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.But this doctrine of the primarily inhibitive character of the voli-tional process is, I think, a false scent; and it is not to be expected thatwe can successfully trace back the process, if we make this false startWhat gives it a certain plausibility is the fact that volitional attention,like all attention, involves inhibition of all presentations other than theone held at the focus of consciousness; but this inhibition is a secondaryor collateral result of the essential process, which is primarily a re-enforcement of the one idea, the idea of the end that we will.Throughoutthe nervous system, with the exception possibly of those most primitiveparts directly concerned in the control of the visceral organs, inhibitionalways has this character, appears always as the negative aspect, orcomplementary result, of a positive process of innervation.There is nogood evidence of inhibiting impulses sent out to the muscles of the vol-untary system; and we control involuntary tendencies either by inner-vating antagonistic muscles, or by directing our attention elsewhere byan effort of will; that is to say, by concentrating the energy of the mindand nervous system in one direction we withdraw it from, or prevent itsflowing in, any other direction.We may see this most clearly when weattempt to exert volitional control over the deep-seated sensation-re-flexes, such as the tendency to sneeze or the tendency to flinch under asudden pain or threat.Most of us learn to suppress a sneeze by volitionallyaccentuating the energy of the respiratory movements  we make regu-lar, rapid and forced inspirations and expirations; and in order to avoidflinching or winking we strongly innervate some group of muscles, per-haps almost the whole muscular system, but most habitually and moststrongly the muscles of the jaw, brow, and hands.And all the otherinstances of inhibitions that play so large a part in our mental and ner-vous life appear to be of this type, the supplementary or negative as-pects of positive excitations.104 We must not, then, reverse the order, asWundt and James do, in the case of volition and make inhibition theprimary and essential aspect of the process.We must conclude that vo-lition essentially involves a positive increase of the energy with whichan idea maintains itself in consciousness and plays its part in determin-ing bodily and mental processes.So we come back from our brief discussion of the views of otherwriters to the position that in the typical case of volition, when in theconflict of two motives the will is thrown on the side of one of them andAn Introduction to Social Psychology/171we make a volitional decision, we in some way add to the energy withwhich the idea of the one desired end maintains itself in opposition to itsrival.This conclusion constitutes an important step towards the answerto the question with which we set out Is volition merely a speciallycomplex conjunction of the conative tendencies of the two kinds that wehave recognised from the outset? For it shows us that the essential op-eration of volition is the same as that of desire, namely, the holding theidea of the end at the focus of consciousness so that it works stronglytowards the realisation of its end, prevailing over rival ideas and tenden-cies.We are now in a position to follow up the clue that we left on oneside some little way back.We recognised that in the typical case ofvolition a man s self, in some peculiarly intimate sense of the word self, is thrown upon the side of the motive that is made to prevail.That the empirical self, the idea of his self that each man entertains,plays an essential part in volition has been widely recognised.The rec-ognition seems to be implied by the obscure dictum, approved by Mr.Bradley and several other writers, that in volition we identify the selfwith the end of the action.It was expressed by Dr.Stout when he wrotethat the judgment,  I am going to do this is the essential feature ofvolition by which it is distinguished from desire; and it is more clearlyexpressed in his latest volume,105 where he writes,  What is distinctiveof voluntary decision is the intervention of self-consciousness as a co-operating factor. But he does not, I think, make quite clear how self-consciousness plays this role.106No mere idea has a motive power that can for a moment withstandthe force of strong desire, except only the pathologically fixed ideas ofaction, and the quasi-pathological ideas of action introduced to the mindby hypnotic suggestion.107 And the idea of the self is no exception tothis rule.The idea of the self, or self-consciousness, is able to play itsgreat role in volition only in virtue of the self-regarding sentiment, thesystem of emotional and conative dispositions that is organised aboutthe idea of the self and is always brought into play to some extent whenthe idea of the self rises to the focus of consciousness.The conations,the desires and aversions, arising within this self-regarding sentimentare the motive forces which, adding themselves to the weaker idealmotive in the case of moral effort, enable it to win the mastery oversome stronger, coarser desire of our primitive animal nature and to172/William McDougallbanish from consciousness the idea of the end of this desire.In the absence of a strong self-regarding sentiment, the idea of theself, no matter how rich and how accurate its content, can play but afeeble part in the regulation of conduct, and can exert little or no influ-ence in moral choice [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]