In the fifth and last type of determination, a known course of action may seem to us the most rational, but we may not have reasonable grounds in favor of it. In both cases, intending to act in a certain way, we feel that the final performance of the action is due to an arbitrary act of our will; in the first case, by the impulse of our will, we give force to a rational motive, which of itself would not be able to produce a nervous discharge; in the latter case, by an effort of the will, which here replaces the sanction of reason, we give to some motive a predominant importance. The dull tension of will felt here is a characteristic feature of the fifth type of determination, which distinguishes it from the other four.
We will not here evaluate the significance of this tension of the will from a metaphysical point of view and will not discuss the question of whether the indicated tensions of the will should be separated from the motives by which we are guided in actions. From a subjective and phenomenological point of view, there is a sense of effort, which was not in the previous types of determination. Effort is always an unpleasant act, associated with some kind of consciousness of moral loneliness; so it is when, in the name of pure sacred duty, we sternly renounce all earthly goods, and when we firmly decide to consider one of the alternatives impossible for us, and the other to be realized, although each of them is equally attractive and no external circumstance does not induce us to give preference to any of them. A closer analysis of the fifth type of determination reveals that it differs from the previous types: there, at the moment of choosing one alternative, we lose or almost lose sight of another, but here we do not lose sight of any alternative all the time; by rejecting one of them, we make it clear to ourselves what exactly at this moment we are losing. We, so to speak, deliberately stick a needle into our body, and the feeling of inner effort that accompanies this act represents in the latter type of determination such a peculiar element that distinguishes it sharply from all other types and makes it a psychic phenomenon sui generis. In the vast majority of cases, our determination is not accompanied by a sense of effort. I think we are inclined to regard this feeling as a more frequent mental phenomenon than it actually is, because in the course of deliberation we often realize how great an effort must be if we wanted to realize a certain solution. Later, when the action is performed without any effort, we remember our consideration and mistakenly conclude that the effort was actually made by us.