GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE PROBLEM OF FREE WILL 26 1
in other words, the more frequently ,do we perform what I
have defined as willed as compared with voluntary actions.
It is difficult not to recognize the force of Aristotle's view.
Actions which spring from one or other of the particular im-
pulses belong precisely to that class of action to which the
arguments based upon the conclusions of the sciences an-
thropology, biology, psychology and the rest most forcibly
apply. For to act from impulse if, indeed, we ever do
act purely from impulse, and I am for the purpose of argument
imagining an extreme case, which may be a hypo-r
thetical case, in which we do so act is to express as it
were a particular "part" or "bit" of oneself. Now it is
precisely in so far as a human being can be regarded as
made up of parts precisely in so far as we are able to see
him as a collection of bits which can be separated, so that
we can see what he is made up of that, I have suggested, his
actions wear a determined appearance. It is only in so
far as he acts as a whole as a whole, that is to say, which
is more than the sum of its parts that he may be able to
escape complete determination by the thousand and one
influences of heredity, constitution, training and so forth,
that play upon him. What is popularly known as the forma*
tion of character, may, then, from the point of view of the
present discussion, be regarded as the building up of a
personality which, in so far as it is entitled to be regarded
as a whole, both integrates and transcends the parts which
have gone to its making.
Freedom a Negative Conception. The fact that it is
only for acts which may properly be regarded as expressions
of the whole personality that the claim to a measure
of freedom can in any event plausibly be made, suggests
a new and important point. Freedom of the will is in
essence a negative conception. It is freedom from domina-
tion by particular influences, those, namely, which the
various sciences investigate and emphasize. These influences
may be thought .of as hampering the operations of our
reason and blurring the clearness of our vision; and, since