d by other
minds. Although each mind presents the feature of finality or
spontaneity, this does not hinder that it also presents the feature of
relation to other minds, which, therefore, are able to act upon it in
numberless ways. Now, whether these minds are the minds of other men, of
other intelligent beings, or of the whole World-eject, the causal
activity which is exerted upon my mind expresses itself in that mind as
a consciousness of motives. But although these motives may help to
determine my volitions, there is no reason to suppose that they are
themselves the volitions, or that without them my mind would cease to be
itself a causal agent. On the contrary, if this were supposed, the
supposition would amount to destroying the causal agency of my own mind,
which, as we have just seen, must either be original or not at all.

The way, therefore, that the matter stands is this. In so far as the
microcosm is a circumscribed system of being--a thinking substance, a
personality--it is of the nature of a first cause, free to act in any
direction as to its thinking and willing, even though its thinking
should be irrational as to truth, and its willing impossible as to
execution. But in so far as the microcosm enters into relation with the
macrocosm, the system of external causation which it encounters
determines the character of its volitions. For although these volitions
are themselves of the nature of first causes, it is no contradiction to
say that they are--at all events in large measure--determined by other
and external causes. This is no contradiction because, although they are
thus determined, it does not follow that they are thus determined
_necessarily_, and this makes all the difference between the theory of
will as bond or free. In any stream of secondary causation each member
of the series is understood to determine the next member of necessity;
and it is because this notion is imported into psychology that the
theory of determinism regards it as axiomatic that, if our volitions are
in any way caused at all, they can only be caused by way of necessity;
and hence that under the operation of any given set of motives the
action of the will can only take place in the direction of the
resultant. But any such axiom is valid only within the region of second
causes. On the hypothesis that volitions are first causes, the axiom is
irrelevant to them; for although it may be true that they are determined
by causes from wi