between an intensification of
self-consciousness and a continued blind enjoyment of this external
preoccupation. And it is from this _sensation of choice_ that we
gather weight for our contention that the will is a basic attribute of
the human soul.

It is certainly true that we are often able to detach ourselves from
ourselves and to watch the struggle going on between two opposite
motive-forces, quite unaware, it might seem, and almost indifferent,
as to how the contest will end.

But this struggle between opposite motives does not obliterate our
sensation of choice. It sometimes intensifies it to an extreme point
of quite painful suspension. The opposite motives may be engaged
in a struggle. But the field of the struggle is what we call the will.
And it may even sometimes happen that the will intervenes between
a weaker and stronger motive and, out of arbitrary pride and the
pleasure of exertion for the sake of exertion, throws its weight on
the weaker side.

It is a well-known psychological fact that the complex vision can
energize, with vigorous spontaneity, through the will alone, just as it
can energize through sensation alone. The will can, so to speak,
stretch its muscles and gather itself together for attack or defence at
a moment when there is no particular necessity for its use.

Some degree of self-consciousness is bound to accompany this
"motiveless stretching" of the will, for the simple reason that it is
not "will in the abstract" which makes such a movement but the
totality of the complex vision, though in this case all other
attributes of the complex vision, including self-consciousness and
reason, are held in subordination to the will.

Man is a philosophical animal; and he philosophizes as inevitably as
he breathes. He is also an animal possessed of will; and he uses his
will as inevitably as, in the process of breathing, he uses his lungs
or his throat. Around him, from the beginning, all manner of motives
may flutter like birds on the wing. They may be completely
different motives in the case of different personalities. But in all
personalities there is consciousness, to grasp these motives; and in
all personalities there is will, to accept or to reject these motives.

The question of the freedom of the will is a question which
necessarily enters into our discussion.

The will feels itself--or rather consciousness feels the will to be--at
once free and limited. The soul does not feel it i