THE CEREBRUM, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 789 



an individual who is naturally disposed to it. Thus to some persons, the tend- 

 ency to compare any new object of consciousness with objects that have been 

 previously before the mind, is so strong as to be almost irresistible ; and this, 

 or any other original tendency, is strengthened by the habit of acting in con- 

 formity with it. So, again, the tendency to abstraction is equally strong in the 

 minds of others, who instinctively seek to separate what is fundamental and 

 essential in the properties of objects, from what is superficial and accidental ; and 

 their attention being most attracted by the former, they readily recognize the 

 same characters elsewhere, and are thus as prone to combine and generalize, as 

 others are to analyze and distinguish. It is only, in fact, when we intentionally 

 divert the current of thought from the direction in which it was previously run- 

 ning when we determine to put our minds in operation in some particular 

 manner and make a choice of means adapted to our end (as in the act of Re- 

 collection already described) by purposely fixing our attention upon one class 

 of objects and excluding others that we can be said to use the Will in the 

 act of Reasoning ; and this exercise of it is shown, by the analysis of our own 

 consciousness, to be much rarer than is commonly supposed. Thus we may 

 imagine a man sitting down at a fixed hour every day, to write a treatise upon 

 a subject which he has previously thought out; after that first effort of Will by 

 which his determination was made, the daily continuance of his task becomes so 

 habitual to him, that no fresh exertion of it is required to bring him to his desk; 

 and, unless he feel unfit for his work, or some other object of interest tempt him 

 away from it, so that he is called upon to decide between contending motives, 

 his Will cannot be fairly said to be brought into exercise. It may need, per- 

 haps, some voluntary fixation of his attention upon the topics upon which he 

 had been engaged when he last dropped the thread, to enable him to recover it 

 so as to commence his new labors in continuity with the preceding ; but when 

 once his mind is fairly engrossed with his subject, this develops itself before 

 his consciousness according to his previous habits of mental action ; ideas follow 

 one another in rapid and continuous succession, clothe themselves in words, and 

 prompt the movements by which those words are expressed in writing ; and this 

 automatic action may continue uninterruptedly for hours, without any tendency 

 of the mind to wander from its subject, the Will being only called into play 

 when the feeling of fatigue or the distraction of other objects renders it difficult 

 to keep the attention fixed upon that which has previously held it by its own 

 attractive power. 1 The converse of this condition is experienced when some 



1 Two very remarkable instances may be noticed, in men distinguished, the one for in- 

 tellectual, the other for artistic ability ; in both of whom the mental action which evolved the 

 result seems to have been in great degree of an automatic character. All accounts of Cole- 

 ridge's habits of thought, as manifested in his conversation (which was a sort of thinking 

 aloud), agree in showing that his train of mental operations, once started, went on of itself, 

 sometimes for a long distance in the original direction, sometimes with a divergence into 

 some other track, according to the consecutive suggestions of his own mind, or to new sug- 

 gestions introduced into it from without. His whole course of life was one continued proof 

 of the weakness of his Will ; for, with numerous gigantic projects continually in his mind, 

 he could never bring himself even seriously to attempt to execute any one of them ; and 

 his utter deficiency in self-control rendered it necessary for his welfare that he should yield 

 himself to the control of others. The composition of the poetical fragment "Kubla Khan" 

 in his sleep is a typical example of automatic mental action ; and almost his whole life 

 might be regarded as a sort of waking dream, in regard to the deficiency of that self-de- 

 termining power which is the pre-eminent characteristic of every really great mind. (The 

 most striking portraiture of Coleridge's habits of conversation is to be found in Carlyle's 

 "Life of John Sterling.") The whole artistic life of Mozart, from his infancy to his death, 

 save in so far as the earlier part of it was directed by his father, may be cited as an ex- 

 ample of the spontaneous or automatic development of musical ideas, which expressed 

 themselves in the language appropriate to them. When only four years old, he began to 

 write music, which was found to be in strict accordance with the rules of composition, 

 although he had received no instruction in these. And when engaged in adult life, in the 



