This next and highest sphere is action from the general or abstract
thoughts which we have been able to work up by the apperceiving
activity of the mind. In this sphere we have a special name for those
thoughts which influence us directly and lead us to action: we call
such thoughts Motives. We also have a special name for the sort of
action which is prompted by clearly-thought-out motives: Will. But in
spite of this emphasis given to certain actions of ours as springing
from what is called Will, we must be careful to see that Will is not a
new faculty, or capacity, added to mind, and which is different from
the ways of action which the mind had before the Will arose. Will is
only a name for the action upon suggestions of conduct which are so
clear in our minds that we are able to deliberate upon them, acting
only after some reflection, and so having a sense that the action
springs from our own choice. The real reasons for action, however, are
thoughts, in this case, just as in the earlier cases they were. In
this case we call them Motives; but we are dependent upon these
Motives, these Suggestions; we can not act without Motives, nor can we
fail to act on those Motives which we have; just as, in the earlier
cases, we could not act without some sort of Perceptions or
Imaginations or Memories, and we could not fail to act on the
Perceptions or other mental states which we had. Voluntary action or
Will is therefore only a complex and very highly conscious case of the
general law of Motor Suggestion; it is the form which suggested action
takes on when Apperception is at its highest level.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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