336 gTajr S*rm0tts, (Jssap, mrtr JjLefrtttos. [xiv. 



desire to perform a certain action ; and, secondly, we some- 

 how set a-going a machinery which does what we desire. 

 But so little do we directly influence that machinery, 

 that nine-tenths of us do not even know its existence. 



Suppose one wills to raise one's arm and whirl it round. 

 Nothing is easier. But the majority of us do not know 

 that nerves and muscles are concerned in this process ; 

 and the best anatomist among us would be amazingly 

 perplexed, if he were called upon to direct the succession, 

 and the relative strength, of the multitudinous nerve- 

 changes, which are the actual causes of this very simple 

 operation. 



So again in speaking. How many of us know that the 

 voice is produced in the larynx, and modified by the 

 mouth ? How many among these instructed persons 

 understand how the voice is produced and modified? 

 And what li ving man, if he had unlimited control over all 

 the nerves supplying the mouth and larynx of another 

 person, could make him pronounce a sentence ? Yet, if 

 one has anything to say, what is easier than to say it ? 

 We desire the utterance of certain words : we touch the 

 spring of the word-machine, and they are spoken. Just 

 as Descartes' engineer, when he wanted a particular hy- 

 draulic machine to play, had only to turn a tap, and what 

 he wished was done. It is because the body is a ma- 

 chine that education is possible. Education is the forma- 

 tion of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organization 

 upon the natural organization of the body ; so that acts, 

 which at first required a conscious effort, eventually 

 became unconscious and mechanical. If the act which 

 primarily requires a distinct consciousness and volition 

 of its details, always needed the same effort, education 

 would be an impossibility. 



According to Descartes, then, all the functions which 

 are common to man and animals are performed by the 



