WILL. b')S1 



thouglits. When the blocking is released we feel as if an 

 inward spring were let loose, and this is the additional im- 

 pulse ox fiat upon which the act effectively succeeds. We 

 shall study anon the blocking and its release. Our higher 

 thought is full of it. But where there is no blocking, there 

 is naturally no hiatus between the thought-process and the 

 motor discharge. 3Iovement is the natural immediate effect 

 of feeling, irrespective of ivhat the quality of the feeling may be. 

 It is so in refiex action, it is so in em,otional expression, it is so 

 in the voluntary Ife. Ideo-motor action is thus no paradox, 

 to be softened or explained away. It obeys the type of all 

 conscious action, and from it one must start to explain ac- 

 tion in which a special fiat is involved. 



It may be remarked in passing, that the inhibition of a 

 movement no more involves an express effort or command 

 than its execution does. Either of them may require it. 

 But in all simple and ordinary cases, just as the bare pres- 

 ence of one idea prompts a movement, so the bare presence 

 of another idea will prevent its taking place. Try to feel 

 as if you were crooking your finger, whilst keeping it 

 straight. In a minute it will fairly tingle with the imagi- 

 nary change of position ; yet it will not sensibly move, be- 

 cause its not really moving is also a part of what you have in 

 mind. Drop this idea, think of the movement purely and 

 simply, with all breaks off; and, presto ! it takes place with 

 no effort at all. 



A wakiug man's behavior is thus at all times the result- 

 ant of two opposing neural forces. With unimaginable 

 fineness some currents among the cells and fibres of his 

 brain are playing on his motor nerves, whilst other cur- 

 rents, as unimaginably fine, are playing on the first cur- 

 rents, damming or helping them, altering their direction or 

 their speed. The upshot of it all is, that whilst the currents 

 must always end by being drained off through some motor 

 nerves, they are drained off sometimes through one set and 

 sometimes through another ; and sometimes they keep each 

 other in equilibrium so long that a superficial observer may 

 think they are not drained off at all. Such an observer 

 must remember, however, that from the physiological point 

 of view a gesture, an expression of the brow, or an expul- 



