A Handbook of Ethical Theory Part 5

Motions due to even the blindest of impulses are not to be confounded with those brought about by external compulsion. They may have the appearance of being vaguely purposive, although we would never attribute purpose to the creature making them. The infant that cries and struggles, when tormented by the intrusive pin, the worm writhing in the beak of a bird,--these act blindly, but it does not appear meaningless to say that they act. The impulse is from within.

Some impulses result in actions very nicely adjusted to definite ends.

Such are winking, sneezing, swallowing. These reflexes may occur as the mechanical response to a given stimulus. They may occur without our being conscious of them and without our having willed them.

Yet such responses to stimuli are not necessarily unconscious and cut off from voluntary control. He who winks involuntarily when a hand is pa.s.sed before his eyes may become conscious that he has done so, and may, if he chooses, even acquire some facility in controlling the reflex. One may resist the tendency to swallow when the throat is dry, may hold back a sneeze, or may keep rigid the hand that is p.r.i.c.ked by a pin. That is to say, actions in their origin mechanical and independent of choice may be raised out of their low estate, made the objects of attention, and brought within the domain of deliberate choice.

Furthermore, many actions which, at the outset, claimed conscious attention and were deliberately willed may become so habitual that the doer lapses into unconsciousness or semi-unconsciousness of his deed.

They take on the nature of acquired reflexes. The habit of acting appears to have been acquired by the mind and then turned over to the body, that the mind may be free to occupy itself with other activities. The man has become less the doer than the spectator of his acts; perhaps he is even less than that, he is the stage upon which the action makes its appearance, while the spectator is his neighbor. The complicated bodily movements called into play when one bites one's nails had to be learned.

It requires no little ingenuity to accomplish the act when the nails are short. Yet one may come to the stage of perfection at which one bites one's nails when one is absorbed in thought about other things. And one may learn to slander one's neighbor almost as mechanically and unthinkingly as one swallows when the throat is dry.

When we speak of man's impulses, we are using a vague word. There are impulses which will never be anything more. There are impulses which may become something more. There are impulses which are no longer anything more. Impulses have their psychic aspect. At its lower limit, impulse may appear very mechanical; at its upper, one may hesitate to say that desire and will are wholly absent. It is not wise to regard impulse as lying wholly beyond the sphere of will.

32. DESIRE.--At its lower limit, desire is not distinguished by any sharp line from mere impulse. Is the infant that stretches out its hands toward a bright object conscious of a desire to possess it? Or does the motion made follow the visual sensation as the wail follows the wound made by the pin? At a certain stage of development the phenomena of desire become unmistakable. The idea of something to be attained, the notion of means to the attainment of an end, the consciousness of tension, may stand out clearly. The a.n.a.lysis of the psychologist, which finds in desire a consciousness of the present state of the self, an idea of a future state, and a feeling of tension towards the realization of the latter, may represent faithfully the elements present in desire in the higher stages of its development, but it would be difficult to find those elements clearly marked in desire which has just begun to differentiate itself from impulse. There may be a desire where there can scarcely be said to be a self as an object of consciousness; one may desire where there is no clear consciousness of a future state as distinct from a present one.

Moreover, the consciousness of desire may be faint and fugitive, as it may be intense and persistent. Desire is the step between the first consciousness of the object and the voluntary release of energy which works toward its attainment. This step may be pa.s.sed over almost unnoticed. The thought of shifting my position when I feel uncomfortable may be followed by the act with no clear consciousness of a tension and its voluntary release. The mere thought, itself but faintly and momentarily in consciousness, appears to be followed at once by the act, and desire and will to be eliminated. It does not follow that they are actually eliminated; they may be present as fleeting shadows which fail to attract attention.

If, however, the desire fails to find its immediate fruition, if it is frustrated, consciousness of it may become exceedingly intense. There is the constant thought of the object, a vivid feeling of tension, of a striving to attain the object. Desire may become an obsession, a torment filling the horizon, and the volition in which it finds its fruition stands forth as a marked relief. This condition of things may be brought about by the inhibition occasioned by the physical impossibility of attaining the object; but it may also be brought about by the struggle of incompatible desires among themselves. The man is drawn in different directions, he is subject to various tensions, and he becomes acutely conscious that he is impelled to move in several ways and is moving in none.

