Will and Volition
56 Art. IV.? :Author: W. H. 0. SANKEY, M.D. LOND., F.K.C.P.
Lecturer on Mental Diseases, University College, London. Judging from the somewhat recent publication of Dr Carpen- ter’s work on Mental Physiology, it would appear that there exists a very unsettled state of opinion still upon the subject of ” Will and Volition,” especially, perhaps, among the pure phy- siologists. Yet there is, probably, no portion of psychology of more interest; for our observations must be largely based upon the voluntary actions of others in the objective study of psychology. No part of mental philosophy either has a wider practical bearing, since as connected with it must be included the doctrines of free-will and necessity, of responsibility and criminality, besides that of self-control, of impulsive insanity, &c. That much difficulty surrounds the subject is admitted on all sides. ” How comes it, to what fatality is it owing,” writes Professor Bain, “that an enormous theoretical difficulty, a metaphysical dead-lock, a puzzle and a paradox of the first degree, an inextricable knot, should have been constituted in understanding this subject ? “
Those among the English writers, and who now perhaps constitute the larger proportion, who accept the doctrines of the Positive philosophy agree very closely in their explanation of the phenomena connected with will; but there are still, it seems, many who dissent from them.
We find two views upon the question chiefly prevalent. Dr Carpenter, in the work above mentioned, directs attention to them, preparatory to entering upon the difficulties which he himself experiences in the subject. ” The mental relations of mind and body,” he says, ” should always be considered to- gether ; and it is to the neglect of this precaution that such fallacies, discernible in the arguments brought forward, are due in the oft-repeated controversies between the advocates of the materialistic and the spiritualistic hypotheses.”
The materialistic doctrines of Dr Carpenter are those which are considered to be the received views of the Positive school of philosophy, and an enunciation of them may be found in any of the modern English writers of that school. Dr Carpenter gives the following description of them:?” The most thorough- going expression of this doctrine will be found in the ‘ Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development,’ by Henry Gr. Atkinson and Harriet Martineau. A few extracts will suffice to show the character of this system of philosophy. ? Instinct, passion, thought, &c., are effects of organised substances.’ ‘ All causes are material causes.’ ‘ In material conditions I find the origin of all religions, all philosophies, all opinions, all virtues, all spiritual conditions and influences,’ ‘ in the same manner that I find the origin of all diseases and of all insanities in material conditions and causes.’ 41 am what I am, a creature of necessity; I claim neither merit nor demerit.’ ‘ I feel that I am as completely the result of my nature, and impelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as the string is pulled.’ ‘ I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment.’
” It seems to me,” says Dr Carpenter, in commenting on the above extracts, ” that every system of philosophy which regards the succession of mental phenomena as determined solely by the ordinary laws of physical causation, and which rejects the self-determining power of the will (or, which is the same thing, regards the will as only another expression for the ‘prepon- derance of motives or as the general resultant of the action of the physiological mechanism), virtually leads to the same con- clusion.”
In this latter paragraph Dr Carpenter offers no argument, but enters his protest against the doctrines stated, this protest ” arising out of an involuntary repugnance felt.” Dr Carpenter, after mentioning some of the difficulties which occur to him, which need not be here repeated, con- cludes by saying that the materialistic philosopher places himself in complete antagonism to the positive conviction felt by every right-minded man, “that he really does possess a self-determining power and then quotes Archbishop Manning, with whom he says he entirely agrees on this point, viz.: ” That we have exactly the same evidence of the existence of this self- determining power within ourselves that we have of the existence of a material world outside ourselves. For, however intimate may be the correlation between mind and brain ” (and Archbishop Manning seems disposed, adds Dr C., to go as far as himself in recognising this intimacy) ” there is still another faculty, and,^ more than this, another agent, distinct from the thinking brain.” …” That we are conscious of thought and will is a fact of the internal experience of all men.” And Dr Manning concludes by quoting Dr Carpenter: ” That the common-sense decision of mankind in regard to the existence of an external world is practically worth more than all the arguments of the logicians who have discussed the basis of our belief.”
This objection should have its due weight. According to Rule II. of Mr. Lewes’ “Rules of Philosophising,” “Any contradic- tion of fundamental experience of science or intuition is to be taken as evidence of some flaw either in the data or the calcu- lation.” The point raised may, however, be deferred for the present. One may also note that the fact of two authorities cited agreeing in the denunciation of the doctrines of the Positivist school of philosophy is not without its significance, for the dissentients probably do not argue from a common point of view. Before examining the grounds of their ” repugnance,” it may be as well to glean the views of the more recent writers of the school from their own writings. They are given by Mr. Herbert Spencer concisely in his ” Principles of Psychology,” vol. i. p. 495, 2nd edition.
