AS APPLIED TO MAN. 367 
derived from the primary forces of nature. So much 
has been, if not rigidly proved, yet rendered highly | 
probable, and it is in perfect accordance with all — 
our knowledge of natural forces and natural laws. 
But it cannot be contended that the physiological 
balance-sheet has ever been so accurately struck, that 
we are entitled to say, not one-thousandth part of a 
_grain more of force has been exerted by any organized 
body or in any part of it, than has been derived from 
the known primary forces of the material world. If 
that were so, it would absolutely negative the existence 
of will; for if will is anything, it is a power that directs 
the action of the forces stored up in the body, and it 
is not conceivable that this direction can take place, 
without the exercise of some force in some part of the 
organism. However delicately a machine may be con- 
structed, with the most exquisitely contrived detents 
to release a weight or spring by the exertion of the 
smallest possible amount of force, some external force 
will always be required; so, in the animal machine, how- 
-ever minute may be the changes required in the cells or 
fibres of the brain, to set in motion the nerve currents 
which loosen or excite the pent up forces of certain 
muscles, some force must be required to effect those 
changes. If it is said, “‘ those changes are automatic, 
and are set in motion by external causes,” then one 
essential part of our consciousness, a certain amount 
of freedom in willing, is annihilated; and it is incon- 
ceivable how or why there should have arisen any 
consciousness or any apparent will, in such purely 
