Since mentality5 terminates naturally in outward conduct, the final chapter in psychology6 has to be the chapter on the will. But the word ‘will’ can be used in a broader and in a narrower sense. In the broader sense, it designates our entire capacity for impulsive and active life, including our instinctive7 reactions and those forms of behavior that have become secondarily automatic and semi-unconscious through frequent repetition. In the narrower sense, acts of will are such acts only as cannot be inattentively performed. A distinct idea of what they are, and a deliberate fiat8 on the mind’s part, must precede their execution.
Such acts are often characterized by hesitation9, and accompanied by a feeling, altogether peculiar10, of resolve, a feeling which may or may not carry with it a further feeling of effort. In my earlier talks, I said so much of our impulsive tendencies that I will restrict myself in what follows to volition11 in this narrower sense of the term.
All our deeds were considered by the early psychologists to be due to a peculiar faculty12 called the will, without whose fiat action could not occur. Thoughts and impressions, being intrinsically inactive, were supposed to produce conduct only through the intermediation of this superior agent. Until they twitched13 its coat-tails, so to speak, no outward behavior could occur. This doctrine14 was long ago exploded by the discovery of the phenomena15 of reflex action, in which sensible impressions, as you know, produce movement immediately and of themselves. The doctrine may also be considered exploded as far as ideas go.
The fact is that there is no sort of consciousness whatever, be it sensation, feeling, or idea, which does not directly and of itself tend to discharge into some motor effect. The motor effect need not always be an outward stroke of behavior. It may be only an alteration16 of the heart-beats or breathing, or a modification17 in the distribution of blood, such as blushing or turning pale; or else a secretion18 of tears, or what not. But, in any case, it is there in some shape when any consciousness is there; and a belief as fundamental as any in modern psychology is the belief at last attained20 that conscious processes of any sort, conscious processes merely as such, must pass over into motion, open or concealed22.
The least complicated case of this tendency is the case of a mind possessed24 by only a single idea. If that idea be of an object connected with a native impulse, the impulse will immediately proceed to discharge. If it be the idea of a movement, the movement will occur. Such a case of action from a single idea has been distinguished25 from more complex cases by the name of ‘ideo-motor’ action, meaning action without express decision or effort. Most of the habitual26 actions to which we are trained are of this ideo-motor sort. We perceive, for instance, that the door is open, and we rise and shut it; we perceive some raisins27 in a dish before us, and extend our hand and carry one of them to our mouth without interrupting the conversation; or, when lying in bed, we suddenly think that we shall be late for breakfast, and instantly we get up with no particular exertion28 or resolve. All the ingrained procedures by which life is carried on — the manners and customs, dressing29 and undressing, acts of salutation, etc. — are executed in this semi-automatic way unhesitatingly and efficiently30, the very outermost31 margin32 of consciousness seeming to be concerned in them, while the focus may be occupied with widely different things.
But now turn to a more complicated case. Suppose two thoughts to be in the mind together, of which one, A, taken alone, would discharge itself in a certain action, but of which the other, B, suggests an action of a different sort, or a consequence of the first action calculated to make us shrink. The psychologists now say that the second idea, B, will probably arrest or inhibit1 the motor effects of the first idea, A. One word, then, about ‘inhibition’ in general, to make this particular case more clear.
One of the most interesting discoveries of physiology33 was the discovery, made simultaneously34 in France and Germany fifty years ago, that nerve currents do not only start muscles into action, but may check action already going on or keep it from occurring as it otherwise might. Nerves of arrest were thus distinguished alongside of motor nerves. The pneumogastric nerve, for example, if stimulated35, arrests the movements of the heart: the splanchnic nerve arrests those of the intestines36, if already begun. But it soon appeared that this was too narrow a way of looking at the matter, and that arrest is not so much the specific function of certain nerves as a general function which any part of the nervous system may exert upon other parts under the appropriate conditions. The higher centres, for example, seem to exert a constant inhibitive37 influence on the excitability of those below. The reflexes of an animal with its hemispheres wholly or in part removed become exaggerated. You all know that common reflex in dogs, whereby, if you scratch the animal’s side, the corresponding hind38 leg will begin to make scratching movements, usually in the air. Now in dogs with mutilated hemispheres this scratching reflex is so incessant39 that, as Goltz first described them, the hair gets all worn off their sides. In idiots, the functions of the hemispheres being largely in abeyance40, the lower impulses, not inhibited41, as they would be in normal human beings, often express themselves in most odious42 ways. You know also how any higher emotional tendency will quench43 a lower one. Fear arrests appetite, maternal44 love annuls45 fear, respect checks sensuality, and the like; and in the more subtile manifestations47 of the moral life, whenever an ideal stirring is suddenly quickened into intensity48, it is as if the whole scale of values of our motives49 changed its equilibrium50. The force of old temptations vanishes, and what a moment ago was impossible is now not only possible, but easy, because of their inhibition. This has been well called the ‘expulsive power of the higher emotion.’
