between willing and effective action. My
Power--the Energy related to my Will--the exertion of which is
necessary to translate Volition into an overt result--is a limited and
quantifiable thing, but that such a hidden energetic medium or
substratum underlies all phenomena is evident from the fact that I do
not will directly the appearance of any given phenomenon. I may wish
that. But when the Volition is reached and the wish transformed into
overt exertion I find myself involved in the multifarious processes of
an energetic system which I may so far influence, but which is
nevertheless in many ways constantly going on irrespective of my
Volition. I may wish to avoid pain and may will certain exertions with
that view, but the consequences may be the reverse of what I wished.
This shows that the Volition operates immediately not on the sensation
but on the energetic system.

In all cases between Volition and overt result there seems to be erected
and constantly maintained around me a vast energetic system, a part but
only a small part of which, namely the Energy of my organism, can be
influenced directly by my Will, whilst, even in immediate relation with
that part, transmutations beyond the reach of my Will are constantly
going on. Indeed, what fundamentally distinguishes Volition from Desire
is its relation to the energetic system.

The doctrine of Energy therefore puts in a new and clearer light the
whole theory of Causation.

It is common for philosophers to talk of invariable sequence as the
criterion of Causality. But, in fact, that is quite fallacious. No one
ever regards a phenomenon as the cause of another phenomenon. We ascribe
Causality to the energetic transmutation which in some form or other we
inevitably believe to accompany the appearance of every phenomenon. We
never postulate a causal relation between day and night--the most
notable case of invariable sequence. When we say the fire warms the
room, or the horse draws the cart, or the sun ripens the corn, it is the
Energy which we rightly or wrongly associate with the visual sensation
referred to in the words "fire" and "horse" and "sun" of which we are
thinking, and by no means of these visual sensations themselves. As has
been well said, we never suppose that the leading carriage of the train
draws those behind it, although their relation of sequence is quite as
close to it as to the engine.

True, it is and must be from and by phenomena only that I