120 On the Relations between Mind and Muscle. 



room, and may execute my intention and prophecy, without the occurrence 

 of a single volition ; for my muscles may iiave acted without my conscious- 

 ness, and consequently without my desire. But this point will be discussed 

 more at large, when we speak of the different motions and their causes. 



The origination of desire is a comj)licated subject,* but it will serve our 

 present purpose sufficiently to state, that this emotion may arise in two 

 ways; first, it may be the immediate consequent of a simple bodily feeling, 

 of an external sensation, or of a conception ; secoudly, it may be the 

 result of a comparison of two objects, or a judgment. In the former case 

 it is instinctive; in the latter, it has been termed choice or preference. 

 Instinct is manifested, not only in the properties which urge the lower 

 animals to some of their most important functions, but also in human 

 appetites, and in those vehement wishes which suddenly start up, par- 

 ticularly in the minds of children, on the perception or remembrance of 

 any pleasing object. No period of existence after birth is too early for 

 the development of this form of desire. Witness the chicken catching at 

 a fly while in the act of breaking from its shell, and the young infant 

 stretching forth its hand towards some glittering object. Wliat may be 

 the nature of those desires which induce the lower animals to place sub- 

 stances in a particular mechanical arrangement, as in the construction of a 

 nest, a honey-comb, the winter-quarters of the beaver, or the web of the 

 spider, it is vain to conjecture. 



Choice is more capable of analysis than instinct. The remembrance of 

 former experiences, the resemblances of events, the expectation of like 

 effects from like causes, the balancing of probabilities, all participate in 

 the production of that state of mind in which one of two objects appears 

 more pleasing or less painful. But this kind of desire is by no means 

 confined to the human species. A cat may feel an instinctive longing for 

 a bird in a cage, but remembering that the execution of her desires on a 

 former occasion was accompanied with an injury to her claws, which 

 produced pain in a greater degree, than the feast on the victim produced 

 pleasure, remains quiescent. 



Tlie accomplishment of desires, which ever be their class, is effected by 

 muscular motions ; and these are hastily called voluntary, for no other 

 reason than that they are concurrent with or not opposed to desire, without 

 its being duly considered whether they result from intermediate desires, of 

 which they are the sole objects. Out of the infinite number of muscular 



* It is almost superfluous to observe, that the view which has been taken of voli- 

 tion, as a relation of cause and effect between desire and muscular motion, is in per- 

 fect accordance with the free agency of man ; since if we act in consequence of desire, 

 we act as freely as possible, that is, precisely as we lilte. How we like, and how we 

 desire in all cases, are questions of difficult solution ; but one thing is certain, that 

 motives of the greatest cogency have been provided by our Creator and Moral 

 Governor, both in the dictates of conscience .and in the precepts of revelation. 