It is easy to apply this notion of inhibition to the case of our ideational processes. I am lying in bed, for example, and think it is time to get up; but alongside of this thought there is present to my mind a realization51 of the extreme coldness of the morning and the pleasantness of the warm bed. In such a situation the motor consequences of the first idea are blocked; and I may remain for half an hour or more with the two ideas oscillating before me in a kind of deadlock52, which is what we call the state of hesitation or deliberation. In a case like this the deliberation can be resolved and the decision reached in either of two ways:—
(1) I may forget for a moment the thermometric conditions, and then the idea of getting up will immediately discharge into act: I shall suddenly find that I have got up — or
(2) Still mindful of the freezing temperature, the thought of the duty of rising may become so pungent53 that it determines action in spite of inhibition. In the latter case, I have a sense of energetic moral effort, and consider that I have done a virtuous54 act.
All cases of wilful55 action properly so called, of choice after hesitation and deliberation, may be conceived after one of these latter patterns. So you see that volition, in the narrower sense, takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness. The interesting thing to note is the extreme delicacy56 of the inhibitive machinery57. A strong and urgent motor idea in the focus may be neutralized58 and made inoperative by the presence of the very faintest contradictory59 idea in the margin. For instance, I hold out my forefinger60, and with closed eyes try to realize as vividly61 as possible that I hold a revolver in my hand and am pulling the trigger. I can even now fairly feel my finger quivering with the tendency to contract; and, if it were hitched62 to a recording63 apparatus64, it would certainly betray its state of tension by registering incipient65 movements. Yet it does not actually crook66, and the movement of pulling the trigger is not performed. Why not?
Simply because, all concentrated though I am upon the idea of the movement, I nevertheless also realize the total conditions of the experiment, and in the back of my mind, so to speak, or in its fringe and margin, have the simultaneous idea that the movement is not to take place. The mere21 presence of that marginal intention, without effort, urgency, or emphasis, or any special reinforcement from my attention, suffices to the inhibitive effect.
And this is why so few of the ideas that flit through our minds do, in point of fact, produce their motor consequences. Life would be a curse and a care for us if every fleeting67 fancy were to do so. Abstractly, the law of ideo-motor action is true; but in the concrete our fields of consciousness are always so complex that the inhibiting68 margin keeps the centre inoperative most of the time. In all this, you see, I speak as if ideas by their mere presence or absence determined69 behavior, and as if between the ideas themselves on the one hand and the conduct on the other there were no room for any third intermediate principle of activity, like that called ‘the will.’
If you are struck by the materialistic70 or fatalistic doctrines72 which seem to follow this conception, I beg you to suspend your judgment73 for a moment, as I shall soon have something more to say about the matter. But, meanwhile yielding one’s self to the mechanical conception of the psychophysical organism, nothing is easier than to indulge in a picture of the fatalistic character of human life. Man’s conduct appears as the mere resultant of all his various impulsions and inhibitions. One object, by its presence, makes us act: another object checks our action. Feelings aroused and ideas suggested by objects sway us one way and another: emotions complicate23 the game by their mutual74 inhibitive effects, the higher abolishing the lower or perhaps being itself swept away. The life in all this becomes prudential and moral; but the psychologic agents in the drama may be described, you see, as nothing but the ‘ideas’ themselves — ideas for the whole system of which what we call the ‘soul’ or character’ or ‘will’ of the person is nothing but a collective name. As Hume said, the ideas are themselves the actors, the stage, the theatre, the spectators, and the play. This is the so-called ‘associationist’ psychology, brought down to its radical75 expression: it is useless to ignore its power as a conception. Like all conceptions, when they become clear and lively enough, this conception has a strong tendency to impose itself upon belief; and psychologists trained on biological lines usually adopt it as the last word of science on the subject. No one can have an adequate notion of modern psychological theory unless he has at some time apprehended76 this view in the full force of its simplicity77.
