The Will. 761 



his feet and legs in order to judge by seeing when they are in a proper 

 position. By degrees he learns to judge of this by feeling. " So it is 

 the impression of a sense, first the visual, and after that the muscular 

 sense which supplies at each moment the guide for the next movement. 

 After long practice the "guiding sensation" ceases to become a sensa- 

 tion and sinks to a sub-conscious impression ; and yet it still is sufficient 

 to guide the consecutive actions in the train to which it belongs, and 

 when the dancer takes the steps without thought or care, the action has 

 become instinctive. 



Now it may be shown that the activities of the purely cerebral states, 

 which may not immediately culminate in muscular contractions, and 

 which are denominated intellectual, emotional and ideational, likewise de- 

 pend upon guiding sensations, the sensations, however, coming from 

 stimulations of the cerebral organs or internal senses, instead of the ex- 

 ternal sense organs. This may be seen by analyzing the process by 

 which a dormant memory is revived. First, there must be a disturbing 

 stimulus from the environment, which so connects itself with some one 

 of our cerebral emotional organs as to produce a motive or purpose. A 

 motive may be defined to be an incomplete or inharmonious cerebral state, 

 and being so, it is a more or less unpleasant state and demands or in- 

 augurates further activities amongst the cerebral organs, and will con- 

 tinue to do so as long as It is sufficiently strong, or until the inharmoni- 

 ous conditions are eliminated ; that is, until the motive is satisfied. It 

 is supposed in the example proposed, that the revived activities of a cer- 

 tain memory are fitted to harmonize the elements and satisf} r the motive. 

 The stimulation of the first organ, as above, produces in it an action 

 which overflows toward another, which its tone is competent to excite, 

 but which may perhaps not be the memory wanted, but something like 

 it or something related to it. This in turn arouses another and another, un- 

 til finally, perhaps, the one which entirely satisfies the motive Is reached. 



That such is really the process of recollection, may be proved b} r an 

 effort to recall a forgotten air or a forgotten verse. We repeat what we 

 do recollect of it, that is, restimulate so many of our organs of it as 

 readily respond to the stimulation ; and if that does not have the desired 

 effect, we do it again, repeatedly. We instinctively expect that some- 

 how what we do remember will restore to us what we have forgotten, and 

 it usually does. If we cannot recall it in this way, after the exhaustion 

 of the effort in this direction, the motive, if still sufficient to compel at- 

 tention, will send the stimulation in the direction of the next least resis- 

 tance. It may occur to us that some easily accessible person is ac- 

 quainted with what we want to find out, or we remember the book we got 

 it from, &c. , and thus, like water dammed up in one direction, the per- 

 sistent stimulus finds an outlet in another. 