According to this school, ” Will” is an abstract term, and not “a distinct faculty or another agent distinct from the thinking brain.” A voluntary act does not differ, as regards the mechanism by which it is performed, from those acts which are performed automatically. And we know, in fact, that identical movements are performed in somnambulism and in disease with- out the least evidence of the presence of consciousness, and it may be presumed that no volition can occur unconsciously. Again, it is known that those automatic movements which are eventually and distinctly of that character have become so by insensible gradations from the most well-marked volitional actions; and many automatic actions pass by equally insensible degrees from instinctive, and these from the simplest reflex movements, so that no distinction can be established between any actions. It is evident, therefore, that the will, if it is a distinct faculty, may be sometimes absent entirely, sometimes partially, or may exert its influence, if it is an agent, sometimes strongly, sometimes feebly, without affecting the result. Spencer says: ” Between the reception of certain impressions and the performance of certain appropriate motions there is some inner connection. If the inner connection is organised, the action is of the reflex order, either simple or compound; and none of the phenomena of consciousness exist. If the inner connection is not organised, then the psychical changes which come between the impressions and motions are conscious ones ; the entire action must have all the essential elements of a conscious action?must simultaneously exhibit memory, reason, feeling, and will; for there can be no conscious adjustment of an inner to an outer relation without all these being involved.” Positivists maintain that a motion may occur more directly or less directly from its excitant; admitting, as they do, that reflex movements resulting in direct response to the excitant, and in which case the connection between the cause and effect is organic, or, at all events, not assisted by the intervention of any agent like “will,” they hold that, in other resultant actions, the organic connection may be not so direct, but pass, as it were, through a chain, each link of which may be either entirely unfelt, partially felt, or completely felt; that at each link the explosion into a muscular movement may be checked by a counter-excitant; that, consequently, instead of an action taking place, the motor changes become ” nascent” or are sup- pressed. ” When, after the reception of one or more complex impressions, the appropriate motor changes become nascent, but are prevented from passing into immediate action by the antagonism of certain other nascent motor changes, appropriate to some nearly allied impression, there is constituted a state of consciousness which, when it finally issues in action, displays what we term volition. Each set of nascent motor changes arising in the course of this conflict is a weak revival of the state of consciousness which accompany such motor changes when actually performed?is a representation of such motor changes as were before executed under like circumstances?is an idea of such motor changes. We have, therefore, a conflict between two sets of ideal motor changes, which severally tried to become real, and one of which eventually does become real; and this passing of an ideal motor change into a real one we distinguish as ‘ will.
“Will,” according to this doctrine, is a state of mind, not an agent; the consciousness of the conflict that passes finds its recognition in the word ” choice.” As Mr. Spencer elsewhere says, itvis quite true that man has a choice, for the consciousness of the ” conflict,” as he calls it, between the motives or induce- ments to do or to forbear are the outcome of former stored impressions that are called up by association. He goes on to explain that it is quite as true that there is a choice of motive, and the man chooses because at the time of the volition the mental processes, the conflict, &c., constitute the man’s mental self.
This statement, and which in justice perhaps should be read in extenso by any one not fully cognisant of the views, is some- what different in character from that extracted from Miss Martineau and Mr. Atkinson, yet it does not absolutely contra- dict them. Their view is equivalent to saying that, given, a certain individual of a given character (having, that is, certain inclinations, experiences, principles, &c.), and place him in a given position, and a certain or necessary conduct would result.
The argument of Positive philosophers is that such is truly the case, and that to question it would be to question the order of nature; they admit at the same time that the experiment would be almost an impossible one, on account of the diversities in the characters of different individuals. There is no doubt that an approximate calculation, however, can be made and is daily made of what the result would be on the juxtaposition of two individuals, or from the position of different individuals in given circumstances; such an estimate is hourly made by nearly every one of his associates in every kind of society ; such calculations enter into every dealing- or intercourse between men.