Let us humor it for a while, for it has advantages in the way of exposition.
Voluntary action, then, is at all times a resultant of the compounding of our impulsions with our inhibitions.
From this it immediately follows that there will be two types of will, in one of which impulsions will predominate, in the other inhibitions. We may speak of them, if you like, as the precipitate78 and the obstructed will, respectively. When fully79 pronounced, they are familiar to everybody. The extreme example of the precipitate will is the maniac80: his ideas discharge into action so rapidly, his associative processes are so extravagantly81 lively, that inhibitions have no time to arrive, and he says and does whatever pops into his head without a moment of hesitation.
Certain melancholiacs furnish the extreme example of the over-inhibited type. Their minds are cramped82 in a fixed83 emotion of fear or helplessness, their ideas confined to the one thought that for them life is impossible. So they show a condition of perfect ‘abulia,’ or inability to will or act. They cannot change their posture84 or speech or execute the simplest command.
The different races of men show different temperaments85 in this regard. The Southern races are commonly accounted the more impulsive and precipitate: the English race, especially our New England branch of it, is supposed to be all sicklied over with repressive forms of self-consciousness, and condemned86 to express itself through a jungle of scruples87 and checks.
The highest form of character, however, abstractly considered, must be full of scruples and inhibitions. But action, in such a character, far from being paralyzed, will succeed in energetically keeping on its way, sometimes overpowering the resistances, sometimes steering88 along the line where they lie thinnest.
Just as our extensor muscles act most truly when a simultaneous contraction89 of the flexors guides and steadies them; so the mind of him whose fields of consciousness are complex, and who, with the reasons for the action, sees the reasons against it, and yet, instead of being palsied, acts in the way that takes the whole field into consideration — so, I say, is such a mind the ideal sort of mind that we should seek to reproduce in our pupils. Purely90 impulsive action, or action that proceeds to extremities91 regardless of consequences, on the other hand, is the easiest action in the world, and the lowest in type. Any one can show energy, when made quite reckless. An Oriental despot requires but little ability: as long as he lives, he succeeds, for he has absolutely his own way; and, when the world can no longer endure the horror of him, he is assassinated92. But not to proceed immediately to extremities, to be still able to act energetically under an array of inhibitions — that indeed is rare and difficult. Cavour, when urged to proclaim martial93 law in 1859, refused to do so, saying: “Any one can govern in that way. I will be constitutional.” Your parliamentary rulers, your Lincoln, your Gladstone, are the strongest type of man, because they accomplish results under the most intricate possible conditions. We think of Napoleon Bonaparte as a colossal94 monster of will-power, and truly enough he was so. But, from the point of view of the psychological machinery, it would be hard to say whether he or Gladstone was the larger volitional95 quantity; for Napoleon disregarded all the usual inhibitions, and Gladstone, passionate96 as he was, scrupulously97 considered them in his statesmanship.
A familiar example of the paralyzing power of scruples is the inhibitive effect of conscientiousness99 upon conversation. Nowhere does conversation seem to have flourished as brilliantly as in France during the last century. But, if we read old French memoirs100, we see how many brakes of scrupulosity101 which tie our tongues today were then removed. Where mendacity, treachery, obscenity, and malignity102 find unhampered expression, talk can be brilliant indeed. But its flame waxes dim where the mind is stitched all over with conscientious98 fear of violating the moral and social proprieties103.
The teacher often is confronted in the schoolroom with an abnormal type of will, which we may call the ‘balky will.’ Certain children, if they do not succeed in doing a thing immediately, remain completely inhibited in regard to it: it becomes literally104 impossible for them to understand it if it be an intellectual problem, or to do it if it be an outward operation, as long as this particular inhibited condition lasts. Such children are usually treated as sinful, and are punished; or else the teacher pits his or her will against the child’s will, considering that the latter must be ‘broken.’ “Break your child’s will, in order that it may not perish,” wrote John Wesley. “Break its will as soon as it can speak plainly — or even before it can speak at all. It should be forced to do as it is told, even if you have to whip it ten times running. Break its will, in order that its soul may live.” Such will-breaking is always a scene with a great deal of nervous wear and tear on both sides, a bad state of feeling left behind it, and the victory not always with the would-be will-breaker.
