Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 591

570
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
ween the two aspects of will (Outlines of Psychology pp. 99-100):
Activity is a fundamental property of conscious life, since always a force must be pre-supposed, which holds together the manifold elements of consciousness and unites them into the content of the one and the same consciousness. Independently of this, the most fundamental form of the will, the word will is used in two different senses, a narrower and a wider. In the narrower sense, as the power of choosing between different possibilities, the will is only the product of a mental development, not an original factor. But if will is understood in the wider sense, as all activity determined by feeling and cognition, it may be said that the whole conscious life is gathered up in the will as its fullest expression. The development of the conscious individual proceeds from will in the wider sense) to will in the narrower sense."
This is true so far as it goes, but unfortunately it does not go far enough to enable us to understand the nature of will. We are accustomed to deny consciousness to will even in its highest aspect, that is, as the Thing in itself; but if we would reflect on the point we should not fail to observe that the confusion of thought, in this respect, is due mainly to the wrong definition of consciousness with which we have allowed our minds to be obsessed. As a matter of fact, all mental activity, whether it assume the form of feeling, willing, or thinking, is always associated with consciousness. In common parlance, however, men generally ascribe consciousness to thinking alone, and so great is the force of habit that when we come across those manifestations of mind which do not need the guidance of reason, we promptly designate them unconscious. A close study of our mental operations, however, reveals the fact that each and every act of will has always an idea for its