652 WILL AND 



latter says,* *' all our intellectual states, all our Emotions, 

 is to know all the states or phenomena of the Mind." 

 The precedence of one or other of these subjective 

 phases, or of compound conditions derived therefrom, 

 would correspond, as he thought, to what we know as 

 * Will.' Beyond these subjective phases, we should pass in 

 the execution of Voluntary Movements from the sphere of 

 psychology into that of physiology pure and simple. 



The distinctness of the Idea or Conception of the Move- 

 ment (which we shall presently find to be of complex 

 origin), as one of the Conscious Components of a Voli- 

 tion, will be found to vary much with the degree of 

 familiarity, or ease of execution, of the Movement. And 

 in this latter respect, of course, all gradations exist be- 

 tween the simplest kinds of Voluntary Movements and 

 those of the most complex order. 



We may, for instance, * voluntarily ' perform some move- 

 ment which frequent repetition has already made easy, 

 but which, for the most part, we now perform ' auto- 

 matically.' The fingers of a sleeping child may close 

 over an object gently brought into contact with its palm ;- 

 or when awake the child may excite a similar movement 

 voluntarily. An object brought close to the eyes may 

 cause a person to wink involuntarily, but he is also capable 

 of performing the same act in a voluntary manner. We 

 may lift the arm instinctively to ward otf an impending 

 blow, or we may raise it in the same manner voluntarily. 

 In all such cases the Idea or Conception of the Movement 

 needed scarcely obtrudes itself at all "as a conscious 

 element of the ' Volition ' ; this is a part of the process 

 which has here become more or less latent. 



But in the other more complex category of Voluntary 

 ♦ "Philosophy of the Human Mind," Lect. xvii. 



