550 WILL AND 



including under this latter head actions which the in- 

 dividual has, from the first, performed automatically. He 

 endeavoured to formulate some of the grounds for dis- 

 tinguishing Voluntary Actions from those which are, as 

 he says, "to be esteemed less and less voluntary, semi- 

 voluntary, or scarce voluntary at all." 



This latter subject was, however, discussed more effec- 

 tively, at a later period, by James Mill. It is one of 

 considerable importance, since it involves an attempt to 

 discover the real nature or elementary constituents of that 

 phase of Mind which we name Volition. On this subject 

 James Mill* advances the following opinions : 



"There appears no circumstance by which, the cases called 

 voluntary are distinguished from the involuntary, except that in 

 the voluntary there exists a Desire. Shedding tears at the hearing 

 of a tragic story we do not desire to weep; laughing at the recital 

 of a comic story we do not desire to laugh. But when we elevate 

 the arm to ward off a blow, we desire to lift the arm; when we 

 turn the head to look at some attractive object, we desire to move 

 the head. I believe that no case of voluntary action can be men- 

 tioned in which it would not be an appropriate expression to call 

 the action ' desired.' " 



If there is interpolated, therefore, between a Sensation 

 or an Idea, and the Movement which it may evoke, a 

 feeling of an emotional order, known as Desire, a move- 

 ment which would otherwise have been described as 

 ' Sensory-motor ' or ' Ideo-motor,' becomes entitled to be 

 known as a Voluntary Movement. f This is the first and 



* " Analysis of the Human Mind," 1830, p. 279. 



f Hartley's view was very similar. He says : " The Will 

 appears to be nothing but a desire or aversion, sufficiently strong- 

 to produce an action that is not automatic, primarily or secondarily 



The Will is, therefore, that desire or aversion which is 



strongest for the present time." Which mental mood is to prevail 

 is sometimes immediately settled, and, at other times, only after a 



