repels."[1] Thus, if we would deliberate well, we should always bring the possible courses of action into relation to the self as a whole. The question is not, "Do I desire this glass?" It is, "Do I desire myself as a person who has drunk this glass with all its consequences?"
(2) Eventually, however long the process of deliberation may last, one alternative is chosen. Henceforth this alternative becomes identified with the self. We have come to a decision, and we hold to it. "The most obvious difference between the state of indecision and that of decision is that in the first we do not know what we are going to do, and that in the second we do know what we are going to do. While deliberating, we are making up our mind, and we do not know what our mind is going to be. When we have formed a decision we have come to know our own minds. The conception of the self has become fixed where it was previously indeterminate. The realisation of one line of conative tendency is now definitely anticipated as part of our future life-history, so far at least as external conditions will allow of its execution."[2]
§3. The Training of the Will. It is of the utmost importance that the child should be trained to stand by his decisions. It is, indeed, often very much easier to maintain our decisions than to arrive at them. But it may on occasion be very difficult to remain true to our choice. More particularly is this the case when the decision was a noble one which involved self-sacrifice. The man who has chosen
