Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/323

 TYPES OF WILL. 307 them, it applies the same term, 'choice,' to both; and it means by the term a complex type of will. But one of them is fictitious choice embodying only a simple volition. Fictitious choice is not a selection between conflicting motives : it may deal with desires and decide between them ; but its decision is a judgment. It has like all judgment the character of truth or falsity : and like all judgment which resolves a doubt and disjunctive question, it selects one of the conflicting ideas of the state of doubt : but it does not select one of the conflicting motives. It may affirm that one desire is better, the other worse ; that one is stronger, the other weaker ; that one road is longer, the other shorter ; and if the question has been which of them is better or stronger, or shorter, it decides, selects, banishes doubt and assumes the externals of a volition ; but its fictitious character is most clearly exposed where it is followed by a genuine choice which makes an opposite selection. It may select the shorter, and the will may select the longer : it may select the better, and the will may follow the worse : it may select the stronger, and the will may reinforce the weaker. The choosing will does not affirm the qualities of its motives nor their relative strength, nor the best means to their fulfilment : it simply decides between their rival cona- tions. The will cannot judge in the sense of affirming what is true or false. Its " I will do this " is neither true nor false in the same sense in which a judgment is true or false : it does not become true when its end is realised, nor false when it fails. Though we may lie and say, "I will do this," meaning it not, the lie attaches only to the judgment; and our inward and hidden intent, though it only becomes self-conscious in a judgment, is no more a judgment than desire is, and is neither true nor false. We have seen in former types how a judgment may assume the character of a simple volition ; we see in the present type how it may assume the character of complex volition or choice. V. INVOLUNTARY ACTION. An involuntary action is well defined by Mr. Stout to be " one which takes place in opposition to a voluntary resolu- tion which exists simultaneously with it and is not displaced by it". 1 We often do what is contrary to our intention with- out anticipating the result ; as where a child in trying to help hinders some one. But the involuntary actions we are to 1 MIND, N.S., vol. v., p. 356.