Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/401

No. 4.] earliest stages of life. But as soon as memory and association can act to call up with a present sensation some past experience the worth of the two may be compared, and the causal nexus between sensations and volition having been broken by the inhibition, the motive to action must come from the ideational centre, and it may or may not conform with the original inclination. It must be observed, however, that this motive is not contributed by the external impression or the sensation although they are instrumental in its occurrence, but is an original and creative product of the ideational centre so far as its form and matter are concerned. This motive is an efficient cause precisely as any motive may be supposed to be. But not only is its efficiency as well as its existence found outside of the mechanical series represented by objective impressions and their immediate termination in motor discharges independent of the interposition of consciousness, but its efficient power does not appear until it first occurs as a final cause. As soon as an idea becomes an end or represents an object of the will, it may have efficiency to move the will, but not before. The end is a pure contribution of the ideational centre, and as the efficiency of this end as a motive awaits ideational activity to decide what shall be the final cause or ratio agendi, the cause of the volition comes wholly from within. Perhaps the necessity for willing one way or the other is determined by external conditions; but, as we see from the nature of the ideational centres and their deliberative functions, the action willed, the alternative elected, is due to the mind, and not to the outer stimulus. Any such necessity created by external conditions may limit our responsibility but not our freedom, which is merely the self-initiative of ideational centres, instead of being an impulse in a causal series initiated by an external and mechanical impression.

It remains only to show the extent in which ideational centres are inhibitive and promotive of opportunities for reflection, as against the instantaneous reactions from present impressions, reflex, sensational, or emotional. In the first place the fact that consciousness of whatever degree is in its nature an inhibitive force, whatever else it may be, is sufficiently proved by two well