84 Rev. J. Wills on Mr. Stewart's Explanation of 



in separation, and cannot be taken asunder by any power of attention. Of these, 

 every person has his own share — one instance will be enough ; that, suppose of 

 unlocking some well known lock, which has become, by habit, so familiar, that it 

 can be effected in the dark. Now let any person who is conscious of any such 

 habit try to substitute his reason for the habit ; he will at once, and I would say 

 inevitably, fail ; his volitions and attentions will put his hand astray. In fact, the 

 operation of habit was to frame the conception of a movement, out of an actual 

 movement which, by the help of the sight, was first repeatedly performed. Of 

 such movements of frame and thought, are composed the entire actions of the 

 player's hand, the dancer's foot, or the reader's eye. And here it may be useful 

 to observe and bear in mind, that in all these cases, of every description, there ex- 

 ists at the same time a distinct succession of acts of will and attention, sometimes 

 continuous and sometimes changing, but always fully apprehended by the con- 

 sciousness ; and that the mind is in fact thus guided from change to change, and 

 from one complex act to another ; while these latter alone are the processes in ques- 

 tion here. According to Mr. Stewart, both must be going on together without 

 intermission, at different rates, and having different objects ; taking, for instance, 

 the player on the harpsichord, we have the movements of the hands, the interpreta- 

 tion of the notes, the relative intent of each to a certain whole harmony, the moral 

 sentiment belonging to the melody. Now had Mr. Stewart been asked to explain 

 this medley of concurrent processes, he must have been forcibly conducted to the 

 very theory which is here proposed to be substituted for his. 



But I turn to Mr. Stewart's next example, suggested by a passage in the 

 Latin writings of Doctor Gregory, who applies a similar example to prove or 

 illustrate the rapidity of muscular action, for which he refers to the vast num- 

 ber and variety of intonations produced by muscular movements in the pronun- 

 ciation of words. With the Doctor's application I am not concerned. Mr. 

 Stewart says, " when a person, for example, reads aloud, there must, according 

 to this doctrine, be a separate volition preceding every letter." Now, I do not 

 here state Mr. Stewart's very indirect reasoning, because it consists altogether in 

 combating objections which have not, I believe, been advanced, viz., objections to 

 the possibility of the extreme rapidity of mental action required by the process 

 he assumes. I do not, for my part, deny the fact of such possible velocity of the 

 thinking power, though I see no force in Mr. Stewart's reasons for it. I only 



