The diseases of the will / by Th. Ribot.

  • Ribot, Th. (Théodule), 1839-1916.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The diseases of the will / by Th. Ribot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    134/158 (page 124)
    II. After having followed step by step the dissolution of the will, the fundamental result which has appeared to us to spring from it is that it is a co-ordination variable in complexity and degree; that this co-ordi- nation is the condition of the existence of all volition, and that, according as it is totally or partially de- stroyed, volition is annihilated or impaired. It is upon this result that we would now like to insist, confining ourselves to brief indications on certain points, as it is not our aim to write a monograph of the will. i) Let us examine in the first place the material conditions of this co-ordination. The will, which in some privileged persons attains a power so extraordi- nary and does such great things, has a very humble origin. This is found in that biological property in- herent in all living matter and known as irritability, that is to say, reaction against external forces. Irrita- bility—the physiological form of the law of inertia— is in somewise a state of primordial indifferentiation whence shall spring, by an ulterior differentiation, sen- sibility properly so called and motility, those two great bases of psychic life. Let us remember that motility (which alone con- cerns us here) manifests itself, even in the vegetable kingdom, under divers forms: by the movements of certain spores, of the sensitive plant, of the Dionoea, and of many other plants to which Darwin has devoted a well-known work.—The protoplasmic mass, homo- geneous in appearance, of which certain rudimentary beings are exclusively composed, is endowed with mo- tility. The amoeba and the white corpuscle of the