I have used the word "tension" to describe the psychic fact present in desire. I have done so for want of a better word. Of the physical basis of desire, of what takes place in the brain, we know nothing. With the psychic fact, the feeling of agitation and unrest, we are all familiar.

Of the tendency of desire to discharge itself in action we are aware. A desire appears to be an inchoate volition--that which, if ripened successfully and not nipped in the bud, would become a volition. It may be looked upon as the first step toward action--a step which may or may not be followed by others. It does not seem out of place to call it a state of tension, of strain, of inclination. In speaking, thus, we use physical metaphors, but they do not appear out of place.

33. DESIRE OF THE UNATTAINABLE.--But if a desire may be regarded as an unripe act of will, an inchoate volition, how is it that we can desire the unattainable, a sufficiently common experience? I may bitterly regret some act of my own in the past; I may earnestly wish that I had not performed it. But the past is irrevocable. Hence, the desire for the attainment of what is in this case the object, a different past, can hardly be regarded as even a preparatory step toward attainment.

In this case it can not, and were all desires directed upon what is in the nature of the case wholly unattainable by effort, it would occur to no one to speak of desire as a first step toward action. But normally and usually desires are not of this nature. They usually do const.i.tute a link in the chain of occurrences which end in action. Did they not, they would have little significance in the life-history of the creature desiring.

With the appearance of free ideas, with an extension of the range of memory and imagination, objects may be held before the mind which are not properly objects to be attained. Yet such objects are of the kind which attract or repel, i.e., of the kind which men endeavor to realize in action. They cannot be realized; we do not will to realize them; but we should will to do so were they realizable. The psychic factor, the strain, the tension, is unmistakably present. Real desire is revealed, and common speech, as well as the language of science, recognizes the fact.

This general attraction or repulsion exercised by objects, in spite of the fact that the objects may not appear to be realizable, is not without significance. The hindrance to realization may be an accidental one; it may not be wholly insuperable. The presence of a persistent desire may result in persistent effort, which may ultimately be crowned by success.

Or it may show itself as a permanent readiness for effort. Were every frustrated desire at once dismissed from consciousness, the result would show itself in a pa.s.sivity detrimental to action in general. Where the object is intrinsically an impossible one, persistent desire is, of course, futile. The dog baying at the cat in the tree is the prey of such a desire, but he does not realize it, or he might discontinue his inefficacious leaps. The man tormented by his unworthy act in the past is quite aware of the futility of his longings. His condition is psychologically explicable, but to a rational being, in so far as rational, it is not normal.

Normally, desire is the intermediate step between the recognition of an object and the will to attain it. The most futile of desires may be harbored. The imaginative mind may range over a limitless field, and give itself up to desires the most extravagant. But indulgence in this habit serves as a check to action serviceable to the individual and to the race. As a matter of fact, desire is usually for what seems conceivably within the limit of possible attainment. The man desires to catch a train, to run that he may attain that end; his mind is little occupied with the desire to fly, nor does his longing center upon the carpet of Solomon. To the desirability of dismissing from the mind futile desires current moral maxims bear witness.

34. WILL.--The natural fruition of a desire is, then, an act of will; the tension is normally followed by that release of energy which makes for the attainment of the object or end of the desire.

The question suggests itself, may there not be present, even in blindly impulsive action, something faintly corresponding to desire and will?

That there should be an object in the sense of something aimed at, held in view as an idea to be realized, appears to be out of the question. But may there not be a more or less vague and evanescent sense of tension, and some psychic fact which may be regarded as the shadowy forerunner of the consciousness of the release of tension which, on a higher plane, reveals itself as the consciousness of will? There may be: introspection is not capable of answering the question, and one is forced to fall back upon an argument from a.n.a.logy. Blindly impulsive action and action in which will indubitably and consciously plays a part are not wholly unlike, but they differ by a very wide interval. The interval is not an empty gap, however, for, as we have seen, all volitions do not stand out upon the background of our consciousness with the same unmistakable distinctness. There are volitions no one would hesitate to call such. And there are phenomena resembling volition which we more and more doubtfully include under that caption as we pa.s.s own on the descending scale.

