754: Dynamic Theory. 



lation in the case of hypnotism, when it is not in the case of ordinary 



attention. 



Common attention as well as hypnotism is a condition in which cerebral 

 activity is concentrated upon one organ, though to a less intense degree 

 because less exclusively. If the state of things is not brought about by 

 the will in the case of hypnotism, it cannot be thus brought about in the 

 case of attention. And if it be held that when a man is in the hypnotic 

 state his will is set aside and his further actions are not controlled by the 

 will, but by a dominant idea or by the suggestions of the operator, then 

 we must hold that when the attention of a man has been enlisted, his 

 further thoughts in that direction, or actions arising from them, are no 

 longer subject to his will, but that he is moved by dominant ideas or 

 sensorial suggestions. The mode of action is identical in the two cases. 

 Yet it must be maintained that if a man is ever under the domination of 

 motives which come from without it is when he is hypnotized, and if his 

 actions are ever governed by a will, and as free a one as a will ever gets 

 to be, it is when attention is purposely concentrated upon some line of 

 thought or action. It logically and necessarily follows that control by 

 a will is government by dominant ideas. In the case of hypnotism the 

 dominant idea is so conspicuous that we see it to be the real motive 

 power behind the will. In ordinary attention the dominant idea is more 

 or less out of sight. 



The will then, is one link in the chain of stimuli, which beginning as 

 a mode of energy in the evironment, ends, so far as we are concerned, 

 as a muscle contraction or a cerebral agitation. It is that link which in 

 a special manner arouses consciousness and perception of its action and 

 its relation to the final action of muscle following it. It is indeed a 

 cause, but not a first cause. It is the last one of which we are conscious 

 of a train preceding and leading up to motor results. We are often con- 

 scious of the existence of other links in this chain of causes, or rather 

 we are conscious, after the fact, that such and such ideas have formed 

 a final stimulus sufficient and appropriate to move muscles. We are 

 conscious of the presence of that stimulus and of its relation as cause to 

 the motor muscle action. We call it will. We are not conscious, how- 

 ever, of the manner in which it becomes cause, or rather of the manner 

 in which a motor nervous current and a muscle contraction become effect. 



Next, we are to remember that the vibrator}' stimulus which we thus 

 trace, is not the driving power by which all these cerebral changes are 

 made and the muscle of the limb finally moved. As in certain chemical 

 combinations which are promoted by sunlight, the sunlight alone is not 

 the motive force, so in these mechanical changes in organic tissue, the 

 sunlight furnishes a disturbing force by which the greater energies gen- 

 erated in the blood are started into activity. As observed in chapter 51, 



