become
powerful mental groups, which spring up independent of the psychical
mechanism as often as kindred ideas appear in the mind. In the
presence of these they now make manifest their apperceiving power. We
measure and estimate them now according to universal laws. They are,
so to speak, the eyes and hand of the will, with which, regulating and
supplementing, rejecting and correcting, it lays a grasp upon the
content as well as upon the succession of ideas. They hinder the
purely mechanical flow of thought and desire, and our involuntary
absorption in external impressions and in the varied play of fancy. We
learn how to control religious impulses by laws, to rule thoughts by
thoughts. In the place of the mechanical, appears the regulated course
of thinking; in the place of the psychical rule of caprice, the
monarchical control of higher laws and principles, and the spontaneity
of the ego as the kernel of the personality. By the aid of
apperception, therefore, we are lifted gradually from psychical bondage
to mental and moral freedom. And now when ideal norms are
apperceivingly active in the field of knowledge and thought, of feeling
and will, when they give laws to the psychical mechanism, true culture
is attained." (Lange's Apperception, edited by DeGarmo, p. 99, etc.)

NOTE.--The freedom with which we quote extensively from Lange is an
acknowledgement of the importance of his treatise. We are indebted to
it throughout for many of the ideas treated.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WILL.

We have now completed the discussion of the concept-bearing or
inductive process in learning and apperception, and find that they both
tend to the unifying of knowledge and to the awakening of interest.

It remains to be seen how the will may be brought into activity and
placed in command of the resources of the mind.

The _will_ is that power of the mind which chooses, decides, and
controls action.

According to psychology there are three distinct activities of the
mind, _knowing_, _feeling_, and _willing_. These three powers are
related to one another on a basis of equality, and yet the will should
become the _monarch of the mind_. It is expected that all the other
activities of the mind will be brought into subjection to the will.
For strong _character_ resides in the will. Strength of character
depends entirely upon the mastery which the will has acquired over the
life; and _the formation of character_, as shown