Humanity’s First Exam1850–1940 ⇄ now

1920 · English · United States

Collected Essays and Reviews

William James

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Passage selected for Humanity's First Exam
But who shall decide? The argumentation of Bain that as a matter of fact men always do expect each other to act with predictable uniformity is — sit venia verho — rubbish. It could never be urged by one who was not already on other grounds prejudiced in favor of determinism. In one of his earliest works, Helmholtz, who as well as any living man may claim to give voice to the scientific spirit, says that when the proximate causes of phenomena are alterable themselves, we must seek further for a cause of their alteration, and so on till we reach an unalterable principle. “Now, whether [he continues], all events are to be carried back to such causes, whether nature be fully explicable, or whether changes occur in it which do not fall under the law of necessary causality, and do consequently belong to the realm of freedom or spontaneity, cannot now be decided.

Bain and Renouvier · p. 29 · line 119629

2 selected passages and classifications

Passage 1

For him it is merely a question as to the ambiguity of certain futures, those human acts, namely, which are preceded by deliberation. What are the phenomena here? A representation arises in a mind, but ere it can discharge itself into a train of action, it is inhibited by another which confronts it. This, on the point of discharging itself, is again checked by the first, which returns with a reinforced intensity, and so for a time the pendulum swings to and fro, till finally one or the other representation recurs with such a degree of reinforcement that the tumult ceases, and an act, a decision for the future, or the arrest of a passionate impulse takes place. This stable survival of one representation is called a volition.
Free will and automatismCognition, attention, and judgmentselection and judgment · reports or quoteseffective will · considersMetaphysics of mind and lifeMeaning, experience, and interpretationConditional or mixedIndividualMind and body

In his account of Renouvier, James describes deliberation as a contest among representations whose settled survival constitutes volition.

“Bain and Renouvier,” p. 28

Passage 2

The point of application of the volitional effort always lies within the inner world, being an idea or representation of afferent sensations of some sort. From its intrinsic nature or from the presence of other ideas, this representation may spontaneously tend to lapse from vivid and stable consciousness. Mental effort may then accompany its maintenance. Attention, belief, affirmation, and motor volition are thus four names for an identical process, incidental to the conflict of ideas alone, the survival of one in spite of the opposition of others.
Cognition, attention, and judgmentFree will and automatismHabit and self-commandselection and judgment · advancesthe practical wager · considersScientific or empirical evidenceMeaning, experience, and interpretationConditional or mixedIndividualMind and body

James treats attention, belief, and motor volition as one selective process: mental effort is the maintenance of an idea against competing ideas.

“The Feeling of Effect,” pp. 217–18

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