Naturally, in describing desire and volition we do not turn to the twilight region where all outlines are blurred and indistinct. We fix our attention upon those instances in which the phenomena are clearly and strongly marked. They are most clearly marked where desire does not, at once and unimpeded, discharge itself in action, but where action is deferred, and a struggle takes place between desires.

The man is subject to various tensions, he is impelled in divers directions, he hesitates, deliberates, and he finally makes a decision.

During this period of deliberation he is apt to be vividly conscious of desire as such--as a tension not yet relieved, as an alternation of tensions as the attention occupies itself, first with one desirable object, then with another. And the decision, which puts an end to the strife, is clearly distinguished from the desires as such.

In the reflective mind, which turns its attention upon itself and its own processes, the distinction between desire and will seems to be a marked one. But it is not merely the developed and reflective mind which is the seat of deliberation. The child deliberates between satisfying its appet.i.te and avoiding possible punishment; it reaches for the forbidden fruit, and withdraws its hand; it wavers, it is moved in one direction as one desire becomes predominant, and its action is checked as the other gains in ascendency. Deliberation this unmistakably is. And deliberation we may observe in creatures below the level of man; in the sparrow, hopping as close as it dares to the hand that sprinkles crumbs before it; in the dog, ready to dart away in pursuance of his private desires, but restrained by the warning voice of his master. This is deliberation. Such deliberation as we find in the developed and enlightened human being it is not. That, however, there is present even in these humble instances, some psychic fact corresponding to what in the higher mind reveals itself as desire and volition, we have no reason to doubt.

35. DESIRE AND WILL NOT IDENTICAL.--I have had occasion to remark that the modern psychologist draws no such sharp line between desire and volition as the psychologist of an earlier time. That some distinction should be drawn seems palpable. It is not without significance that immemorial usage sanctions this distinction. The ancient Stoic's quarrel was with the desires, not with the will. The will was treated as a master endowed with rightful authority; the desires were subjects, often in rebellion, but justly to be held in subjection. And from the days of the Stoic down almost to our own, the will has been treated much as though it were an especial and distinct faculty of man, not uninfluenced by desire, but in no sense to be identified with it,--above it, its law-giver, detached, independent, supreme. This tendency finds its culmination in that impressive modern Stoic, Immanuel Kant, who desires to isolate the will, and to emanc.i.p.ate it altogether from the influence of desire.

Recently the pendulum has swung in the other direction. It has been recognized that will is the natural outcome of desire, and that without desire there would be no will at all. It has even been maintained that will _is_ desire, the desire "with which the self identifies itself." [Footnote: See, for example, GREEN, _Prolegomena to Ethics_, Sec 144-149.]

To this last form of expression objection may be made on the score of its vagueness. What does it mean for the self to "identify" itself with a desire? And if such an identification is necessary to will, can there be volition or anything resembling volition where self-consciousness has not yet been developed? It is very imperfectly developed in young children, and in the lower animals still less developed, if at all; and yet we see in them the struggle of desires and the resultant decision emerging in action. If we call a volition in which consciousness of the self has played its part "volition proper," it still remains to inquire how volitions on a lower plane are to be distinguished from mere desires.

What happens in a typical case of deliberation and decision? Two or more objects are before the mind and the attention occupies itself with them successively. Tensions alternate, wax strong and die away, only to recover their strength again. Finally the attention fixes upon one object to the exclusion of others, the strife of desires come to an end, and there is an inception of action in the direction of the realization of that particular desire. The desire itself is not to be confounded with the decision; the tension, with its release. The psychic fact is in the two cases different. The decision brings relief from the strain. It cannot properly be called a desire, not even a triumphant desire, although in it a desire attains a victory and its realization has begun.

Such a victory not all desires, even when most intense and prolonged, are able to attain. We have seen that the desire for the unattainable may amount to an obsession, and yet it will not ripen into an act of volition. The release of the tension in incipient action does not come.

