The theory of the necessitarian assumes that the will is a mere passivity, a simple conductor of the impulse which motive power exerts, a mere transition-point where ideal force is transformed into physical force, and desires, inclinations, moral convictions, divine influences become necessary acts. Motives thus prevail by their antecedent intrinsic power just as physical forces prevail in mechanical and vital dynamics. And, proceeding upon this assumption, he labors to construct a science of Ethology in which he would anticipate human action by statistics, and show how individual character _must_ be in accordance with physical and mental causation. Whereas consciousness asserts that the will "is not a bleak mechanical thing." It is a free alternative power. It is a full, complete, adequate cause. It is _spirit_, not matter. Now it is freely granted that the mind acts in view of motives, acts in accordance with motives, acts in a certain qualified sense under the influence of motives; _but the freedomist emphatically denies that the will is necessitated to action by motives_. Motives may be reason _for_ action, conditions under which will acts, but they are not causes _of_ action. They may solicit, invite, urge to action, but they can not constrain, compel, and force action.[540] Motives have no fixed correlation to the will. They address themselves to the feelings, the judgment, the conscience, and not directly and immediately to the will. They may awaken desire, fear, inclination, preference, a sense of obligation; but these are all states of the intellect and sensibility, and may coexist in the same mind with a state of indetermination and non-differentiation in the will. That which is desirable may appeal to the feelings, that which is eligible to the judgment, that which is obligatory to the conscience, and these may excite the mind in different degrees of intensity; but none of them have power to move the will. We may be able intellectually to perceive that some motives are intrinsically "higher" than others, that some have a prevolition power to excite all minds more intensely than others; but they do not prevail and secure action in any ratio with their supposed _à priori_ strength. They can only become real motives for the will by its voluntary placing its interest in them and making them objects of its choice.[541] All the actual strength which a motive has is derived from the action of the will. On this subject we offer the following propositions: