ing the Spell.= When once we bring up into consciousness these
hidden desires that manifest themselves in such troublesome ways, we
find that we have robbed them of much of their power over our lives.
Sometimes, it is true, a detailed and thorough exploration by
psycho-analysis is necessary, but in many cases it is sufficient just
to know that there are underlying causes. To know these things is far
from excusing ourselves because of them. Even though emotions are
determined by forces that are deep in the subconscious, we may still
choose in opposition to those forces, if we but know that we can do
so. The fact that some of the roots of our bad habits reach down into
the subconscious is no excuse for not digging them up. As Dr. Putnam
says, "It is the whole of us that acts, and we are as responsible for
the supervision of the unseen as for the obvious factors that are at
work. The moon may be only half illumined and half visible, but the
invisible half goes on, none the less, exerting its full share of
influence on the motion of the tides and earth."[64]

[Footnote 64: Putnam: _Freud's Psychoanalytic Method and Its
Evolution_, p. 34.]

THE HIGHEST KIND OF CHOICE

There is no easier way to enliven any conversation than by dropping
the remark that a human being always does what he wants to do. Simple
as the statement seems, it is quite enough to quicken the dullest
table-talk and loosen the most reticent tongue.

"I don't do what I want to do," says the college student. "I want to
play tennis every afternoon; but what I do is to sit in a stuffy room
and study."

"I don't do what I want to do," says the mother of a family. "At night
I want to sit down and read the latest magazine, but what I do is to
darn stockings by the hour."

Nevertheless we shall see that, even in cases like these, each of us
is acting in accordance with his strongest desire. There may be--there
often is--a bitter conflict, but in the end the desire that is really
stronger always conquers and works itself out into action.

It is possible to imagine a situation in which a man would be
physically unable to do what he wanted to do. Bound by physical cords,
held by prison walls, or weakened by illness, he might be actually
unable to carry out his desires. But apart from physical restraint, it
is hard to imagine a situation in real life in which a person does not
actually do what he wants to do; that is, what _in the circumstances
he wants to do