554 WILL AND 



James Mill held, with more show of reason, that what have been 

 commonly termed 'Muscular Sense 'impressions intervene, and come 

 into joint operation as determining agents, at a stage immediately 

 posterior to the Conception above referred to, and anterior to the 

 actual occurrence of the Voluntary Movement. If we substitute 

 for these so-called ' muscular sense' impressions, our Kinsesthetle 

 Impressions,* we may, on such broader terms, adopt this view ot 

 James Mill as fairly typifying the probable mode of execution ot, 

 or rather order of processes involved in, the initiation of Voluntary 

 Movements. 



The same parts of the Brain as are called into play for the 

 initiation of any set of Voluntary Movements would probably 

 remain in activity during the continuance of such movements, 

 though perhaps not exactly in the same relative pi*oportions. Thus 

 an ' ideal ' recall or ' conception ' of the sensory qualities of the 

 Movements needed operates as the starting point, enabling the indi- 

 vidual, from an already existing and in part instinctive basis, to 

 determine how to act and what force to employ ; whilst, during the 

 continuance of the Movements, he would be also partly influenced 

 by actual ' sensations ' realizing themselves in the same parts of 

 the Brain, and telling him how he is acting and what force he is 

 employing.^- Yet in the two cases, the relative amount of activity 

 of the sensory centres concerned may not be equal. 



Thus, if we suppose the centres specially called into activity as 

 guiding centres to be the Visual and the Kinassthetic, it may be that 

 the former has the dominating influence in the production of the 

 initial Conception; whilst, during the continuance of the Move- 

 ments, impressions impinging upon the Kinsesthetic Centres may, 

 in their turn, have a more potent guiding influence. If a person 

 should attempt to take from a table a small bundle of cotton wool 



why any such organizations, or rather the functional activity of 

 such organizations, should be spoken of as 'motor intuitions,' or 

 why these should be deemed, as Dr. Mandsley says (" Physiology 

 and Pathology of Mind," in Chap, on ' Motor Centres '), to con- 

 stitute an " important motorial region of mental life " whatever 

 that may mean. Dr. Maudsley's views on this subject do not seem 

 to be very clearly realizable, though his Chapter on 'Volition' 

 is extremely good and free from all ambiguity. 



* See p. 543. 



f See Appendix. 



