The Alleged Combat of Motives.—People speak of the “combat of motives,” but they designate by this expression that which is not a combat of motives at all. What I mean is that, in our meditative consciousness, the consequences of different actions which we think we are able to carry out present themselves successively, one after the other, and we compare these consequences in our mind. We think we have come to a decision concerning an action after we have established to our own satisfaction that the consequences of this [pg 133] Even supposing, however, that in this case we are able to overcome the difficulty, and that mere hazard has placed in our scales results which permit of a mutual balance, we have now, in the idea of the consequences of a particular action, a motive for performing this very action, but only one motive! When we have finally decided to act, however, we are fairly often influenced by another order of motives than those of the “image of the consequences.” What brings this about may be the habitual working of our inner machinery, or some little encouragement on the part of a person whom we fear or honour or love, or the love of comfort which prefers to do that which lies nearest; or some stirring of the imagination provoked at the decisive moment by some event of trifling importance; or some physical influence which manifests itself quite unexpectedly; a mere whim brings it about; or the outburst of a passion which, as it accidentally [pg 134] It is probable that a contest is going on among these motives too, a driving backwards and forwards, a rising and lowering of the parts, and it is this which would be the real “contest of motives,” something quite invisible and unknown to us. I have calculated the consequences and the successes, and in doing so have set a very necessary motive in the line of combat with the other motives,—but I am as little able to draw up this battle line as to see it: the battle itself is hidden from my sight, as likewise is the victory, as victory; for I certainly come to know what I shall finally do, but I cannot know what motive has in the end proved to be the victor. Nevertheless, we are decidedly not in the habit of taking all these unconscious phenomena into account, and we generally conceive of the preliminary stages of an action only so far as they are conscious: thus we mistake the combat of the motives for a comparison of the possible consequences of different actions,—a mistake that brings with it most important consequences, and consequences that are most fatal to the development of morals. |