When a situation of the kind is once fairly developed, and the child is all tense and excited inwardly, nineteen times out of twenty it is best for the teacher to apperceive the case as one of neural105 pathology rather than as one of moral culpability106. So long as the inhibiting sense of impossibility remains107 in the child’s mind, he will continue unable to get beyond the obstacle. The aim of the teacher should then be to make him simply forget. drop the subject for the time, divert the mind to something else: then, leading the pupil back by some circuitous108 line of association, spring it on him again before he has time to recognize it, and as likely as not he will go over it now without any difficulty. It is in no other way that we overcome balkiness in a horse: we divert his attention, do something to his nose or ear, lead him round in a circle, and thus get him over a place where flogging would only have made him more invincible109. A tactful teacher will never let these strained situations come up at all.
You perceive now, my friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock of ideas, any one of which may be inhibitory, yet you must also see to it that no habitual hesitancy or paralysis110 of the will ensues, and that the pupil still retains his power of vigorous action. Psychology can state your problem in these terms, but you see how impotent she is to furnish the elements of its practical solution. When all is said and done, and your best efforts are made, it will probably remain true that the result will depend more on a certain native tone or temper in the pupil’s psychological constitution than on anything else. Some persons appear to have a naturally poor focalization of the field of consciousness; and in such persons actions hang slack, and inhibitions seem to exert peculiarly easy sway.
But let us now close in a little more closely on this matter of the education of the will. Your task is to build up a character in your pupils; and a character, as I have so often said, consists in an organized set of habits of reaction. Now of what do such habits of reaction themselves consist? They consist of tendencies to act characteristically when certain ideas possess us, and to refrain characteristically when possessed by other ideas.
Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively. How is it when an alternative is presented to you for choice, and you are uncertain what you ought to do? You first hesitate, and then you deliberate. And in what does your deliberation consist? It consists in trying to apperceive the ease successively by a number of different ideas, which seem to fit it more or less, until at last you hit on one which seems to fit it exactly. If that be an idea which is a customary forerunner111 of action in you, which enters into one of your maxims112 of positive behavior, your hesitation ceases, and you act immediately. If, on the other hand, it be an idea which carries inaction as its habitual result, if it ally itself with prohibition113, then you unhesitatingly refrain. The problem is, you see, to find the right idea or conception for the case. This search for the right conception may take days or weeks.
I spoke114 as if the action were easy when the conception once is found. Often it is so, but it may be otherwise; and, when it is otherwise, we find ourselves at the very centre of a moral situation, into which I should now like you to look with me a little nearer.
The proper conception, the true head of classification, may be hard to attain19; or it may be one with which we have contracted no settled habits of action. Or, again, the action to which it would prompt may be dangerous and difficult; or else inaction may appear deadly cold and negative when our impulsive feeling is hot. In either of these latter cases it is hard to hold the right idea steadily115 enough before the attention to let it exert its adequate effects. Whether it be stimulative116 or inhibitive, it is too reasonable for us; and the more instinctive passional propensity117 then tends to extrude118 it from our consideration. We shy away from the thought of it. It twinkles and goes out the moment it appears in the margin of our consciousness; and we need a resolute119 effort of voluntary attention to drag it into the focus of the field, and to keep it there long enough for its associative and motor effects to be exerted. Every one knows only too well how the mind flinches120 from looking at considerations hostile to the reigning121 mood of feeling.
Once brought, however, in this way to the centre of the field of consciousness, and held there, the reasonable idea will exert these effects inevitably122; for the laws of connection between our consciousness and our nervous system provide for the action then taking place. Our moral effort, properly so called, terminates in our holding fast to the appropriate idea.
If, then, you are asked, “In what does a moral act consist when reduced to its simplest and most elementary form?” you can make only one reply. You can say that it consists in the effort of attention by which we hold fast to an idea which but for that effort of attention would be driven out of the mind by the other psychological tendencies that are there. To think, in short, is the secret of will, just as it is the secret of memory.
