Chap. XXVI.] VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS. 551 



most important distinction drawn by James Mill. But, 

 as the same philosopher afterwards points out, something 

 else accompanies or immediately follows the emotion of 

 Desire — viz., an Idea or Conception of the kind of Move- 

 ment needed for the gratification of the Desire. 



It seems generally admitted, therefore, by the philo- 

 sophers above quoted, as it is by others, that the motions 

 of our bodies are begun, continued or ended, as Locke 

 put it, "barely by a Thought or preference of the Mind." 

 Impressions, Sensations, Emotions, Thoughts — these are 

 the mental states which, singly or in combination, are 

 followed by Movements. As to any details pertaining to 

 their incitation and actual accomplishment, little or 

 nothing more is known with any degree of certainty. 

 Writing in 1830,* James Mill said: "We do not 

 undertake to say what physical links are between the 

 Idea and the Contraction, any more than between the 

 Sensation and Contraction. TJie Idea is the last part of 

 the Mental ojoeration.'' 



If, however, this be really so, if beyond the mental 

 states or processes above enumerated, we have in Volun- 

 tary Acts mere physical changes in nerve and muscle, as 

 Hume and James Mill averred, there is the less reason for 

 surprise that some philosophers, such as Dugald Stewart 

 and Dr. Thomas Brown, should have deliberately omitted 

 to discuss ' Will ' as a distinct section of our Conscious 

 Life. " To know all our sensitive states or affections," the 



process of Deliberation, and, concerning this process, Hobbes says: 

 — " The whole sum of desires, aversions, hopes and fears, continued 

 till the thing be either done or thought impossible, is what we call 



Deliberation.'^ " Appetite, therefore, and aversion are 



simply so-called as long as they follow not deliberation. But if 

 deliberation have gone before, then the last act of it, if it be 

 appetite, is called will ; if aversion, unwilUnguess." 

 * Loc cit. 11. p. 266. 



