66 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 262 



turn, have been evolved in one way or another from the instinctive 

 expressions of our automatic life. 



This idea of the intended action is not only necessary for the 

 will : it is a sufficient incentive to it. The class of action to 

 which Carpenter gave the name ' ideo-motor ' is really the type of 

 action. To this class belong such movements as those concerned 

 in picking a pin from the floor while talking, or in scribbling with 

 a pencil, or absent-mindedly taking nuts and raisins from the dish 

 during an after-dinner chat. The deliberate eating is over, but the 

 idea of eating as excited by the sight of the dish, " not meeting 

 with any express contradiction, fatally passes over into action." It 

 needs for this no separate Jiai of the will : it is enough that no pos- 

 itively hindering idea should be there. The familiar dialogue of 

 ideas that takes place wTien we have the ordeal of rising on a cold 

 morning before us, illustrates the mental process admirably. We 

 think how late it is getting, how much we have to do, how shameful 

 it is to waste time in this fashion, and yet we remain passive and 

 comfortable, allowing the resolution to fade away every time it 

 seems about to pass into effect. How do we ever get up in such a 

 case ? " We suddenly find that we have got up. A fortunate lapse 

 of consciousness occurs : we forget both the warmth and the cold ; 

 we fall into some revery connected with the day's life, in the course 

 of which the idea flashes across us, ' Halloo ! I must lie here no 

 longer,' — an idea which at that lucky instant awakens no contra- 

 dictory or paralyzing suggestions, and consequently produces im- 

 mediately its appropriate motor effects." In general, " the sole 

 known cause for the execution of a movement is the bare idea of the 

 movem.ent's execution, and, if the idea occurs to a mind empty of other 

 ideas, the movement will fatally and infallibly take place." The hyp- 

 notic subject well illustrates this principle, for it is just because his 

 mind is empty of other ideas that he acts out so promptly and auto- 

 matically any and every suggestion of the hypnotizer. Normally 

 the mind is full of a host of ideas, and, if they harmonize with the 

 idea that is to lead to action, they will re-enforce and quicken the 

 act : if they conflict with it, they delay it or may prevent its realiza- 

 tion altogether. Had we simply called up the idea, ' we have eaten 

 enough,' this would have been sufficient to check the raising of the 

 hand towards the confectionery on the table. This fact of one 

 brain-process interfering with another, physiology terras ' inhibi- 

 tion,' and sees in it no more (and also no less) a mystery than in 

 the fact of stimulation itself. The reason, then, why, with a con- 

 stant stream of thought passing through one's mind from morning 

 till night, there are so few that lead to action, is because the vari- 

 ous things thought of at once meet with contradictory thoughts, 

 and do not conspire with the action. "They are not consented to. 

 * Consent,' in short, is a word which describes most of our activity 

 far more accurately than ' volition ' does." The volition would quite 

 as often consist in refusing this consent. The lack of power to re- 

 fuse this consent, to call up the contradictory ideas with sufficient 

 vividness, is what characterizes the slave to passion. The drunk- 

 ard finds himself preparing to drink at the sight of every bottle and 

 glass, not because he does not realize the consequences of his act, 

 but because he does not refuse his consent to it. " This is why 

 volcanic natures like the Mahomets, the Luthers, and the Bona- 

 partes, are usually fatalists. They find themselves bursting into 

 action with an energy at which they are themselves astonished, as 

 if some god or demon had released a spring." 



Having thus considered involuntary actions, and the action fol- 

 lowing upon the volition of consent, there remains the most highly 

 evolved type of actions, such as depend upon the volition of effort. 

 The ' new psychology ' naturally rejects the notion that the will is 

 an outside force exerting its influence upon conduct in a very remote 

 and contra-physical manner, and regards the will as bound down 

 by the conditions of nerve-cell and muscle quite as much as are the 

 simpler acts of a sentient being. The effort does not supplant the 

 ideas : it simply enables us to hold them fast, so that they may be- 

 come vivid enough to make the physical machine obey. When 

 laboring under a passion, the difficulty in acting rationally is not a 

 physical one. It is as easy, physiologically considered, to perform 

 the movements that lead to the fleeing from temptation as those 

 that yield to it. The difficulty is a mental one. It is the difficulty 

 of getting the idea of the rational conduct to stay before the mind 

 at all. The effect of a strong emotional state is to shut out all 



ideas that do not harmonize with the satisfaction of the emotion. 

