196 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
the voluntary character in a yet higher degree. In the three successive situations his action calls into play the personality in a larger and more intensive way expresses larger measures of self-determination. The more remote and general an end, the attainment of which involves the use of a longer series of means and a more persistent mental attitude, the more distinctive and pronounced is the volun tary character of the action or series of actions leading up to it ; because they are the expression of a personality more highly organized and unified, and acting as a whole. As the personality becomes more highly developed, organized into a unity around some central and dominating purpose, it moves upward further from the impulsive, instinct-controlled level of life towards the level of thoroughly rational activity. The instincts remain in operation ; but their activities are correlated within a great intelligent plan, harnessed like mettlesome steeds to the chosen task of life and directed by a masterful purpose.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to attempt an answer to that question which has been mooted since man began to reflect upon the problem of his own life is the will free? But to pass on without a definite statement as to this matter would seem evasive. The trend of psychological thinking is toward the affirmation of a limited and conditioned free dom. The activity of the present can never be wholly un related to the activity of the past. In a very real sense our ability to act now is conditioned by what we and our ances tors have done before; in fact, is conditioned by the whole past activity of the universe as it is registered in the cir cumstances which now environ us. But this is far from implying that the universe, including each individual life, is a closed mechanical system and that every thought of the mind, every feeling of the heart, every choice of the will, finds its explanation in the law of the transformation of energy. We do not know, to begin with, that what is called mechanical energy the real nature of which nobody un derstands is a fixed quantity. It is assumed to be and
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