But one of the chief objections which the opposite class of thinkers bring against the doctrine is, that it implies that man placed in a certain position must of necessity act in a certain manner ; that, therefore, he is not a free agent, and not being a free agent, is, of course, not a responsible one ; and from the quotations which Dr Carpenter brings from Miss Martineau and Mr. Atkinson, it would seem that they, and those who think with them in this controversy, really hold this view. The word ” necessity ” has been objected to, and Professor Bain writes: ” I very much doubt whether the word ought to be retained in any of the sciences, physical or moral; nothing- is ever gained by it. I consider the word ; necessity’ as nothing short of an incumbrance in the sciences of the present day.” * There is a certain ambiguity, at least, in its meaning: at one time it expresses ” negation of freedom,” and at another time it implies ” a want or need.” In most discussions connected with the subject of will, it is used to signify the absoluteness of the dependence of a given effect upon a certain cause. That, for example, on the conjunction of two agents, a certain effect will ” necessarily ” follow; that two added to two gives a quotient of four; that sugar placed in water will be dissolved, &c. In this sense it is that a result is said to be necessary in science generally. There is no difficulty or doubt, however, concerning the sense in which the word is used in this contro- versy, for the very essence of the doctrine of necessity (a doctrine which has been warmly discussed in all ages) depends upon its signification of absolute connection between cause .and effect.
Necessity and free-will, of course, are parts of the same subject. Here is a passage from Spinoza, as quoted by Dr. Maudsley: ” Men deceive themselves in this point, that they believe themselves free. For in what does such an idea con- sist ? In this only, that they are conscious of their actions, but are ignorant of the causes which determine them.”
Emotion and the Will, p. 549.
u Those who fondly think they act with free-will dream with their eyes open.”*
” If the will is free,” wrote Cicero, ” then Fate does not rule everything; if Fate does not rule everything, then the order of all causes is not certain, and the order of things is no lono-er certain in the foreknowledge of God.”
^Perhaps the greatest objection to the opposite doctrine, the doctrine of necessity, has come from the theologians, on account of its supposed abrogation of responsibility; but the doctrine of entire freedom of will would appear to be equally if not more dangerous to morality or Christianity. If a man could at any moment change the evil tenor of his life at will, he might argue that it would be wise to indulge in the plea- sures of an evil course, often so much pleasanter to youth than a life of self-denial, since when he was old he could readily turn from his evil courses.
Afrain, if men could act entirely by caprice, or were actuated onlv by any transient impression, how would government be possible ? How could the discipline of an army be ensured ? So that if the doctrine of the Necessarian is objected to on account of its favouring” fatalistic notions, it cannot be said that free- will is altogether free from difficulties. Most men would rather be under the dominance of fixed and immutable rules, than trust to unfixed and unstable laws.
The points mentioned by Dr Carpentei as forming the ground for dissent to the doctrine of will, as advanced by the Positive school, and which were deferred, were, that this expla- nation of the phenomena of will implied absence of respon- sibility, and that the doctrine simply examined or observed by the same faculties which convince us of the reality of objects around us appeared to be repugnant to common sense and to every one’s natural convictions and beliefs. It may be con- ceded that much of the doctrine, as he quotes it, and considers it expounded by the Positive school, runs counter to most people’s belief and common sense. We are all, every one must confess, conscious of possessing a power of choice; this is as evident to us as that we can see or feel. Professor Bain gives the example in illustration of a common proceeding in shop- ping. When a person purchases one article out of several submitted to his view, the recommendations of a particular article are found to be greater than those of the rest, and the purchase is concluded by the selection of it. It may happen that for a moment the opposing attractions of some two articles are exactly balanced, and decision may be for a time suspended, but eventually the choice is made. Every one is conscious that such choice was made voluntarily and by himself, or, as it is called, of his own free will. But the example is open to explanation by both views, according- to each person’s convictions. The advocates of free-will quote it as a proof of the free-will of the purchaser in his selection. According to this hypothesis the free-will, as an agent, interposed and decided the transaction. The other hypo- thesis, to which the name of the “Necessarian” is applied, would explain the transaction in the following way. While the pur- chaser was examining the goods, their advantages or disadvan- tages were severally presented to his observation or senses; at one time, perhaps, preponderating in favour of A, at another time in favour of B, keeping the balance oscillating for awhile, until the advantages of one completely outweighed those of the other, and conviction resulted, and immediately on this, of necessity, an action completed by the purchase. To this it will be objected, where is the proof of a necessity ? The purchaser might have been convinced that A was better or cheaper than B, yet out of perversity have bought B. Assuredly. But then in such cases there would have been placed in the scale with B the desire to do an eccentric or perverse act; a motive of some sort, according to the explanation of the Positivists, who do not deny the influence of perverse incentive to action.
