Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/318

 302 ALEXANDER F. SHAND : the idea of the stronger liking, it is only in doubt which this is. This determination is partly due to the question proposed to it. If that question had been, "Which plaything will teach you more?" the idea of utility, in spite of its unattractiveness to the mind of the child, might have aroused a momentary con- flict with his inborn tendency to be guided by the stronger liking. But here the issue is simple and restricted from the outset. The child's mind is made up before it chooses, all that is left undecided is on which side its liking is stronger. When again we are on a journey, and in doubt which of two routes to choose, yet decided to take the shorter, a similar process of thought, where evidence is at hand, develops the selective judgment that abolishes the conflict, the doubt and the question. And even when in youth we deliberate what shall be our profession, if we hap- pen to be either prudently decided to adopt that which would be most for our interest, or, on the other hand, to follow our strongest inclination, a process of thought essen- tially the same, though more complex and prolonged, develops the decisive judgment which displaces it. In all similar cases, whether, as in the first, the question is, " Which of two objects is the better in some respect? " or, as in the second, " Which is the shorter way to our destination ? " or, as in the third, "Which end is better in this or that respect?" and where we are decided at the outset, whether knowingly or not, to choose the better in the way we have conceived it, then our choice is the judgment in w T hich the state of doubt and conflict culminates. Note, however, that this judgment is not merely an answer to a question asked by the intellect, but also somewhere implies will " Which shall I take?" "What shall I do?" "What shall I be?" And the answer, " This," does not only contain the judg- ment, " This is better," but, fused into one with it, the further judgment, "I will take This," "I will do This," "I will be This". What this double aspect implies will become clearer to us if we modify the kind of question to which our choice is the answer. If instead of asking, "Which shall I take?" "What shall I do?" "What shall I be?" we ask, "What will be given to me?" "What will be done to me?" "What shall I become?" we feel that the answer to these three questions cannot reveal will, while the answer to the former, in the common mean- ing of the word, must reveal it. There is a difference be- tween them. The questions that provoke will have a specific character distinguishing them from other questions. It is obvious that the first three concern the agency of the self,