AN EJ^QU1£Y INTO THE FORMATION OF HABIT IN MAN. 141 



correspond as the convex and concave surfaces ot a hollow 

 sphere "? 



The answer to all this in the first place (but by many this 

 will be considered of no wei^^ht), is that such an idea is 

 subversive of all moral principle. 



In the next place we have the power of choice, selection, 

 memory, and attention, all of which, when carefully analyzed 

 and considered, have no correspondence with any form of 

 nerve action. 



Consider the faculty of attention. If all mental condi- 

 tions (to quote Dr. Courtney again) were simply the 

 material result or effect of molecular agitation of the nerves, 

 it is difficult to say why some forms of nervous agitation 

 should produce " attention," while other forms exactly similar 

 should fail to get themselves registered within the brain. 

 We are looking upon some landscape ; we attend to some 

 features in this landscape ; we notice some particular tree or 

 figure, or colour, not always because it is striking, but for 

 some capiicious fancy of ours. How can this be if there be 

 not a mind within us with laws of its own, which has a 

 nervous mechanism, but is not the slave or result of that 

 mechanism ? The Greeks rightly decided long since that the 

 mind was not the music of the harp or the motion of the 

 boat, but the player and the rower. 



A great attempt has been made to prove that all actions 

 are sensori-motor reflexes, that all organisms are merely 

 mechanisms ; but although we act often on impulse, we 

 are equally conscious of acting against it, and of the 

 mind conquering all the sensory solicitations of the body, 

 and refusing to transmit the natural motor impulse that 

 would have resulted had we had no will. The brain is 

 certainly most carefully isolated from all external impressions 

 — in a bony case, floating in fluid, wrapped in membranes — 

 except those conveyed by the blood and nerve currents ; 

 and yet these totally fail to account for actions contrary 

 to these currents, and we must superadd therefore, that it is 

 acted on by mind. 



The action of an automaton, moreover, is ciiaracterized by 

 ease, that of mind by distinct effurt, and the mental fatigue 

 is never in proportion to the amount of work done, but as 

 to how far that work is reflex, or automatic, or voluntary. 



Again, if half the cerebrum is lost, half the powers of the 

 body go, and yet the mind remains as a whole. Moreover 

 the brain tissue is incessantly changing, and vet through all 



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