Machinery of Self-control. 703 



differ in principle from the control exercised over the muscular move- 

 ments by the internal senses. When a child first sees a hot stove he 

 perhaps has a curiosity to touch it, which, in common language, he can- 

 not restrain or control. But after he has experienced pain by touching 

 the hot stove, he is able to govern any further inclination to touch it 

 That is, the first stimulation of pain registered in the memory cells of 

 the internal senses in the cerebrum, forms a barrier to the reflex move- 

 ment invited by the sight of the stove. It needs no argument to prove 

 that the governing " he " in this case is the ganglion that registers the 

 memory of the pain which accompanies the act. And its restraining 

 power depends upon the fact of the association of the sensation of hot 

 stove with the sensation of burned fingers. It is evident, then, that in 

 some way or other the stimulus from the memory cells, registering the 

 sensation of pain, interferes with and neutralizes that other stimulus 

 which tends to inaugurate movement toward the stove. Ever}- brain is 

 for itself the center of the universe, and the rest of the body is as much 

 a part of its environment as is any object outside of the body. 



I have somewhere met with a stor} T of a toper who was possessed 

 with what Tvas called an uncontrollable appetite for drink. One day, as 

 he was about to drink, a friend endeavored by every argument to dis- 

 suade him. "No," said he, "the appetite is too strong, I cannot con- 

 trol it. I feel that I must drink this if- 1 die for it. " As he was about 

 to raise the glass to his lips, his friend, by a rapid movement, emptied 

 into it the contents of a small phial labled poison. ' ' Then drink and 

 die if you must, " he exclaimed, ' ' the sooner it's over the better. " But 

 the man set the glass down. He could now "control" his appetite, at 

 least so far as that glass was concerned. Did not the environment sup- 

 ply the motive ? That glass at first invited the man to drink it, but at 

 last it urged him not to, and the strongest impulse expressed itself 

 through his muscles. 



It is evident that all cerebral action in which there is any association 

 of ideas, is in the nature of self-control in the same sense as spoken of 

 above ; that is, one idea, or class of ideas, when stimulated or in activ- 

 ity, shares attention with those with which it is in association, and so 

 by its own action develops limitations to such action. All ' ' self-con- 

 trol " consists merely in the automatic repression or restriction of the 

 expression of one stimulation by the interfering limitations of another. 

 We may wish for twenty things almost at once, but we cannot perform 

 twenty operations at once in order to get them. In the nature of things 

 nineteen will necessarily wait for one, and one will therefore control the 

 expression of nineteen. 



We may wish to do a certain thing, but postpone it to a more con- 

 venient season. The motive for postponing then controls the action as 



