouble with the analysis is that the inten¬ 
tion is not a motive at all; and the critic is not too severe who 
adds, "that the boot or the board which the owner of the or¬ 
chard applies when he catches him at it, is the boy’s natural lo 
comotive. ” The term moral is not applicable to motives, but 
only to free acts. 
Of this brief statement, then, the following is the sum: 
1. The will is not free to act without motives. Spontaneous 
origination of action in this sense is impossible. Motives are 
the occasions of the will’s choice; it itself is the cause. 
2. The will is not free both to choose the ultimate good and, 
while maintaining that choice, to yield to motives which per¬ 
suade the will to pursue proximate ends judged to be not pro¬ 
motive of the ultimate. 
3. The will cannot act counter to all motives both in intelli¬ 
gence and desire, both objective and subjective. 
4. The will is free, in spite of all conflicting motives, to choose 
or refuse to choose the intrinsic good. At this point, the point 
of ultimate choices, the element of liberty resides; and here the 
ethical quality of the choice is determined by the question 
whether the subjective motive, that is the value in the end itself, 
is freely accepted or refused. That freedom extends to proxi¬ 
mate choices and executive acts is not denied; but they are free 
only as related to the ultimate choice from which they derive 
their liberty. Morality is in no way determined by the relation 
of motives to these subordinate acts. 
Ripon, Wis ., November , 1898. 
