WILL. 561 



intact liis will remains. Paralysis only goes a step farther. 

 The associated mechanism is not only deranged but al- 

 together broken through. The volition occurs, but the 

 hand remains as still as the table. The paralytic is made 

 aware of this by the absence of the expected change in his 

 aft'erent sensations. He tries harder, i.e., he mentally 

 frames the sensation of muscular ' effort,' wdth consent that 

 it shall occur. It does so : he frowns, he heaves his chest, 

 he clinches his other fist, but the palsied arm lies passive 

 as before.* 



We thus find that tve reach the heart of our inqidry into 

 volition when ive ask by ivhat process it is that the thought of 

 any given object comes to prevail stably in the mind. Where 

 thoughts prevail without effort, we have sufficiently studied 

 in the several chapters on sensation, association, and at- 

 tention, the laws of their advent before consciousness and of 

 their stay. We will not go over that ground again, for we 

 know that interest and association are the words, let their 

 worth be what it may, on Avhich our explanations must per- 

 force rely. Where, on the other hand, the prevalence of 

 the thought is accompanied by the phenomenon of effort, 

 the case is much less clear. Already in the chapter on at- 

 tention Ave postponed the final consideration of voluntary 

 attention wdth effort to a later place. We have noAv 

 brought things to a point at which we see that attention 

 with effort is all that any case of volition implies. The 

 essential achievement of the icill, in shoii, when it is most ' vol- 

 untary,' is to ATTEND to a difficult object and hold it fast before 

 the mind. The so-doing is the fat ; and it is a mere physio- 

 logical incident that when the object is thus attended to, 

 immediate motor consequences should ensue. A resolve, 

 whose contemplated motor consequences are not to ensue 

 until some possibly far distant future condition shall have 

 been fulfilled, involves all the psychic elements of a motor 

 fiat except the word * noiv /' and it is the same with many of 



* A normal palsy occurs during sleep. We will all sorts of motions in 

 our dreams, but seldom perform any of them. In nightmare we become 

 conscious of the non-performance, and make a muscular 'effort.' This 

 seems then to occur in a restricted way. limiting itself to the occlusion of 

 the glottis and producing the respiratory anxiety which wakes us up. 



