[53] I must ask the reader to distinguish carefully the question discussed in this chapter, which relates to the _objects_ of desires and aversions, from the different question whether the _causes_ of these impulses are always to be found in antecedent experiences of pleasure and pain. The bearing of this latter question on Ethics, though not unimportant, is manifestly more indirect than that of the question here dealt with: and it will be convenient to postpone it till a later stage of the discussion. Cf. _post_, Book ii. chap. vi. § 2, and Book iv. chap. iv. § 1. CHAPTER V FREE WILL § 1. In the preceding chapters I have treated first of rational, and secondly of disinterested action, without introducing the vexed question of the Freedom of the Will. The difficulties connected with this question have been proved by long dialectical experience to be so great, that I am anxious to confine them within as strict limits as I can, and keep as much of my subject as possible free from their perturbing influence. And it appears to me that we have no psychological warrant for identifying Disinterested with either “Free” or “Rational” action; while to identify Rational and Free action is at least misleading, and tends to obscure the real issue raised in the Free Will controversy. In the last chapter I have tried to show that action strictly disinterested, that is, disregardful of foreseen balance of pleasure to ourselves, is found in the most instinctive as well as in the most deliberate and self-conscious region of our volitional experience. And rational action, as I conceive it, remains rational, however completely the rationality of any individual’s conduct may be determined by causes antecedent or external to his own volition: so that the conception of acting rationally, as explained in the last chapter but one, is not bound up with the notion of acting ‘freely,’ as maintained by Libertarians generally against Determinists. I say “Libertarians generally,” because in the statements made by disciples of Kant as to the connexion of Freedom and Rationality, there appears to me to be a confusion between two meanings of the term Freedom, which require to be carefully distinguished in any discussion of Free Will. When a disciple of Kant[54] says that a man “is a free agent in so far as he acts under the guidance of reason,” the statement easily wins assent from ordinary readers; since, as Whewell says, we ordinarily “consider our Reason as being ourselves rather than our desires and affections. We speak of Desire, Love, Anger, as mastering _us_, or of _ourselves_ as controlling them. If we decide to prefer some remote and abstract good to immediate pleasures, or to conform to a rule which brings us present pain (which decision implies exercise of Reason), we more particularly consider such acts as our _own_ acts.”[55] I do not, therefore, object on the score of usage to this application of the term “free” to denote voluntary actions in which