heoretic simplicity. In the recent
anti-metaphysical movement of Germany, of which Haeckel, Avenarius,
Oswald and Mach are representatives, there is presented the final
conflict. It is not freedom of will only that is at stake, it is the
very existence of a spiritual world. 'Es ist der Kampf um die Seele.'[2]

If the world forms a closed and 'given' system in which every particular
is determined completely by its position in the whole, then there can be
no place for spontaneity, initiative, creation, which all investigation
shows to be the distinctive feature in human progress and upward
movement. So far from its being true that the world makes man, it would
be nearer the truth to say that man makes the world. A 'given' world can
never be primary.[3] There must be a mind behind it. We fall back,
therefore, upon the principle which must be postulated in the whole
discussion--the unity and self-determining activity of the self-conscious
mind.

II

We may now proceed to the second problem of the will, the objection that
human action is determined by motives, and that what we call freedom is
nothing else than the necessary result of the pressure of motives upon
the will. In other words, the conduct of the individual is always
determined by the strongest motive. It will be seen on examination that
this objection is just another form of that which we have already
considered. Indeed, the {87} analogy of mechanical power is frequently
applied to the motives of the will. Diverse motives have been compared
to different forces which meet in one centre, and it is supposed that the
result in action is determined by the united pressure of these various
motives. Now it may be freely admitted at the outset that the individual
never acts except under certain influences. An uninfluenced man, an
unbiassed character cannot exist. Not for one moment do we escape the
environment, material and moral, which stimulates our inner life to
reaction and response. It is not contended that a man is independent of
all motives. What we do affirm is that the self-realising potentiality
of personality is present throughout. Much of the confusion of thought
in connection with this subject arises from a false and inadequate notion
of personality. Personality is the whole man, all that his past history,
present circumstances and future aims have made him, the result of all
that the world of which he is a part has contributed to his exp