Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/189

 THE DEFINITION OF WILL. 175 which our attention and our one-sided emphasis bestows the appearance of a separate existence. But this is a point with which for our present purpose we are not further concerned. And when this reply, together with what precedes it, is fairly considered, the objection to the use of activity in a lower sense may, I hope, be removed. And it will be impossible from this ground to argue against the presence of a self- realising idea in our experience of agency. I will end our inquiry into this difficult point by reminding the reader that in one sense I attach to it no great value. We have, I think, a natural tendency to make use of activity and of passivity in cases where the experience of agency is absent. And for myself I am ready to permit within limits and to justify this use, but on the other side I am also ready to condemn and to disallow it. But in the latter case, if we may not distinguish between activity and agency, we must at least distinguish both from a lower experience. There will be an experience, such as we have described, which falls short of agency, and which, if it is not to be called active and passive, must at least in some way be recognised. This lower experience, if left unrecognised in fact, becomes a dangerous source of confusion and mistake ; but on the other hand the name which we are to apply to it is a matter of secondary concern. We have now discussed the sense in which the self in will is identified with an idea, and in connexion with this have inquired into our experience of activity and agency, and we have asked how far these two should be regarded as distinct. Our space has been too short for a satisfactory treatment of such problems, even if otherwise such a treatment were within my power. There remain various questions with regard to the practical relation and its opposition of the not-self to the idea and to the self. I can however do no more here than notice some points in passing, (i.) In the first place this opposition is, I should say, in no case motion- less and fixed. The idea, if it does not at once realise itself, will ebb and flow, and, as against the not-self, will at its boundary more or less waver. There will be a constant movement, however slight, of passing forward into fact and of again falling back, (ii.) The opposition of the not-self may again be so transitory and so weak that it fails to give us in the proper sense an awareness of resistance. The existence to be changed by the idea may be more or less isolated. It may find little support in any connexions with the self and the world, and its strength may be said to con-