The practical significance of hypnotism arises at the point where it come3 in contact with the will. For the layman, therefore, who desires an intelligent acquaintance with the general import of hypnotic phenomena, this phase of the subject is probably of more importance than any other. The present paper offers an outline sketch of the fundamental facts and relations which are here involved. It will be convenient to consider first the certain rudimentary facts about the will itself, reserving for subsequent discussion its behavior under hypnosis. So many serious misconceptions are prevalent regarding the nature of the will, that we shall devote a somewhat disproportionate part of our space to its consideration. This is the more necessary, inasmuch as erroneous impressions on this point are fatal to any intelligent appreciation of the significance of hypnotism.

Common parlance and popular prejudice are at one in regarding the will as some kind of independent entity, to which all other mental faculties are subordinate. Thus a man's failure to resist temptation is often referred to his failure to exercise his will as though his will were a separate member, like his arm, which he might utilize or neglect as he pleased. For purely practical purposes, such a conception as this is often sufficiently accurate. But modern psychology, in its search for a. really scientific knowledge of the mind, has had to discard this idea of the will as purely fictitious. All its efforts to discover any such independent sovereign have issued in failure. It has, however, replaced this old fashioned myth with a much more substantial and intelligible representative. This will of modern psychology is neither more nor less than the whole mind viewed as active, as choosing, selecting, deliberating:, etc.

It is not possible, at this time, to examine all the evidence for this psychological doctrine. But the most cursory examination of any typical instance of the exercise of will, reveals the presence of factors due to numerous other mental processes, and so displays at once the fallacy of the conception of a will acting in independence of the other parts of the mind. The man deliberating whether he shall give alms to the pathetic beggar has his mind filled with various antagonistic ideas, which depend upon his powers of memory. His recollections of previous frauds perpetrated by beggars, his reminiscences of sociological doctrines, condemnatory of miscellaneous philanthropy, all struggle against his tendency to give. His vision of the suffering which may ensue from his refusal, involves the most vivid activity of his imagination. Moreover, the whole situation appeals to his emotions and feelings and it becomes at once obvious that his decision so far from being the expression of an isolated faculty of will, is wholly the outcome of processes in which memory, imagination and feeling are all conspicuous.

The simplest method for securing a definite impression of the significance of this view of the will, as equivalent to the whole mind regarded as active, is gained by looking at the facts of development in the child. The infant is endowed at birth with a nervous system in which are imbedded numerous tendencies for the production of impulsive and instinctive movements. The act of sucking, for example, belongs to the instinctive class; the random spasmodic movements of the child's limbs belong to the impulsive acts. These activities subserve two useful purposes. In the first place, they bring the child into contact with new portions of his environment and so get up the sensational and perceptive processes by means of which he comes to know his world. In the second place, they teach the child what feelings belong to the movements of his several members, and so furnish him with the rudiments of voluntary control; viz., the control of his muscles. The child obviously cannot will to raise his hand, until he knows what it is to raise his hand, that is to say - what it feels like. Before he gets his experience by means of these impulsive movements, he cannot know what to will at, his willing can have no object.

What is true of so simple a matter as raising the hand is clearly much more significant when we come to the complex cases of adult conduct, involving long and complicated activities like writing and speaking. We cannot, in any true sense, will complex acts before we have had some knowledge of such acts, so that our willing may have some object. We must have some ideas representing the acts at which mentally we may aim. And we cannot execute the muscular movements expressive of such willing, until we have learned to control our muscles through the experiences already described as going on in infancy and childhod. It is thus seen that volition, in the form with which as adults we are most familiar, is a highly developed result, based on the employment of sensations and ideas, which serve as the symbols of certain movements. Investigation shows that by calling up these ideas and fixing our attention rigidly upon them, the appropriate movement follows,whether it be a contraction of the muscles used in enunciation or of those involved in walking. From this fact it ensues that attention is the all-important element in the execution of a volition. What we attend to, we do, other things equal. Why this should be so is another question.

Psychologists are, however, practically unanimous in their agreement, that the only thing which normally prevents any idea, to which we attend, from issuing at once in appropriate action, is the presence of some one or more antagonistic ideas. In every case of difficulty in reaching a decision, whether the difficulty is purely intellectual, as in the case of a complex mathematical problem, or more distinctly emotional as in the case of moral crises, it will be found that the hard thing is the attending to one idea. Other competitors will force themselves upon our attention. When finally we do succeed in holding one idea firmly before us to the exclusion of others, the struggle is over and the decision is made.