The bent bow remains bent. From the sense of strain in such a case one may be freed, as one is freed from the desires which succ.u.mb during the process of deliberation, by the occupation of the attention with other things. But the desire has been forgotten, not satisfied. It may at any time recur in all its strength.

We cannot more nearly describe the psychic fact called decision. Just as we cannot more nearly describe the psychic fact to which we have given the name "tension." Although the nervous basis of the phenomena of desire and will are unknown, we can easily conceive that, during desire, and before desire has resulted in the release of energy which is the immediate forerunner of action, the cerebral occurrence should be different from that which is present when that release takes place. Nor should it be surprising that the psychical fact corresponding to each should be different.

The view here set forth does not confuse desire and will, making will indistinguishable from desire, or, at least, from certain desires. On the other hand, it does not separate them, as though they could not be brought within the one series of occurrences which may properly be regarded as a unit. It has the advantage of making comprehensible the mutual relations of impulse, desire, and will. Blind impulse discharges itself in action seemingly without the psychic accompaniments which distinguish desire and will. But all impulse is not blind impulse, and desiring and willing admit of many degrees of development. To deny will to creatures lower than man, as some writers have done, is to misconceive the nature of the process that issues in action. We are tempted to do it only when we compare will in its highest manifestations with those rudimentary foreshadowings of it which stand at the lower end of the scale. But even in man we can discern blind impulse, dimly conscious desires which ripen into as dimly recognized decisions, and, at the very top of the scale, conscious decisions which follow deliberation, and are the resultant of a struggle between many desires.

For ethical science it is of no little importance to apprehend clearly the relation of decision to desire. Moral rules aim to control human conduct, and conduct is the expression of the whole man. If we have no clear conception of the desires which struggle for the mastery within him, and of the relation of his decisions to those desires, in vain will we endeavor to influence him in the direction in which we wish him to move.

36. THE WILL AND DEFERRED ACTION.--It remains to speak briefly of one point touching the nature of will. It has been suggested that the decision is the psychic fact corresponding to the release of nervous energy which relieves the tension of desire. It is the beginning of action, of realization. But what shall we say of resolves which cannot at once be carried out in action? Of decisions the realization of which is deferred? I may long debate the matter and then determine to pay a bill when it comes due next month. The decision is made; but, for a time, at least, nothing happens. How can I here speak of the beginning of action?

The action does not at once begin, yet it is, in a sense, initiated. The struggle of conflicting considerations has ceased; the man is "set" for action in a certain direction. For the time being the matter is settled, and only an external circ.u.mstance prevents the resolve from being carried out. The psychic factor is widely different from that of mere desire, and is not recognized to be different from that present in volition which at once issues in action.

CHAPTER XII

THE PERMANENT WILL

37. CONSCIOUSLY CHOSEN ENDS.--Our volitions, deliberate, less deliberate, and those verging upon what scarcely deserves the name of volition, weave themselves into complicated patterns, which find their expression in long series of the most varied activities. The nature of the pattern as a whole may be determined by the deliberate selection of an end, and to that the other choices which enter into the complex may be subordinate.

Thus, a man may decide that he can afford to give himself the pleasure of a long walk through the country before taking the train at the next town.

During the course of the ramble he may make a number of more or less conscious decisions not incompatible with the purpose he originally embraced--to take this bit of road or that, to loiter in the shade, to climb a hill that he may enjoy a view, to hasten lest he find himself too late in arriving at his destination. These decisions may require little deliberation; they spring into being at the call of the moment, are not preceded by deliberation, and leave little trace in the memory. They may be made semi-consciously, and while the mind is largely occupied with other things, with thoughts of the past or the future, with other scenes suggested by the landscape, or with the flowers which skirt the road.

Nevertheless, we would not hesitate to call them decisions.

May we apply the word in speaking of the single steps made by the traveler as he advances? His feet seem to move of themselves and to make no demands at all upon his attention.

