750 Dynamic Theory. 



but the will has not only not the least authority over the methods of 

 muscular contraction, but we do not commonly even take cognizance of 

 the movement of limbs which results from these contractions. That is, 

 through habit the actions become more and more frictionless, and at the 

 same rate become automatic and unconscious. In ordinary walking, the 

 stimulus is the muscular sense, modified by the visual and perhaps other 

 senses. Every step taken after the start is made, liberates a stimulus 

 for another step. If the cerebral stimuli are not on the alert to inter- 

 fere at the proper time with this automatic, self-perpetuating stimulus of 

 the muscular sense, it will carry the subject beyond the intended stop- 

 ping place, a thing common in the experience of everyone. If nothing 

 else interferes, however, the muscular sense will itself finally be modi- 

 fied by the fatigue or exhaustion of the muscles, and this will become 

 a new automatic interfering stimulation. 



We are totally unconscious of the formation of a will before it is 

 formed ; that is, we do not know beforehand that we will have such a 

 will, and we are often unconscious of the process through which it is 

 derived. But we are conscious very often, though not always, of the 

 execution of the muscular expression of the will; that is, of the trans- 

 formation of the nervous energy of the brain centers into mechanical 

 energy through muscle contraction. As long as we are in health there 

 is nothing inside of us to interpose between the formation of the will 

 and the movement of the muscle, hence the conviction of the freedom 

 of the will to execute its conclusions. In other words, the first con- 

 sciousness we have of any will is after it is formed, and during its exe- 

 cution. We see the cause constantly and uniformly followed by its ef- 

 fect. We seldom trace the causes of the cause, and do not become con- 

 scious that there are any, except after a process of reasoning. If we 

 are not enlightened by this process, the will often appears to our con- 

 sciousness a first cause. And so it has sometimes been reckoned by meta- 

 physicians. 



1 < Although certain states of mind have a remarkable influence on or- 

 ganic functions, no change in their usual course can be determined by the 

 direct influence of the will. " The only sensible effect which the strong- 

 est effort of the will can produce, is .the concentration of attention in the 

 direction of muscle contraction, or cerebral action. 



It is essential to volitional action that a distinct idea should exist of 

 the object to be attained, also a belief of the possibility of attaining it 

 by the means employed. And other things being equal, the force of the 

 exertion is in proportion to the concentration of the attention to the 

 work. Emotional excitement may either intensify or paralyze the voli- 

 tional power. Dominant ideas are competent to modify the volitional 

 force the same way. A person in the hypnotic state, one of Mr. Braid's 



