CHAPTER XXVI.* 



WILL. 



Desibe, wish, will, are states of mind which everyone 

 knows, and which no definition can make plainer. We de- 

 sire to feel, to have, to do, all sorts of things which at the 

 moment are not felt, had, or done. If with the desire there 

 goes a sense that attainment is not possible, we simply icish ; 

 but if we believe that the end is in our power, we ivill that 

 the desired feeling, having, or doing shall be real ; and real 

 it presently becomes, either immediately upon the willing 

 or after certain preliminaries have been fulfilled. 



The only ends which follow immediately upon our will- 

 ing seem to be movements of our own bodies. Whatever 

 feelings and havings we may will to get, come in as results 

 of preliminary movements which we make for the purpose. 

 This fact is too familiar to need illustration; so that we may 

 start with the proposition that the only direct outward 

 effects of our will are bodily movements. The mechanism 

 of production of these voluntary movements is what befalls 

 us to study now. The subject involves a good many sepa- 

 rate points which it is difficult to arrange in any continu- 

 ous logical order. I will treat of them successively in the 

 mere order of convenience ; trusting that at the end the 

 reader will gain a clear and connected view. 



The movements we have studied hitherto have been 

 automatic and reflex, and (on the first occasion of their per- 

 formance, at any rate) unforeseen by the agent. The move- 

 ments to the study of which we now address ourselves, 

 being desired and intended beforehand, are of course done 



* Parts of this chapter have appeared in an essay called " The Feeling 

 of Effort," published in the Anniversary Memoirs of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History, 18b0 ; and parts in Scribner's Magazine for Feb. 1888. 



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