On (he Relations between Mind and Muscle. 1 15 



should merely say that he was forcibly pulling the cord in opposite direc- 

 tions ; but if we once get into our minds an idea of his ulterior wish, we 

 declare that he is making an effort. Here again the word is used with 

 reference to something which is to be subsequent to the muscular action, 

 not to anv thing that has preceded it. 



Let us take another example, and the strongest that can be found in 

 favour of the doctrine of effort and volition. Such an one, I think, will 

 be met with in the case of a person, who having a recently-paralysed limb, 

 is desirous of moving it in the customary manner. It remains motionless ; 

 but the individual is said to make an effort, though a useless one, to exert 

 his vohtion, though in vain. " Is it to be imagined," says a spectator, 

 " that the mental state of the individual is nothing more than an emotion 

 of desire, when I witness his earnest look, his compressed lips, his close- 

 set teeth, his distended nostril, his flushed cheek, and his starting eye V 

 " Did I experience no other mental affection than a wish ?" asks the sufferer 

 himself, when he sinks back on his pillow, exhausted by his futile exertions. 

 To the former it may be replied, that the phsenomena which he has enu- 

 merated, and considered indicative of a peculiar state of mind, distinct 

 from desire, are the results of instinctive actions which accompany the 

 intense desire of any particular movement ; that they nearly all belong to 

 a set of respiratory muscles, which are employed in preventing the egress 

 of air from the chest, a condition essential to all difficult motions ; and that 

 the actions in cpjestion may be singly or collectively designated an effort} 

 but he must bear in mind that in themselves they involve no affection of 

 consciousness. The question of the j)aralytic himself may be met by the 

 request that he will describe his own feelings ; for in doing this he can 

 enumerate nothing that is not resolvable into the desire of the movement, 

 and the consciousness of the occurrence of certain respiratory actions, 

 which he has often experienced prior to, or concomitant with, the desired 

 action, and which he therefore denominates efforts. Or tell him to use 

 these respiratory muscles in a similar manner, but without reference to any 

 ulterior action, and then enquire what he has felt. He will be unable to 

 do more than enumerate the wish that arose, at the suggestion, for those 

 muscular actions, and their consequent occurrence ; for he is precisely in 

 the same predicament, as the individual of a former instance, who desires 

 or wills the flexion of his arm. 



In all these instances, analyse them as carefully as we will, we fail to 

 discover the slightest evidence of any separate mental condition, corres- 

 ponding to what is designated an effort. However real and palpable the 

 notion may at first sight appear, when pursued it is found to be a phantom, 

 and there is nothing to grasp but the desire and the movement between 

 which the fugitive shape had hovered. 



An examination of the word effort, or of its synonymes, attempt, endeav- 

 our, &c. in their metaphorical applications will lead to a similar result. An 