This comes out very clearly in the kind of excuse which we most frequently hear from persons who find themselves confronted by the sinfulness or harmfulness of some part of their behavior. “I never thought,” they say. “I never thought how mean the action was, I never thought of these abominable123 consequences.” And what do we retort when they say this? We say: “Why didn’t you think? What were you there for but to think?” And we read them a moral lecture on their irreflectiveness.
The hackneyed example of moral deliberation is the case of an habitual drunkard under temptation. He has made a resolve to reform, but he is now solicited124 again by the bottle. His moral triumph or failure literally consists in his finding the right name for the case. If he says that it is a case of not wasting good liquor already poured out, or a case of not being churlish and unsociable when in the midst of friends, or a case of learning something at last about a brand of whiskey which he never met before, or a case of celebrating a public holiday, or a case of stimulating125 himself to a more energetic resolve in favor of abstinence than any he has ever yet made, then he is lost. His choice of the wrong name seals his doom126. But if, in spite of all the plausible127 good names with which his thirsty fancy so copiously128 furnishes him, he unwaveringly clings to the truer bad name, and apperceives the case as that of “being a drunkard, being a drunkard, being a drunkard,” his feet are planted on the road to salvation129. He saves himself by thinking rightly.
Thus are your pupils to be saved: first, by the stock of ideas with which you furnish them; second, by the amount of voluntary attention that they can exert in holding to the right ones, however unpalatable; and, third, by the several habits of acting130 definitely on these latter to which they have been successfully trained.
In all this the power of voluntarily attending is the point of the whole procedure. Just as a balance turns on its knife-edges, so on it our moral destiny turns. You remember that, when we were talking of the subject of attention, we discovered how much more intermittent131 and brief our acts of voluntary attention are than is commonly supposed. If they were all summed together, the time that they occupy would cover an almost incredibly small portion of our lives. But I also said, you will remember, that their brevity was not in proportion to their significance, and that I should return to the subject again. So I return to it now. It is not the mere size of a thing which, constitutes its importance: it is its position in the organism to which it belongs. Our acts of voluntary attention, brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous132 and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies. The exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the most important points of training that take place there; and the first-rate teacher, by the keenness of the remoter interests which he is able to awaken133, will provide abundant opportunities for its occurrence. I hope that you appreciate this now without any further explanation.
I have been accused of holding up before you, in the course of these talks, a mechanical and even a materialistic view of the mind. I have called it an organism and a machine. I have spoken of its reaction on the environment as the essential thing about it; and I have referred this, either openly or implicitly134, to the construction of the nervous system. I have, in consequence, received notes from some of you, begging me to be more explicit135 on this point; and to let you know frankly136 whether I am a complete materialist71, or not.
Now in these lectures I wish to be strictly137 practical and useful, and to keep free from all speculative138 complications. Nevertheless, I do not wish to leave any ambiguity139 about my own position; and I will therefore say, in order to avoid all misunderstanding, that in no sense do I count myself a materialist. I cannot see how such a thing as our consciousness can possibly be produced by a nervous machinery, though I can perfectly140 well see how, if ‘ideas’ do accompany the workings of the machinery, the order of the ideas might very well follow exactly the order of the machine’s operations. Our habitual associations of ideas, trains of thought, and sequences of action, might thus be consequences of the succession of currents in our nervous systems. And the possible stock of ideas which a man’s free spirit would have to choose from might depend exclusively on the native and acquired powers of his brain. If this were all, we might indeed adopt the fatalist conception which I sketched141 for you but a short while ago. Our ideas would be determined by brain currents, and these by purely mechanical laws.
But, after what we have just seen — namely, the part played by voluntary attention in volition — a belief in free will and purely spiritual causation is still open to us. The duration and amount of this attention seem within certain limits indeterminate. We feel as if we could make it really more or less, and as if our free action in this regard were a genuine critical point in nature — a point on which our destiny and that of others might hinge. The whole question of free will concentrates itself, then, at this same small point: “Is or is not the appearance of indetermination at this point an illusion?”
