On the Scientific Study of Human Nature. 459 



tions to accomplish it : but the will knows nothing of this; 

 it is concerned with the result alone. 



In the formation of habits and in the processes of edu- 

 cation, voluntary actions are constantly becoming reflex, 

 or, as it is termed, " secondarily automatic." Thus learn- 

 ing to walk at first demands voluntary effort, but at length 

 the act of walking becomes automatic and unconscious. So 

 with all adaptive movements, as the manipulatory exercises 

 of the arts;' they at first require an effort of will, and then 

 gradually become " mechanical," or are performed with 

 but slight voluntary exertion. And so it is, also, in the 

 purely intellectual operations, where the cerebral excite- 

 ment, instead of taking effect upon the motor system, ex- 

 pends itself in the production of new intellectual effects, 

 one state of consciousness passing into another, according 

 to the established laws of thought. Here, also, the agency 

 of the will is but partial, and the mental actions are largely 

 spontaneous. In the case of memory, we all know how 

 little volition can directly effect. We cannot call up an 

 idea by simply willing it. When we try to remember some- 

 thing, which is, of course, out of consciousness, the office 

 of volition is simply to fix the attention upon various ideas 

 which will be most likely to recall, by the law of association, 

 the thing desired. We have all experienced this impotence 

 of the will to recover a forgotten name, or incident, which 

 may subsequently flash into consciousness after the atten- 

 tion has long been withdrawn from the search. The same 

 thing is observed in the exercise of the imagination. It is 

 said of eminent poets, painters, and musicians, that they 

 are born, and not made ; that is, their genius is an endow- 

 ment of nature a gifted organism which spontaneously 

 utters itself in high achievements, and they often present 

 cases of remarkable automatism. When Mozart was asked 

 how he set to work to compose a symphony, he replied, " If 

 you once think how you are to do it, you w,ill never write 



