664 PSYCHOLOGY. 



rise in revolt against it and would expel it from tlie mind. 

 Sustained in this way by a resolute efibrt of attention, tlie 

 difficult object erelong begins to call up its own congeners 

 and associates and ends by changing the disposition of the 

 man's consciousness altogether. And with his conscious- 

 ness, his action changes, for the new object, once stably in 

 possesion of the field of his thoughts, infallibly jjroduces 

 its owni motor effects. The difficulty lies in the gaining 

 possession of that field. Though the spontaneous drift of 

 thought is all the other way, the attention must be kept 

 strained on that one object until at last it groivs, so as to 

 maintain itself before the mind with ease. This strain of 

 the attention is the fundamental act of will. And the will's 

 work is in most cases jDractically ended wdien the bare pres- 

 ence to our thought of the naturally unwelcome object has 

 been secured. For the mysterious tie between the thought 

 and the motor centres next comes into play, and, in a way 

 winch we cannot even guess at, the obedience of the bodily 

 organs follows as a matter of course. 



In all this one sees how the immediate point of appli- 

 cation of the volitional effort lies exclusively in the mental 

 world. The whole drama is a mental drama. The Avhole 

 difficulty is a mental difficulty, a difficulty with an object of 

 our thought. If I may use the word idea without suggest- 

 ing associationist or Herbartian fables, I will say that it is 

 an idea to which our will applies itself, an idea which if we 

 let it go W'Ould slijj aAva}^ but which we will not let go. 

 Consent to the idea's undivided presence, this is effort's 

 sole achievement. Its only function is to get this feeling of 

 consent into the mind. And for this there is but one way. 

 The idea to be consented to must be kept from flickering 

 and going out. It must be held steadily before the mind 

 until itJiUs the mind. Such filling of the mind by an idea, 

 with its congruous associates, is consent to the idea and to 

 the fact which the idea represents. If the idea be that, or 

 include that, of a bodily movement of our own, then Ave call 

 the consent thus laboriously gained a motor volition. For 

 Nature here ' backs ' us instantaneously and follows up our 

 inward willingness by outward changes on her own part. 

 She does this in no other instance. Pity she should not 



