Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/313

 TYPES OF WILL. 297 tive and negative, but problematic in this sense they cannot be. Yet these hypothetical and disjunctive volitions are pe- culiar in their structure, and disturb all our accounts and definitions of will. In the one we do not judge that we are going to do anything. We resolve, yet without resolving to do that which we have in mind, and without resolv- ing not to do it. What is certain and above doubt, where everything depends on a supposal? Yet the volition is cer- tain, of something I am quite sure. I am quite sure that I shall act provided something else happen. But I am not sure I shall act, because I am not sure " something else " will happen. I am only sure of the relation of dependence between two events, the condition and my consequent action, but not of the happening of either. I am sure that this relation is the result of my will: I will this relation of dependence : that is the object and end of my volition. Now we have always supposed that in volition we think of the idea as about to become fact. But in hypothetical volition, what is this idea? " If he continue in his present behaviour, I shall leave." It is not the continuance of his present behaviour that I will shall become fact, nor yet the idea of my leaving. What I will is that the one event shall produce the other. Yet we cannot eliminate the unique hypothetical character of the volition ; for it is only on the supposition that the first event occurs that I will it to produce the second event. And this causal relation cannot occur without the happening of the first event ; but, as I do not will the happening of the first event, I cannot even will the occurrence of this causal relation. I will that nothing shall, in point of fact, take place ; but as before my volition oc- curred the continuance of his present behaviour might have produced any one of several consequences, the end of my volition is that it shall produce definitely one of them, namely, the fact of my leaving, and yet shall produce this one result only on the supposition that his conduct be not changed. This hypothetical form of the volition is irresolv- able ; we can neither analyse it into a categorical volition, nor interpret it by this type of will. Categorical volitions affirm that I am going or not going to do something : hypo- thetical volitions do not affirm that I am going to do any- thing. It has been maintained by some logicians that the hypo- thetical may be reduced to a categorical judgment ; and here, as in the treatment of negative volition, we must be careful