560 PSYCHOLOGY. 



With tlie prevalence, once there as a fact, of the motive 

 idea the psychology of volition properly stops. The move- 

 ments which ensue are exclusively physiological phenomena, 

 following according to physiological laws upon the neural 

 events to which the idea corresponds. The ivilling termi- 

 nates with the prevalence of the idea ; and whether the act 

 then follows or not is a matter quite immaterial, so far as the 

 willing itself goes. I will to write, and the act follows. I 

 will to sneeze, and it does not. I will that the distant table 

 slide over the floor towards me ; it also does not. My willing 

 representation can no more instigate my sneezing-centre 

 than it can instigate the table to activity. But in both cases 

 it is as true and good willing as it was when I willed to 

 write.* In a word, volition is a psychic or moral fact pure 

 and simple, and is absolutely completed when the stable 

 state of the idea is there. The supervention of motion is a 

 supernumerary phenomenon depending on executive gan- 

 glia whose function lies outside the mind. 



In St. Vitus' dance, in locomotor ataxy, the representa- 

 tion of a movement and the consent to it take place nor- 

 mally. But the inferior executive centres are deranged, and 

 although the ideas discharge them, they do not discharge 

 them so as to reproduce the precise sensations anticipated. 

 In aphasia the patient has an image of certain words which 

 he wishes to utter, but when he opens his mouth he hears 

 himself making quite iinintended sounds. This may fill 

 him with rage and despair — which passions only show how 



* This sentence is written from the author's own consciousness. But 

 many persons say that where they disbelieve in the effects ensuing, as in 

 the case of the table, they cannot will it. They " cannot exert a volition 

 that a table should move." This personal difference may be partly verbal. 

 Different people may attach different connotations to the word 'will.' 

 But I incline to think that we differ psychologically as well. When one 

 knows that he has no power, one's de.sire of a thing is called a icish and 

 not a will. The sense of irapolence inhibits the volition. Onlj' by abstract- 

 ing from Ihe thought of the impossibility am I able to imagine strongly 

 the table sliding over the floor, to make the bodily ■ eft'ort ' which I do, and 

 to will it to come towards me. It may be that some people are unable 

 to perform this abstraction, and that the image of the table stationary 

 on the floor inhibits the contradictory image of its moving, which is the 

 object to be willed. 