It is plain that such a question can be decided142 only by general analogies, and not by accurate observations. The free-willist believes the appearance to be a reality: the determinist believes that it is an illusion. I myself hold with the free-willists — not because I cannot conceive the fatalist theory clearly, or because I fail to understand its plausibility143, but simply because, if free will were true, it would be absurd to have the belief in it fatally forced on our acceptance. Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should be to sustain the belief in the freedom itself. I accordingly believe freely in my freedom; I do so with the best of scientific consciences, knowing that the predetermination of the amount of my effort of attention can never receive objective proof, and hoping that, whether you follow my example in this respect or not, it will at least make you see that such psychological and psychophysical theories as I hold do not necessarily force a man to become a fatalist or a materialist.
Let me say one more final word now about the will, and therewith conclude both that important subject and these lectures.
There are two types of will. There are also two types of inhibition. We may call them inhibition by repression144 or by negation145, and inhibition by substitution, respectively. The difference between them is that, in the case of inhibition by repression, both the inhibited idea and the inhibiting idea, the impulsive idea and the idea that negates146 it, remain along with each other in consciousness, producing a certain inward strain or tension there: whereas, in inhibition by substitution, the inhibiting idea supersedes147 altogether the idea which it inhibits148, and the latter quickly vanishes from the field.
For instance, your pupils are wandering in mind, are listening to a sound outside the window, which presently grows interesting enough to claim all their attention. You can call the latter back again by bellowing149 at them not to listen to those sounds, but to keep their minds on their books or on what you are saying. And, by thus keeping them conscious that your eye is sternly on them, you may produce a good effect. But it will be a wasteful150 effect and an inferior effect; for the moment you relax your supervision151 the attractive disturbance152, always there soliciting153 their curiosity, will overpower them, and they will be just as they were before: whereas, if, without saying anything about the street disturbances154, you open a counter-attraction by starting some very interesting talk or demonstration155 yourself, they will altogether forget the distracting incident, and without any effort follow you along. There are many interests that can never be inhibited by the way of negation. To a man in love, for example, it is literally impossible, by any effort of will, to annul46 his passion. But let ‘some new planet swim into his ken,’ and the former idol156 will immediately cease to engross157 his mind.
It is clear that in general we ought, whenever we can, to employ the method of inhibition by substitution. He whose life is based upon the word ‘no,’ who tells the truth because a lie is wicked, and who has constantly to grapple with his envious158 and cowardly and mean propensities159, is in an inferior situation in every respect to what he would be if the love of truth and magnanimity positively160 possessed him from the outset, and he felt no inferior temptations. Your born gentleman is certainly, for this world’s purposes, a more valuable being than your “Crump, with his grunting161 resistance to his native devils,” even though in God’s sight the latter may, as the Catholic theologians say, be rolling up great stores of ‘merit.’
Spinoza long ago wrote in his Ethics162 that anything that a man can avoid under the notion that it is bad he may also avoid under the notion that something else is good. He who habitually163 acts sub specie mali, under the negative notion, the notion of the bad, is called a slave by Spinoza. To him who acts habitually under the notion of good he gives the name of freeman. See to it now, I beg you, that you make freemen of your pupils by habituating them to act, whenever possible, under the notion of a good. Get them habitually to tell the truth, not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honor and veracity164. Wean them from their native cruelty by imparting to them some of your own positive sympathy with an animal’s inner springs of joy. And, in the lessons which you may be legally obliged to conduct upon the bad effects of alcohol, lay less stress than the books do on the drunkard’s stomach, kidneys, nerves, and social miseries165, and more on the blessings166 of having an organism kept in lifelong possession of its full youthful elasticity167 by a sweet, sound blood, to which stimulants168 and narcotics169 are unknown, and to which the morning sun and air and dew will daily come as sufficiently170 powerful intoxicants.
I have now ended these talks. If to some of you the things I have said seem obvious or trivial, it is possible that they may appear less so when, in the course of a year or two, you find yourselves noticing and apperceiving events in the schoolroom a little differently, in consequence of some of the conceptions I have tried to make more clear. I cannot but think that to apperceive your pupil as a little sensitive, impulsive, associative, and reactive organism, partly fated and partly free, will lead to a better intelligence of all his ways. Understand him, then, as such a subtle little piece of machinery. And if, in addition, you can also see him sub specie boni, and love him as well, you will be in the best possible position for becoming perfect teachers.
