The Will. 759 



reflected from organs belonging to the self as distinguished from those 

 of another, and because these vibrations are necessarily in harmony 

 with the fundamental vibrations, or tone of the organs from which they 

 are reflected. If I were to stand in front of a brick wall and sing the 

 letter G in its proper musical pitch, the echo would return the sound 

 just as I made it, with the peculiarities given it by my vocal organs. 

 But if I make the same sound in the presence of a piano, a G- string of 

 the instrument will respond and give back the sound in corresponding 

 pitch, but it will be a piano tone, and not a vocal tone. So the vibra- 

 tions which emanate from the cerebral organ are the vibrations of that 

 organ, and represent its peculiarities, regardless of the source of the im- 

 pact which set it going. 



Our feelings are our own, and refer to ourselves, regardless of the 

 sympathetic note in the environment which sets up the emotion. If two 

 pianos are in one room, and the G of one be sounded, the response made 

 by the other will still be its own, although ver} r similar to the sound of 

 the first. So the very close sympathy of our emotions with their cause, 

 has often deceived us to imagine them to be unselfish. That we have 

 organs so closely in sympathy with those of other men, is due to the 

 identity of environment surrounding them and us, as pointed out in 

 chapter 68. 



If the will is made up of antecedent stimuli and reverberations of 

 stimuli from internal sense organs, of a part of which we are usually 

 unconscious, and of the whole of which we may be unconscious, as 

 shown in chapter 75, it may be asked how pleasure and pain can enter 

 into its composition unconsciously, since the very terms seem to imply 

 consciousness ; and since, moreover, the stimulus of pleasure or pain in 

 order to influence will, must exist before it. It is obvious, upon a mo- 

 ment's reflection, that it is not the first sensation of pleasure or pain 

 that influences will, but the memory of such sensation in tne past. If 

 a child deliberately puts its fingers on the hot stove, it. is because it has 

 no active memory of the perception of the connection between stove 

 and pain. But its present experience will instantly establish a cerebral 

 differentiation, the reflection from which will give the perception of the 

 painful relation between stove and hand, and cause the withdrawal of 

 the hand. If such perception were not established, the hand would 

 stay there and be destroyed ; and this might actual^ happen to a very 

 young child, or to an idiotic, insane, or paralyzed person. The condi- 

 tion of the avoidance of pain is a perception of a cause in relation with 

 it. Now a perception of relations cannot exist in our brain till after the 

 sensations of the related things have been experienced. So it follows 

 that we are not influenced by the original sensations of pain, but by the 

 recollections of them. 



