Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/272

 240 THE WILL IN NATURE.

for this is in both cases the will, but only what is secondary, the rousing of the will's manifestation: it has to do with the determination whether causes proper, stimuli, or motives (i.e. causes having passed through the medium of knowledge) are the guidance under which that manifestation takes place. It is in human consciousness, differing from that of animals by not only containing perceptible representations but also abstract concepts independent of time-distinctions, which act simultaneously and collaterally, whereby deliberation, i.e. a conflict of motives, becomes possible. It is in human consciousness, I say, that free-will (arbitrium) in its narrowest sense first makes its appearance; and this I have called elective decision. It nevertheless merely consists in the strongest motive for a given individual character overcoming the others and thus determining the act, just as an impact is overcome by a stronger counter-impact, the result thus ensuing with precisely the same necessity as the movement of a stone that has been struck. That all great thinkers in all ages were decided and at one on this point 1, is just as certain, as that the multitude will never understand, never grasp, the important truth, that the work of our freedom must not be sought in our individual actions but in our very existence and nature itself. In my prize- essay On the Freedom of the Will, I have shown this as clearly as possible. The liberum arbitrium indifferentiae [free decision of the will, not influenced in any direction] which is assumed to be the distinctive characteristic of movements proceeding from the will, is accordingly quite inadmissible: for it asserts that effects are possible without causes.

As soon therefore as we have got so far as to distinguish will [Wille] from free-will [Willkür], and to consider the latter as a particular kind or particular phenomenon of the former, we shall find no difficulty in recognising the will, even in unconscious processes. Thus the assertion,

1 Flourens has claimed that the small brain, or cerebellum, is the regulator of movement. The large brain, or cerebrum, however, is also the regulator of movement, but in a wider sense. In it the motives present themselves, which determine the will in accordance with its character. Therefore the cerebrum comprehends the resolves, determinations, or resolutions, and will guide only the details or particulars of these resolutions through the cerebellum. This cerebellum behaves thereafter to the cerebrum as a lieutenant to the general staff. My eye sees, but in order to see, it requires light. Likewise it is my will which directs my doing. It can do so, however, only by way of knowledge, which is essentially a function of the brain. Therefore the individual determinations or resolutions of the will issue from the brain. The brain is not (as Flourens has it) the seat of the will, but is merely the seat of choice, i.e., it is the place of deliberation, the workshop of resolutions, the combat place of motives, the strongest of which finaliter [finally] determines the will, by, as it were, chasing the others away and now mounting the steed. This motive now, however, is not objective, but only subjective, i.e., the strongest motive for the will that is dominant here. One imagines two humans, who have the same strength of understanding and the same education, but have very different, even opposite, characters, being in completely same situations. The motives would be the same. Likewise, the deliberation (i.e. weighing of choices) would be essentially the same because this is work of the intellect or, objectively, the brain. But the action of both humans will turn out completely opposite. Now, what brings out this difference, in that it alone decides the issue, is the will. The will alone, not the motives, moves the limbs. The will's seat is not in the brain, but it is the whole human, which is only the will's appearance, i.e. its perceived objectivity. In summary: the brain is not the seat of the will. The brain is only the seat of the motivated acts of the will &mdash; or choice (free will).