Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/162

Rh word involves this dramatic imitation of the act named, how much more would the thought involve the dramatic repetition of the act, if one were to dwell upon the nature of this act, and were fully to realize its nature in his own mind. So much then for psychological illustration of the view that we are here advancing. If two opposing fashions of action are present to our minds, and if mentally we are trying to realize them both, then mentally we are seeking to reproduce them both. Our skeptical hesitation between them expresses our effort to attain mentally both these ends at once. For what we have said about bodily acts will apply equally well to what we usually call mental acts, and even to general resolutions, all of which have a physical side, and are apt to be symbolized by some bodily gesture that we mentally or outwardly repeat when we think of the act or of the resolution in question.

But all this is not a bare accident of the psychological structure of our minds; it is a philosophical necessity. What represents a Will but a Will? Who would know what it is to have an end unless he actually had ends himself? Who can realize a given aim save by somehow repeating it in himself? And so it is rationally and universally necessary that one shall realize the end of a moral system by reproducing in himself the will that accepts this end. But, on the other hand, in so far forth as he reproduces this will alone, he cannot refrain from accepting the end. In so far forth as he reproduces this will, it is his will. And the end is his end. Therefore our skepticism itself was a hesitation, resulting from the