THE HUMAN WILL 



common path, and has inhibited the action of all 

 other sensory impulses. We do not want to 

 cough, because that reflex is inhibited; but if the 

 sermon be dull, the whole congregation will soon 

 be a-coughing. The common path is like the 

 trunk-line of the telephone: when one subscriber 

 has gained possession of it, all the others must wait. 

 Professor Sherrington's work is the most important 

 advance in our knowledge of volition since Spencer 

 discovered its genesis in reflex action half a century 

 ago. 



Ere I conclude I must note what has doubtless 

 occurred to the reader. While will emerges from 

 reflex action, to reflex action will can return. You 

 remember your early strivings, with intent will, 

 at the piano or the cricket-nets or in learning good 

 manners? Yet now you can play or bat or be 

 courteous with an ease which is hardly distinguish- 

 able from automatism. Practice makes perfect 

 that is to say, practice cultivates the power of one 

 set of reflex arcs until they can always be relied 

 upon, without effort, to inhibit their antagonists. 

 You positively cannot help playing a straight bat 

 or "doing the correct thing." 



Will, indeed, is the expression of imperfection. 

 The perfect batsman "times the ball" so well, the 

 perfect saint does the saintly thing, without any 

 consciousness of effort that is, of will. It " comes 

 natural" to him. 



This fact, that will may give place to reflex action, 

 has been urged as one of the arguments against 