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inhibit
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| vt.阻止，妨碍，抑制 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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obstructed
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| 阻塞( obstruct的过去式和过去分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
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dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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mentality
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| n.心理，思想，脑力 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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fiat
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| n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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18
secretion
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| n.分泌 | |
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19
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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20
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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21
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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22
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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23
complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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24
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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25
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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26
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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27
raisins
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| n.葡萄干( raisin的名词复数 ) | |
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28
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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29
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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30
efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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31
outermost
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| adj.最外面的，远离中心的 | |
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32
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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33
physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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34
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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35
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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36
intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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37
inhibitive
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| a.起抑制作用的 | |
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38
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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39
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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40
abeyance
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| n.搁置，缓办，中止，产权未定 | |
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41
inhibited
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| a.拘谨的，拘束的 | |
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42
odious
|
|
| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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43
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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44
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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45
annuls
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| v.宣告无效( annul的第三人称单数 )；取消；使消失；抹去 | |
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46
annul
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| v.宣告…无效，取消，废止 | |
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47
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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48
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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49
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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50
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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51
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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52
deadlock
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|
| n.僵局，僵持 | |
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53
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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54
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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55
wilful
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|
| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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56
delicacy
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|
| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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57
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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58
neutralized
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| v.使失效( neutralize的过去式和过去分词 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化 | |
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59
contradictory
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|
| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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60
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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61
vividly
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|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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62
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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63
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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64
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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65
incipient
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|
| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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66
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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67
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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68
inhibiting
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| 抑制作用的，约束的 | |
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69
determined
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|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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70
materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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71
materialist
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| n. 唯物主义者 | |
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72
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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73
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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74
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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75
radical
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|
| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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76
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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77
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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78
precipitate
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|
| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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79
fully
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|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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80
maniac
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|
| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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81
extravagantly
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|
| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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82
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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83
fixed
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|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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84
posture
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|
| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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85
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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86
condemned
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|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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87
scruples
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|
| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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88
steering
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|
| n.操舵装置 | |
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89
contraction
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|
| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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90
purely
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|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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91
extremities
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|
| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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92
assassinated
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| v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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93
martial
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|
| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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94
colossal
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|
| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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95
volitional
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|
| adj.意志的，凭意志的，有意志的 | |
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96
passionate
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|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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97
scrupulously
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|
| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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98
conscientious
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|
| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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99
conscientiousness
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| 责任心 | |
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100
memoirs
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|
| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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101
scrupulosity
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| n.顾虑 | |
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102
malignity
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|
| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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103
proprieties
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|
| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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104
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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105
neural
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| adj.神经的，神经系统的 | |
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106
culpability
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| n.苛责，有罪 | |
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107
remains
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|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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108
circuitous
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| adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的 | |
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109
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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110
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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111
forerunner
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| n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先 | |
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112
maxims
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| n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 ) | |
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113
prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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114
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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115
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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116
stimulative
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| n.刺激，促进因素adj.刺激的，激励的，促进的 | |
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117
propensity
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| n.倾向；习性 | |
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118
extrude
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| v.挤出；逐出 | |
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119
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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120
flinches
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的第三人称单数 ) | |
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121
reigning
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| adj.统治的，起支配作用的 | |
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122
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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123
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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124
solicited
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| v.恳求( solicit的过去式和过去分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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125
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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126
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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127
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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128
copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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129
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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130
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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131
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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132
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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133
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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134
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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135
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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136
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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137
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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138
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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139
ambiguity
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| n.模棱两可；意义不明确 | |
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140
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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141
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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142
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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143
plausibility
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| n. 似有道理, 能言善辩 | |
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144
repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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145
negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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146
negates
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| v.取消( negate的第三人称单数 )；使无效；否定；否认 | |
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147
supersedes
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| 取代，接替( supersede的第三人称单数 ) | |
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148
inhibits
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| 阻止，抑制( inhibit的第三人称单数 )； 使拘束，使尴尬 | |
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149
bellowing
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|
| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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150
wasteful
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| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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151
supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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152
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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153
soliciting
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| v.恳求( solicit的现在分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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154
disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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155
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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156
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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157
engross
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| v.使全神贯注 | |
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158
envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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159
propensities
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| n.倾向，习性( propensity的名词复数 ) | |
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160
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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161
grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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162
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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163
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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164
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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165
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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166
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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167
elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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168
stimulants
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| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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169
narcotics
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| n.麻醉药( narcotic的名词复数 )；毒品；毒 | |
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170
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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