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CHAPTER III. 



APPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS TO CERTAIN 

 HABITS ACQUIRED AFTER BIRTH WHICH ARE COM- 

 MONLY CONSIDERED INSTINCTIVE. 



WHAT is true of knowing is also true of willing. The 

 more intensely we will, the less is our will deliberate 

 and capable of being recognised as will at all. So 

 that it is common to hear men declare under certain 

 circumstances that they had no will, but were forced 

 into their own action under stress of passion or tempta- 

 tion. But in the more ordinary actions of life, we 

 observe, as in walking or breathing, that we do not 

 will anything utterly and without remnant of hesita- 

 tion, till we have lost sight of the fact that we are 

 exercising our will. 



The question, therefore, is forced upon us, how far 

 this principle extends, and whether there may not be 

 unheeded examples of its operation which, if we con- 

 sider them, will land us in rather unexpected conclu- 

 sions. If it be granted that consciousness of knowledge 

 and of volition vanishes when the knowledge and the 

 volition have become intense and perfect, may it not 

 be possible that many actions which we do without 



