Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/159

 NEW SERIES. No. 46.] [APRIL, 1903. MIND A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY I. THE DEFINITION OF WILL. BY F. H. BEADLEY. No. II. WE have defined a volition as " the self-realisation of an idea with which the self is identified," and in the fore- going article we to some extent explained the first part of these words. I shall now proceed to show what is meant by a practical identification with self. I am in the present article still forced to assume the fact of ' ideomotor ' action, but the nature of this will be discussed on a later occasion. To ask what is meant by the identification of an idea with my self, would in the end raise the whole question of the essence and origin of consciousness. We find that self and not-self are related both theoretically and practically, and we may inquire in general if these terms and their distinctions are original and ultimate. Or, if this problem is dismissed or is placed on one side, we may discuss the question of rank and priority as between perception and will. Since practice implies knowledge we may contend that the latter must come first, or we may on the other side reduce theory to a one-sided development of the practical process. We may insist again that neither attitude is higher in rank, and that neither taken by itself is original or prior. Both appear together, we may add, as essential aspects of con- sciousness, and we might go on to investigate their exact nature when first they appear, and attempt to trace their development from their earliest forms, if not from states 10