But all this time we have been talking about action and have not given a thought to the will.  And we have spoken as if conscious perception and intelligence directly controlled will and action.  But this is of course incorrect.  Will is practically power of choice.  You ask me whether I prefer this or that, and I answer perhaps that I do not care.  Until I “care” I shall never choose.  The perception must arouse some feeling, if it is to result in choice.  I see a diamond in the road and think it is merely a piece of glass.  I do not stop.  But as I am passing on; I remember that there was a remarkable brilliancy in its flash.  It must have been, after all, a gem.  My feelings are aroused.  How proud I shall feel to wear it.  Or how much money I can get for it.  Or how glad the owner will be when it is returned to her.  I turn back and search eagerly.  Perception is necessary, but it is only the first step.  The perception must excite some feeling, if choice or exertion of the will is to follow.  This is a truism.

Now reflex action takes place independently of consciousness or will.  Instinctive action may be voluntary, but it is, after all, not so much the result of individual purpose as of hereditary tendency.  Is there then no will in the animal until it has become intelligent?  I think there has been a sort of voluntary action all the time.  Even the amoeba selects or chooses, if I may use the word, its food among the sand grains.  And the will is stimulated to act by the appetite.  Hunger is the first teacher.  And how did appetite develop?  Why does the animal hunger for just the food suited to its digestion and needs?  We do not know.  And the reproductive appetite soon follows.  One of these results from the condition of the digestive, the other from that of the reproductive, cells or protoplasm.  These appetites are due to some condition in a part of the organism and can be felt.  They are in a sense not of the mind but of the body.  And the response to them on the part of the mind is in some respects almost comparable to reflex action.  But the mode of the response is, to a certain extent at least, within the control of consciousness.  They train and spur the will as pure reflex action never could.  But the will is as yet hardly more than the expression of these appetites.  It expresses not so much its own decision as that of the stomach.  It is the body’s slave and mouthpiece.  And once again it is best and safest for the animal that it should be so.

And these appetites are at first comparatively feeble.  There is but little muscle or nerve and but little food is required.  But these continually strengthen and spur the will harder and more frequently.  And the will stirs up the weary and flagging muscles.  The will may be a poor slave and the appetites hard taskmasters.  But under their stern discipline it is growing stronger and more completely subjugating the body.  Better slavery to hard taskmasters than