§ I. Voluntary Action. § II. The Causality of Will. § III. Relation of the Individual to the General Will. § IV. Character as the Ultimate Cause of Will.

WHEN we were considering will in its significance as an elementary psychical phenomenon, we found that the facts comprehended under the term constituted the links in a chain of development. The lower stages of this development, simple voluntary acts, were classed together as manifestations of impulse; the higher stages, acts of choice, as those of volition proper. In reviewing the expressions of instinct we have become familiar with a whole number of phenomena whose invariable mental condition is some impulsive act, while at the same time the peculiarities of the physical organisation exercise a determining influence upon their development. It now remains to consider briefly the second and higher form of voluntary activity, volition proper, in its relation to the entirety of conscious processes.