The difficulty in understanding the question often made by common minds is owing to the fact that they leave out the last incentive or motive. It is like that common trick played by young people, of dividing the wishing-bone of a chicken, when the promise is held out that he or she to whom falls the greater half shall have whatever is their last wish. One wishes, perhaps, a hawk; another a hand-saw; and assuredly that one who obtains the greater piece of bone has the last wish of his mind, for to gain his first object he wished for his last. So in a volitional act it is the last choice, and last choice only, which excites the act of volition, though that last act is the resultant of many previous motives, and any one act extends over only one increment of time.
If the above be a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena, there yet remains the feeling of repugnance to which Dr. Carpenter refers, and in which he says Archbishop Manning concurs, which must be considered. They say that this enuncia- tion of the law is repugnant to the common-sense convictions of men in general. In many arguments such a vague feeling might be considered inadmissible as evidence, but in the present question it may be allowed to have weight, since it is to the con- victions produced through the ordinary channels by which the question at issue must be ultimately decided. It is to the evidence of sense to which they appeal. ” We have exactly the same evidence of the existence of a self-determining power within ourselves,” they say, ” that we have of the existence of a material world outside us.’’
It is certainly true that the sense of a determining power is felt, and it is equally true that it is felt to be intimately con- nected with self (or the Ego), while it seems equally clear that the phenomena of volition and voluntary act are truly and satisfactorily explained by the Positive philosophers. Since the explanations are diametrically opposite, it is obvious there must be an error somewhere, and it appears to my mind that it is in the logic: the propositions, as enunciated by the opposite parties, are not identical.
The question submitted is the following: What occurs m a voluntary act? Both parties will agree that the result or act is due to the reaction between the individual and an excitant. In other words, that the result would not occur without some motive whether this be an internal or external excitant, whether it be an object of danger to be avoided, or an internal desire or wish to act. At all events, there must always be some reason or incentive to perform a volition.
This beino- admitted on both parts, the problem is reduced to an enquiry into the nature of the reaction between the ex- ternal excitant and the individual, which, for the sake of brevity, we will call the ” Ego.” One view (A) is that, given a particular Ego acted upon by a particular excitant; a certain and pre- dicate result will follow?or, some would put it, would necessarily follow. The other view (B) is, that the result would not be certain or necessary or predicable, but, on the contrary, variable?that when the Ego was acted upon by an excitant, the result would be determined by an intervening power, called Will, and that experience and common sense prove it. The error, in my opinion, lies in this, that the Ego, as understood by the two parties, is not the same is not a fixed term. The premises of the propositions are thus not identical. The Ego as used in the first proposition A is a concrete term; it is limited in its use to a single increment of time; while the Ego in the second proposition B is a general or abstract term, and is not limited to time. On the contrary, the signification of Ego, as used by Dr Carpenter in his arguments, is a general notion, abstracted from the continuous existence of the idea of self from childhood to manhood. Personal identity is a similar general idea. We believe that we are the same individual, through the whole stages of life, though the body lias grown, and though we believe we have changed its material over and over again. We have the conviction, from the evidence of sense, that the Ego is the same. When we speak of the Ego in this signification, we must view it as modified by a life’s experience, as the receptacle and storehouse of an infinity of influences, some even of hereditary origin, but we make use of the term perfectly legitimately, as expressing a general idea. When we put the same proposition with this under- standing, it is obvious that we are not arguing on the same terms as when the term means simply the person at one point of time only.
In this or second case B the reaction, too, is not only between a general or abstract idea of the Ego, but the action is considered as extending through an indefinite time, and there- fore reacting upon a varying state of the environments, or upon a more or less general view of the circumstance in which the Ego was placed. The conclusion is therefore evolved only in an abstract or general form.
By a very easy transition, such a review of a man’s voluntary powers leads to the abstract notions of power and the other attributes claimed for the ” will.” In reviewing the phenomena in this general way, since the general idea must be formed upon the particular or concrete act of volition, it will be readily per- ceived that in the reaction of the Ego and its environments the former is active and the latter usually passive, and the general idea of the Ego becomes connected with the attribute of activity. Hence it is readily conceived to be not only an agent, but the determining agent,”* in all volitional acts, and, as it would appear, as readily and as a natural consequence. The next step appears to be to exalt the idea thus abstracted into an entity, and we meet with such expressions as ” Coughing can be excited by the mandate of the will”; another, ” The strongest exertion of the will is powerless to prevent”; ” The power of the will over the muscles ;” ” In these cases the will does not struggle against a foreign impulse ;” &c.
