Whitman, Walt, 192 Will, free, 4; individual and social, 17; popular view of, 18; is it externally determined?, 18 f, 32 f; activity of, reflects society, 38 f William the Silent, 314 Withdrawal, physical, 219; imaginative, 220 ff Wrong, as the irrational, 329; emphasized by example, 356; degeneracy as, 372 ff; idea of, 377; not always opposed by conscience, 385 f; the unfree, 396 Wundt, on “Ich,” 138 Youth, sense of, 128, 280 ----- Footnote 1: Also free will, determinism, egoism, and altruism, which involve, in my opinion, a kindred misconception. Footnote 2: It should easily be understood that one who agrees with what was said in the preceding chapter about the relation between society and the individual, can hardly entertain the question whether the individual will is free or externally determined. This question assumes as true what he holds to be false, namely that the particular aspect of mankind is separable from the collective aspect. The idea underlying it is that of an isolated fragment of life, the will, on the one hand, and some great mass of life, the environment, on the other; the question being which of these two antithetical forces shall be master. If one, then the will is free; if the other, then it is determined. It is as if each man’s mind were a castle besieged by an army, and the question were whether the army should make a breach and capture the occupants. It is hard to see how this way of conceiving the matter could arise from a direct observation of actual social relations. Take, for instance, the case of a member of Congress, or of any other group of reasoning, feeling, and mutually influencing creatures. Is he free in relation to the rest of the body or do they control him? The question appears senseless. He is influenced by them and also exerts an influence upon them. While he is certainly not apart from their power, he is controlled, if we use that word, _through_ his own will and not in spite of it. And it seems plain enough that a relation similar in kind holds between the individual and the nation, or between the individual and humanity in general. If you think of human life as a whole and of each individual as a member and not a fragment, as, in my opinion, you must if you base your thoughts on a direct study of society and not upon metaphysical or theological preconceptions, the question whether the will is free or not is seen to be meaningless. The individual will appears to be a specialized part of the general life, more or less divergent from other parts and possibly contending with them; but this very divergence is a part of its function—just as a member of Congress serves that body by urging his particular opinions—and in a large view does not separate but unites it to life as a whole. It is often necessary to consider the