CHAP. XXVI.] VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS. 557 



' Will,' proceeds so smoothly, and is practically so much unheeded, 

 as to leave us free to follow up the threads of our Conscious Life 

 unhindered by the multitudinous details pertaining to the varying 

 states of innumerable Muscles acting in ever-changing combina- 

 tions. We may truly be thankful that we have not in reality any 

 such 'muscular sense,' as some psychologists imagine for them- 

 selves, and that even in Voluntary Movements the Mind knows 

 nothing concerning the Nerves or the Muscles by the intervention 

 of which the processes are accomplished. 



From our own individual experience, as well as from 

 what has been above set forth, it would appear obvious 

 that careful practice alone is needed, in order that pre- 

 viously strange, difficult, and complex Movements should 

 be capable of being performed with ease ; and that, after 

 a time, during the process of learning, first the ' Concep- 

 tion ' of the Movements needed, and subsequently the 

 Desire which originally prompted to their execution, may 

 alike vanish as conscious states by which they are neces- 

 sarily preceded. When this latter stage of perfection has 

 been achieved, the actions previously ' Voluntary,' in the 

 strictest sense of the term, become promoted to the 

 * Secondary Automatic ' category, since the occurrence of a 

 Sensation, an Emotion, or an Idea may be immediately, 

 and without the intervention of any other conscious state 

 whatsoever, succeeded by one of the complex Movements 

 in question. Thus Movements, the possibility of perform- 

 ing which has been slowly and with so much difficulty 

 acquired by the individual, have now, in fact, become 

 almost as easy for us as sucking, swallowing, coughing, oir 

 any other of those ' Primary Automatic ' actions, the power 

 of performing which was born with us as an inheritance 

 from untold generations of human and other ancestors. 



In many cases, indeed, there is good reason for believ- 

 ing that the alliance between ' Primary Automatic ' and 

 some ' Secondary Automatic ' actions is even more funda- 