Yet it is not strictly true to say that they move of themselves. They are under control, and the successive steps follow upon each other not without direction. They serve as expressions of the will to take the walk, and they are adjusted to the end consciously held in view. That attention is not fixed upon the individual steps does not remove them from the sphere of the voluntary, in a proper sense of the words. They are expressions of the man's will, even if they be not the result of a conscious series of deliberations and decisions. Whether we shall use the term decision in connection with the single step is rather a question of verbal usage than of the determination of fact. We have seen that decisions shade down gradually, from those quite unmistakable and characteristic, to occurrences far less characteristic and more disputable. The consciousness of deliberation and decision does not disappear abruptly at some point in the series. It fades away, as the light of day gradually pa.s.ses, through twilight, into the shades of night. And actions not directly recognizable as consciously voluntary may be obviously under voluntary control. They weave themselves, with actions more palpably voluntary and higher in the scale, into those complicated patterns determined by the conscious selection of an end. As long as they serve their purpose, and require no effort, they may remain inconspicuous and unconsidered. But, as soon as a check is met with, attention is directed upon them and they become the subject of conscious voluntary control.

38. ENDS NOT CONSCIOUSLY CHOSEN.--In the above ill.u.s.tration the end which determines the character of a long chain of actions has been deliberately chosen. It is a consciously selected end. When, however, we contemplate critically the lives of our fellow-men, we seem to become aware of the fact that many of them act in unconsciousness of the ultimate end upon which their actions converge. The attention is taken up with minor decisions, and takes no note of the permanent trend of the will.

Thus, the selfish man may be unaware of the significance of the whole series of choices which he makes in a day; the malicious man may not realize that he is animated by the settled purpose to injure his neighbors; one may be law-abiding without ever having resolved to obey the laws through the course of a life. If called upon to account for this or that subordinate decision, each may exhaust his ingenuity in a.s.signing false causes, while ignoring the permanent att.i.tude of the will revealed in the series of decisions as a whole and giving them what consistency they possess.

Hence, the choice of ends, as well as the adoption of means to the attainment of ends, may reveal itself either in conscious deliberate decisions, or in the working of obscure impulses which do not emerge into the light. Even in the latter case, we have not to do with what is wholly beyond the sphere of intelligent voluntary control. The selfish man may be made aware that he is selfish; the malicious man, that he is malicious; and each may deliberately take steps to remedy the defect revealed.

When we understand the word "will" in the broad sense indicated in the preceding pages, we see that a man's habits may justly be regarded as expressions of the man's will. That, through repet.i.tion, his actions have become almost automatic does not remove them from the sphere of the volitional. That he does not clearly see, or that he misconceives, the significance of his habits, and may acquiesce in them even though they be injurious to him, does not make them the less willed, so long as he follows them. It is only when he actively endeavors to control or modify a habit that he may be said to will its opposite.

39. THE CHOICE OF IDEALS.--Nor is it too much to bring under the head of willing the att.i.tudes of approval and disapproval taken by man in contemplating certain occurrences, actual or possible, which lie beyond the confines of the field within which he can exercise control. The field of control, direct and indirect, is as we have seen a broad one, but it has its limits, and many of the things he would like to see accomplished or prevented lie without it.

A man's will may be set upon the preservation of his health, he may strive to attain that end, and circ.u.mstances may condemn him to a life of invalidism. He would be healthy if he could, but his strivings are overruled. Or he may earnestly pursue the attainment of wealth, and may end in bankruptcy. He has the will to be rich, but that will is frustrated.

It is the same when we consider his att.i.tude toward the decisions and actions of other men. By mere willing he cannot condition another's choice. But by willing he can often influence indirectly the volitions of his fellows. He can enlighten or misinform, persuade or threaten, reward or punish. In many ways he can weight the scale of his neighbor's mind.

But such influences are not all-powerful, and only within limits can we bend other wills to follow a course prescribed for them by our own.

Nevertheless, even beyond those limits, the att.i.tude of a man's mind toward the actions of his neighbor may be a volitional one. His will may be for them or against them; he may approve or disapprove, command or prohibit. We know quite well that commands and prohibitions laid upon children and servants will not always be effective, yet we issue general commands and prohibitions, as though a.s.suming unlimited control. It is quite in accordance with usage to speak of a man as willing an end, even where it is clearly recognized that the will to attain does not guarantee attainment. The man does what he can; could he do more he would do so; in his helplessness the att.i.tude of the will persists unchanged.