WILL. 487 



with full prevision of what they are to be. It follows from 

 this that voluntary movements must he secondary, not primary 

 functions of our organism. This is the first point to under- 

 stand in the psychology of Volition. Eeflex, instinctive, 

 and emotional movements are all primary performances. 

 The nerve-centres are so organized that certain stimuli jjull 

 the trigger of certain explosive parts ; and a creature going 

 through one of these explosions for the first time under- 

 goes an entirely novel experience. The other day I was 

 standing at a railroad station with a little child, when an 

 express-train went thundering by. The child, who was 

 near the edge of the platform, started, winked, had his 

 breathing convulsed, turned pale, burst out crying, and ran 

 frantically towards me and hid his face. I have no doubt 

 that this youngster was almost as much astonished by his 

 own behavior as he was by the train, and more than I was, 

 who stood by. Of course if such a reaction has many times 

 occurred we learn what to expect of ourselves, and can then 

 foresee our conduct, even though it remain as involuntary 

 and uncontrollable as it was before. But if, in voluntary 

 action properly so-called, the act must be foreseen, it fol- 

 lows that no creature not endowed with divinatory j^ower 

 can perform an act voluntarily for the first time. Well, we 

 are no more endowed with prophetic vision of what move- 

 ments lie in our power, than we are endowed with pro- 

 phetic vision of what sensations we are capable of receiving. 

 As we must wait for the sensations to be given us, so we 

 must wait for the movements to be performed involun- 

 tarily,* before we can frame ideas of what either of 

 these things are. We learn all our possibilities by the 

 way of experience. When a particular movement, having 

 once occurred in a random, reflex, or involuntary way, has 

 left an image of itself in the memor}", then the movement 

 can be desired again, proposed as an end, and deliberately 

 willed. But it is impossible to see how it could be willed 

 before. 



* I am abstracting at present for simplicity's sake, and so as to keep to 

 the elements of the matter, from the learning of acts by seeing others do 

 them. 



