regard to these tissues and organs, exerts its influence over the muscles engaged in the motions of the body.

Probably we cannot go much beyond these general principles, which, combined with the law that any emotion that, either by its character or its suddenness, depresses the activity of the controlling power of the cerebrum, allows of the irregular or excessive action of the encephalic, spinal, or sympathetic nervecentres, will generally serve to explain the changes induced in the body by varying mental states.

PART III.

THE

WILL.

CHAPTER XIII.

GENERAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES.

IN the chapters on the Influence of the Intellect and the Emotions, we were led by the interest of the subject beyond the design of this publication (that of illustrating by Cases, systematically arranged, the action of Mind upon Body), and entered at some length into their psychology and physiology. In regard to Volition, however, we shall speak more briefly, inasmuch as we have, under other terms, treated of what by many is regarded as belonging to the province of the Will.

Some confusion in regard to the term itself has, no doubt, arisen from not distinguishing between the wish or desire to do a certain thing (in accordance with the etymon voluntas), and the power to perform it. A man wills to walk, but his will is powerless to move his legs; yet the Will in the sense employed in the first clause, is in full force. It is the motor centre which is in a morbid condition or paralysed. On the other hand, when a physician says that, in a case of hysterical paralysis, the Will is paralysed, he means that the very wish or desire to move a limb is wanting. Indeed, Reid says that," as it is unusual in the operations of the mind to give the same name to the power, and to the act of that power, the term Will is often put to signify the act of determining, which more properly is called Volition. Volition, therefore, signifies the act of willing and determining, and Will is put indifferently to signify either the

power of willing or the act." Then, again, there is more than the mere employment of "the Will" in two different senses; there is a real divergence of opinion as to whether it constitutes an independent and separate mental faculty, or is the balance of all the other faculties-that which finally results from the struggle continually going forward in the mind between the contending functions of Thought and Emotion.

Gall held that the Will resulted, not from desire alone, but from the combined operation of desire and intellect. "That man," he says, "might not be confined to desiring merely, but might will also, the concurrent action of many of the higher intellectual faculties is required; motives must be weighed, compared, and judged. The decision resulting from this operation is called the Will" (xxii, VI, p. 267).

James Mill observes, "The idea of an action of our own, as cause, strongly associated with the idea of a pleasure as its effect. . . . excites to action. It is called Will" (xix, II, p. 328). He then points out that, with the Will as a Cause and the action as an Effect, men have not been content, but have added an item called Force or Power, which comes between the two, as itself the proximate cause of the action. The action of a muscle, according to Mill, takes place in consequence of an appropriate idea, our power of willing not being immediate over a muscle, but consisting in the power of calling the idea into existence. The only circumstance distinguishing voluntary from involuntary actions is Desire. This analysis is accepted by Mr. J. S. Mill, so far as it applies to voluntary acts produced by motives of pleasure and pain, but as insufficient to explain those bodily movements, the consequence of which is pain and not pleasure, and he refers to Bain as probably the first psychologist who has succeeded in effecting a complete and correct analysis of the Will. Bain separates from the movements brought forward by James Mill, those which are of reflex and consensual character, and those which arise from Imitation, Expectation, and Imagination. It is among the movements excited by the last class, that we sometimes observe the remarkable tendency to act even in the direction of pain, to which reference has just been made. Thus, the sight of a precipice may, from the operation of the idea aroused, lead to the

painful result of precipitation. The law at work here has been referred to when considering the tendency of ideas to result in corresponding acts, as exhibited in Sympathy and Imitation (p. 26). The automatic action of the hemispheres is the physiological aspect of the law. Having withdrawn these three classes of cases of miscalled voluntary power, Mr. Bain considers that J. Mill's position, that there is a power in pleasure as such, and in pain as such, to stimulate muscular movements with reference to the pleasure or pain, is the nearest approach he has made to a clear statement of the law of Volition. "The element of the Will remaining unexplained is the selection of the proper movements in each case, as when we start up and walk in the direction of a pleasing sound" (xix, II, pp. 385, 389). For this he refers to two laws-the spontaneous beginning of movements, and the retentive or associative process. The former implies the tendency to act, not from sensation, but "by virtue of the fund of power residing in the active organs themselves." The latter implies that after a certain number of accidental associations between such actions and particular sensations, the above law of pleasure and pain retains or continues them when once begun. "The concurrence is fortuitous ; the prolongation of it is not fortuitous, but follows the law of the Will the abiding by whatever movement is giving pleasure."

Here the direct antecedent of an act of Volition is something more than the idea of the action to be performed; it may assume various forms, although all have the common object of gaining pleasure and escaping from pain.

In some able papers "On the Nature of Volition psychologically and physiologically considered," published in the 'Psychological Journal,' 1862-3, Lockhart Clarke combats Bain's views as too exclusive, and he points out that they are essentially included in Hartley's proposition that, "If any sensation A, idea в, or muscular motion c, be associated for a sufficient number of times with any other sensation D, idea E, or muscular motion F, it will at last excite D, the simple idea belonging to the sensation D, the very idea E, and the very muscular motion F," a law of association by which originally automatic acts become voluntary. "That this accidental association is

the means by which a great number of movements necessary for the alleviation of suffering and the procuring of enjoyment are originally discovered by the infant, there can be no doubt, but that this is the only means-that all such movements, in fact, and still more, that every kind of voluntary action must, as Mr. Bain contends, wait upon the accidents and improve them when they come,' so that without these accidents voluntary control could not find a starting-point-appears to be entirely opposed to what may be observed and learned by every day's experience;" and he adds that there is an infinite number of movements which "have no immediate connection with physical pleasure or pain, but are expressly intended to be subservient to the endless variety of desires that are excited by the wants, tastes, or ideas constantly arising in the course of our daily avocations and transactions in life, and which frequently require, in accordance with the end in view, such a peculiar and complex combination or co-ordination of muscles as never could have occurred accidentally, and which nothing but repeated trials could possibly accomplish." Thus, as expressed by Clarke, the execution of by far the greater number of particular movements by volition "is not learned by a previous accidental association of those movements with particular accidental sensations," but "by the association of certain efforts or impulses with the requisite muscular co-ordination, discovered on trial, and rendered perfect by repetition;" in short, those instinctive impulses which in the infant excite muscular contraction without the intervention of any idea, are similar to the subsequent desire, wish, or inclination, aroused by external objects, which in combination with the idea of the action to be performed, constitutes the Will or Volition. Should this be the correct mode of regarding its nature, it is obvious that the Will is not a special faculty, independent of the other mental faculties, but that it is composed of an emotional or active element, and an intellectual or regulative element, the balance of which results in a volitional act. While, then, we speak of volitional states of mind, it must be remembered that ideas and emotions co-operate to constitute volition. We think, but our thoughts alone do not result in action, unless some feeling, or rather the desire to do a certain act, which is generated by the feeling, is