Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/312

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296 ALEXANDER F. SHAND : or end that we are not going to accomplish. The dis- tinguishing character of will is either a judgment that we are going, or not going, to accomplish an end, or some mixture of both judgments. What is common to all we have not discerned, unless it be that their character is cate- gorical. III. HYPOTHETICAL AND DISJUNCTIVE WILL. Those constituents of our thought-attitude to objects that we name the categorical, problematic, disjunctive, and hypo- thetical, are not tied to judgments. The logical text-books regard them as forms of judgment, and recognise no signi- ficance in the fact that they penetrate also other attitudes of thought. Indeed their common character is their mobility united to a strictly dependent nature. They pass from thought to thought, but can never subsist by themselves. Thus our questions, as well as our judgments, may assume a hypothetical, disjunctive, or problematic form ; and even our supposals. I may say, "Let us argue no more, but assume that this is probably the case, and see what follows from this assumption ; " or, " If one or other of these alterna- tives is true, what inference can be drawn from that sup- posal ? " And these mobile elements that attach themselves to the fundamental types of thought are not even confined by the circle of them ; but some, though not all, project them- selves into our volitions. "If he persist in his present behaviour, I shall leave," is a genuine hypothetical volition, as " I shall travel via Calais or Boulogne" is one of a dis- junctive type. And although both judgments are problem- atic in a sense, as both, at a point, infected with doubt, yet if we introduce doubt at another we destroy their volitional character. " I may travel," " I probably shall leave," are not volitions. The problematic element introduced at this point in whatever degree, from mere possibility up to almost com- plete certitude, is incompatible with the fact of volition ; and if I am not quite convinced that if something happen I shall act, or that I shall definitely go to the one place or the other, there can be no will. While in the state antecedent to choice we are not sure what we are going to do, while in the state subsequent to weak volitions we again relapse into doubt, the moment of volition is a moment of belief. Full undoubting belief embraces it at a point, though over all the rest doubt may range in all its degrees. Thus I may be doubtful as to my success, but I am certain that I shall try. Our volitions are categorical, disjunctive, hypothetical, posi-