The hypothesis of a separate determining agent is at least unnecessary, since the facts are as readily accounted for Avithout it, and Newton lays down the law that we should admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain the appearances.
It would appear,in fine, that the differences and the difficulties of the metaphysical hypothesis concerning the will are due to the fact that their result is drawn from an abstract and general view of the phenomena, whereas the hypothesis of the Positive school is based upon observation of the phenomena in the concrete.
It has been supposed that the metaphysical (or, as Dr Car- penter writes, the spiritualistic) explanation alone would account for responsibility and choice of action.
But is there anything in the Positivist’s explanation which negatives choice, or freedom to choose, or responsibility ? For these are the points which form the ground for the repugnance, and are the attributes which are said to be as evident to the experiences as the existence of an external world
It is clear that it is quite as legitimate to* form an. abstract and general idea of self as of any other concrete notion. A concrete idea of self is necessarily limited by a single increment of time, for directly we spread our existence over any sensible duration in time the Ego is modified. In reviewing any single act of volition thus limited we find in it, by the very means appealed to by the spiritualistic school, viz. by our internal sensation, an element of choice, for we cannot allow that act of the will is contrary to our choice; and the Positivist school admit the same, only explaining the word “choice” to be the balance of inclinations in one or other way ;? if the spiritualistic would make choice independent of such balance, and entirely unconnected with will, except as a constant concomitant, it follows that both agree that the concrete volition is always accompanied by choice; and hence the general idea which is the outcome of the concrete must also contain the attribute of choice. The abstract or general idea of choice, or, what is its equivalent, the idea of a general power of selection, gives the general abstract idea of ” Free Will.” But such general concepts cannot yield an absolute, but only a contingent result; and this is all that experience warrants in this case. And no man’s common sense or conviction can make him believe that he has absolute freedom or free-will. It is not true that our convictions prompt us to believe that we could by our will pervert any natural law; all that they convince us is, that we have a certain range, a comparative freedom to act, according to our organism and our surroundings.
If the Positivist’s theory, as admitted, gives but a compara- tive or modified freedom, in what does this differ from the oppo- site, which is, We are free, therefore responsible : this is freedom with drawbacks, and therefore not an absolute freedom ? If there is no absolute freedom, how can there be an absolute re- sponsibility ; so that one hypothesis is not better in this respect than its fellow. The truth is, the idea of responsibility is a legitimate concept from experience, and in no way militates against the Positive view of psychology. That certain actions are accompanied by pain is a concrete fact, from which the general concept of responsibility naturally follows.
The main difficulty, however, in the understanding of the theory of Will is the tendency still extant in the minds of many to metaphysical doctrines. These doctrines had a deep hold of the general reader; they were intimately incorporated into all kinds of literature for a long period, and the effects are still discoverable in the debris which occasionally turn up. Those of this school, it is true, usurped the name of ” Spiritualist,” yet no materialists were more wedded to matter than many of them. No error is more common still than the embodying of an abstract idea in a real and substantial person. ” Having once detached an aspect, and considered it apart, the mind is prone to assign an objective reality to this separated aspect The danger is slight, with abstractions of the first degree. Probably no one ever personified whiteness?as virtue and nature have been personified?though we remember that boundary had its god Terminus?marriage its god Hymen, &c.”*
The idea ” will” has been thus personified, and has been in that form allowed to tyrannise over the intelligence. Will has been compared to the engine-driver, and the locomotive to his body. The engine-driver Will is able to move or stop the engine as he likes. The simile may be good, to a certain extent, but it cannot be admitted that the analogy is complete in all its details, nor can it give a separate existence to the Will apart from the engine. A simile is a legitimate method for explaining a process, but it proves nothing, and this simile or metaphor will give no more warrant for the idea that the Will is separate from the body and bodily functions, than that it can step down from its engine to perform other functions ; and if we give this independent power to Will, we must assign the same to Digestion, or Growth, Life, &c.; or if it is intended to signify that this power is what is called the ” Soul,” and which probably is the view of many, this would be nothing more than changing the title, and the same arguments would apply that have been used to the faculty, under the title of the ” Will.” * Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, p. 278.
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