is suddenly quickened into intensity, it is as if the
whole scale of values of our motives changed its equilibrium. The force
of old temptations vanishes, and what a moment ago was impossible is now
not only possible, but easy, because of their inhibition. This has been
well called the 'expulsive power of the higher emotion.'

It is easy to apply this notion of inhibition to the case of our
ideational processes. I am lying in bed, for example, and think it is
time to get up; but alongside of this thought there is present to my
mind a realization of the extreme coldness of the morning and the
pleasantness of the warm bed. In such a situation the motor consequences
of the first idea are blocked; and I may remain for half an hour or more
with the two ideas oscillating before me in a kind of deadlock, which is
what we call the state of hesitation or deliberation. In a case like
this the deliberation can be resolved and the decision reached in either
of two ways:--

(1) I may forget for a moment the thermometric conditions, and then the
idea of getting up will immediately discharge into act: I shall suddenly
find that I have got up--or

(2) Still mindful of the freezing temperature, the thought of the duty
of rising may become so pungent that it determines action in spite of
inhibition. In the latter case, I have a sense of energetic moral
effort, and consider that I have done a virtuous act.

All cases of wilful action properly so called, of choice after
hesitation and deliberation, may be conceived after one of these latter
patterns. So you see that volition, in the narrower sense, takes place
only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and
depends on our having a complex field of consciousness. The interesting
thing to note is the extreme delicacy of the inhibitive machinery. A
strong and urgent motor idea in the focus may be neutralized and made
inoperative by the presence of the very faintest contradictory idea in
the margin. For instance, I hold out my forefinger, and with closed eyes
try to realize as vividly as possible that I hold a revolver in my hand
and am pulling the trigger. I can even now fairly feel my finger
quivering with the tendency to contract; and, if it were hitched to a
recording apparatus, it would certainly betray its state of tension by
registering incipient movements. Yet it does not actually crook, and the
movement of pulling the trigger is not performed. Why not?

Simply