Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/252

1925] are contained in the Self when it rises into Volition, and what the source is of the energy which it puts forth in voluntary action. Whence does this energy come? Will-energy, to be sure, will be the energy of the individual only, but it is a general principle of science, that the highest and most complex forms of anything, contain the lower and simpler elements “subsumed” in them. Now mental activity is certainly the most complex of all forms of activity (having passed through the almost infinite complexity of organism). Therefore if we find there any explanation of volitional energy, the explanation will apply in some way to nature-energy also.

But the answer as to the nature of will-energy will depend on the nature of the Self which wills, and different opinions have been held of the nature of the Self. It will be necessary for our purpose to examine these views briefly to determine whether the Self can be a source of Energy?

Is the Self a source of Energy?—Psychology shows that mind is really the unity of three correlative functions—feeling, thinking and willing, no one of which has any meaning apart from the others. But there has been a tendency in recent writing to treat them as separable from each other, and even as capable of opposing and defeating each other; or to raise one to supremacy over the others, and make that one to be practically the whole self. As these different theories of the nature of self affect the question of the origin of the self’s energy, they have to be considered separately. First, the theory—

I. That Self is essentially Feeling.—It must be admitted that Feeling is essentially the consciousness of being acted on and affected. In other words, it is the passive side of consciousness. As the self is a finite being, it lives in interaction with other finite beings, viz., the material things and the persons in the midst of which it lives.