 All others are hushed, and allowed no audience. " The cooling 

 advice which we get from others when the fever-fit is on us is the 

 most jarring and exasperating thing in life." If the rational ideas 

 can ever get a hearing, the crisis is past ; for with the new ideas 

 come new tendencies to action, that lead away from passion, and so 

 avert the evil. The strain of the will consists in the keeping the 

 attention fixed on such ideas as the better conscience knows to be 

 warranted, and in keeping down the conflicting notions. "Consent 

 to the idea's undivided presence, — this is the effort's sole achieve- 

 ment: its only function is to get this feeling of consent into the 

 mind." And from this view, it is as good a case of willing if I give 

 my consent to the table's moving as to the movement of my own 

 legs. In the one case the consent is so connected with a nervous 

 system (which connection itself is liable to disturbance by disease), 

 that the act follows from the consent : in the other no such con- 

 nection exists. In principle the two cases do not differ : the men- 

 tal prerequisite of the willed action is present. 



The moral effort, then, that we have constantly to perform in 

 life, is the overcoming of the resistance which certain ideas offer to 

 being attended to at all. The resistance may be internal, as the 

 uncongeniality of the task ; or external, as conflicting with the 

 mood of the mind at the moment : for example, the thought of to- 

 morrow's task while enjoying one's self at an evening's entertain- 

 ment. We almost involuntarily decide not to think of that, and so 

 frighten the spectre away. But the moral act is the attending to 

 the thought under such circumstances, until it results in action. 

 And the free-will controversy from this point of view resolves itself 

 into the amount of effort that it is possible to put forth in the way 

 of holding an unwelcome idea in the mind. 



The answer to the question, ' What happens when we exert our 

 will?' is, according to Professor James, that 'we simply fill our 

 mind with an idea which, but for our effort, would slip away.' 

 This at once opens up a host of ethical considerations which are 

 treated not in the usual manner of omitting the really difficult points 

 and dwelling upon the easy ones, but by manfully facing the real 

 question. A few citations must suffice to suggest the tone of the 

 view which the article upholds. The first lesson drawn from the 

 psychology of the will is that " the will has as much to do with 

 our beliefs and faiths as with our movements. It is, in fact, only 

 in consequence of a faith that our movements themselves ensue. 

 We think of a movement, and say, ' Let it ensue. So far as we are 

 concerned, let it be part of reality.' This is all that our mind can 

 do : physical nature must do the rest." This is the method of at- 

 taining a belief : we let our mind fill with it, and drive other thoughts 

 out of the field. Were the problems of life perfectly simple, and 

 the lessons that nature teaches perfectly clear and unambiguous, 

 there would be no great difficulty in selecting a view and adhering 

 to it. "But these ostrich-like attitudes are both of them [i.e., that 

 of the dogmatic spiritualist and the dogmatic materialist] getting 

 harder than ever to maintain." " So long as our mind is assailed 

 in two such different ways, it is quite idle to talk of its being pas- 

 sive and will-less until the objective truths shall have written them- 

 selves down. They write down no messages which are both cohe- 

 rent and universal." Look at the men who at the present day feel 

 life on all its sides, and yet who are incapable of volition in intel- 

 lectual affairs, and imagine that there ought to be some sort of 

 truth with which they can remain in passive equilibrium. Their 

 feeUngs make them shiver at the materialistic facts, while their loy- 

 alty to science makes them dread to be dupes of their feelings. 

 " But the men of will do not let ■ I dare not ' wait upon ' I would ' 

 in any such sorry fashion. They choose their attitude, and know 

 that the facing of its difficulties shall remain a permanent portion 

 of their task." " No more in the theoretic than in the practical 

 sphere do we care for, or go for help to, those who have no head 

 for risks, or sense for living on the perilous edge." 



A Study of Hypnotism. — In the current number of the North 

 American Review, Dr. Gilles de la Tourrette, a pupil of Charcot, 

 gives an account of the views of the several varieties of hypnotic 

 sleep which the French school have developed. While the article 

 gives nothing that is new, it is a convenient and authoritative ex- 

 position of the work that has occupied so much of the attention of 

 the workers at the ' Salpetrifere.' 



