To this last form of expression objection may be made on the score of its vagueness. What does it mean for the self to "identify" itself with a desire? And if such an identification is necessary to will, can there be volition or anything resembling volition where self-consciousness has not yet been developed? It is very imperfectly developed in young children, and in the lower animals still less developed, if at all; and yet we see in them the struggle of desires and the resultant decision emerging in action. If we call a volition in which consciousness of the self has played its part "volition proper," it still remains to inquire how volitions on a lower plane are to be distinguished from mere desires. What happens in a typical case of deliberation and decision? Two or more objects are before the mind and the attention occupies itself with them successively. Tensions alternate, wax strong and die away, only to recover their strength again. Finally the attention fixes upon one object to the exclusion of others, the strife of desires come to an end, and there is an inception of action in the direction of the realization of that particular desire. The desire itself is not to be confounded with the decision; the tension, with its release. The psychic fact is in the two cases different. The decision brings relief from the strain. It cannot properly be called a desire, not even a triumphant desire, although in it a desire attains a victory and its realization has begun. Such a victory not all desires, even when most intense and prolonged, are able to attain. We have seen that the desire for the unattainable may amount to an obsession, and yet it will not ripen into an act of volition. The release of the tension in incipient action does not come. The bent bow remains bent. From the sense of strain in such a case one may be freed, as one is freed from the desires which succumb during the process of deliberation, by the occupation of the attention with other things. But the desire has been forgotten, not satisfied. It may at any time recur in all its strength. We cannot more nearly describe the psychic fact called decision. Just as we cannot more nearly describe the psychic fact to which we have given the name "tension." Although the nervous basis of the phenomena of desire and will are unknown, we can easily conceive that, during desire, and before desire has resulted in the release of energy which is the immediate forerunner of action, the cerebral occurrence should be different from that which is present when that release takes place. Nor should it be surprising that the psychical fact corresponding to each should be different.