§ 4. Voluntary Decision. — The phrase voluntary decision is ambiguous. It may mean the transition from the state of suspense to the state of

or it may mean the state of resolution when it has once been attained. It will be simplest to treat first the decision as already formed, the state of being resolved. The most obvious difference between the state of indecision and that of decision is that in the first we do not know what we are going to do, and that in the second we do know what we are going to do. While deliberating, we are making up our mind, and we do not know what our mind is going to be. When we have formed a decision, we have come to know our own minds. The conception of the Self has become fixed where it was previously indeterminate. The realisation of one line of cognitive tendency is now definitely anticipated as part of our future lifehistory, so far at least as external conditions will allow of its execution. Opposing cognitive tendencies either cease to operate, or they appear only as difficulties or obstacles in the way of carrying out our decision. They are no longer regarded as possible motives of action. We have come to the settled belief that, so far as we are concerned in our present state of mind, the lines of action to which they prompt will not be carried out. They are thus placed outside the sphere of deliberation, and in consequence cease to be motives. If they persist at all, they merely serve to make the execution of our voluntary decision more painful and difficult. But they do not on that account impair the strength of this decision; on the contrary, they may only give an opportunity for exhibiting the strength of the decision. With the full emergence of the decision, the conflict of motives, as such, ceases. "This termination of the struggle does not merely mean that one impulse or group of impulses has turned out to be stronger than its opponents. It might conceivably manifest its superior strength without a cessation of conflict. When two unequal and opposite forces are applied to a particle, the particle will move in the direction of the stronger force; but the action of the weaker force still continues to manifest itself in a diminution of velocity. The triumph of the voluntary impulse is not of this kind. In a perfect volition, opposing impulses are not merely held in check; they are driven out of the field. If they continue to exist, they do so as external obstacles to a volition already formed. They are no longer motives; they are on the same footing with any other difficulty in the way of attainment."*

* Article by author on "Voluntary Action," Mind, n.s., vol. v., No. 19, p. 357.

On the other hand, the motives which in the process of deliberation arrayed themselves on the side of the course of action that actually comes to be adopted, persist after deliberation is over, as the recognised motives of the voluntary decision. We will the act, because we desire it, or at least have an aversion to omitting it, or to its alternatives. Thus, the state of voluntary decision may be analysed as follows: (1) there is the belief that so far as in us lies we are going to carry out a certain course of action; (2) this belief is founded on that kind of reason which we call a motive. It is recognised as having ground in our present cognitive tendencies. Thus we may define a Volition as a desire qualified and defined by the judgment that so far as in us lies we shall bring about the attainment of the desired end because we desire it.