Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/190

 1?6 F. H. BEADLEY: THE DEFINITION OF WILL. sist in its own psychical inertia. 1 And the extent of the existence and the inertia may be inconsiderable. In other words the resistance to some special change may be no more than a resistance to change in general. But this resistance, it is clear, may in some cases amount to very little, (iii.) We may have in volition a forecast and an ex- pectation of the result, and this may be strong and may be definite in various degrees. And in some cases its strength and detail may tend to overpower the actual fact. The idea may, before the act, so prevail against the perceived existence as in part to suppress my experience of activity against an opposing not-self. I do not mean that this experience can in will be wholly suppressed, but it may be reduced in some cases to an amount which is hardly noticeable. In brief within the act of volition our experience is both complex and variable, and to try to enter on these variations would be a lengthy task. But everywhere the main essence of volition remains one and the same, and that essence, I venture to think, has been described by us correctly. In the next article I shall discuss the alleged plurality of typical volitions, and shall briefly deal with errors which prevail on the subject of aversion. Then, after disposing of some minor points, I shall finally inquire how and by what means the idea comes to realise itself in fact. 1 1 shall return to the subject of inertia in my next article.