1 78 On the Relations between Mind and Muscle. 



the instance of walking. A person wishes to fetch a book at the other 

 end of a room, and walks in search of it : in this performance, does he will 

 the several motions in which walking consists ? If he has been enfeebled 

 by disease, the muscular actions may require the stimulus of desire, but in 

 ordinary healtli and strength he goes through the evolutions unconsciously. 

 How is it then that these voluntary actions take place without any volition 

 at all ? The explanation is a very simple one, and we cannot help won- 

 dering that some very able thinkers have thought it necessary to conjecture 

 that in such a case the individual must in reality have willed each separate 

 movement, but that the acts of consciousness were so brief and transient 

 that he had forgotten tliera. The true theory appears to our apprehen- 

 sion involved in the fact, that the motions in question have so often 

 followed each other, that the mere wish to perform the particular action 

 which they compose is enough to prompt the whole series. But it is not 

 necessary that the person should even thus far will the motion. It is 

 enough that he wishes a certain change of place, and the action which has 

 so often followed this wish, occurs without the additional impulse of any 

 other desire or act of volition separately devoted to it. Moreover, he may 

 walk in a certain direction, without any desire at all. He may set out 

 towards some point, his will having merely directed the initiative move- 

 ment. In the course of the walk, his mind becomes occupied by various 

 thoughts, and the intention of his journey not being constantly present, he 

 is liable to be carried in a direction very different from that which he had 

 designed. He arrives, perhaps, at a turn in the way, which he has been 

 accustomed to pursue, and is taken along it unconsciously, far out of his 

 original plan. He may even find himself knocking at the door of a de- 

 ceased friend, or of one whose acquaintance he had dropped. In the latter 

 case, the sight of the road, or of the house which was wont to determine 

 his desire for moving towards it, has been sufficient to produce the move- 

 ment, (without any intermediate desire) by the mere force of habit j which 

 will continue to operate, till he is reminded of his intention of proceeding 

 in a different direction. 



Let us try another instance, that of speaking. The articulation of every 

 word was once, perhaps, the result of effort ; a voluntary exertion of the 

 vocal organ to imitate a sound produced by another. But now it is enough 

 for the word to occur to the mind, and the pronunciation follows, without 

 any intermediate volition, merely because the idea and the action have 

 been accustomed to the relation of antecedence and consequence. Again: 

 I may use some word which I not only did not intend, but which I would 

 much rather have avoided, as it may be personally offensive to the person 

 with whom I am conversing. This word, in all probability, will be found 

 to be similar in sound to that which was present to my mind, but which 

 was not expressed by my voice. The word was the product of a certain 

 aggregation or series of vocal movements, which followed some initial 



