VOLITION. 
53 
VOLITION.* 
BY CONSTANCE C. W. NADEN. 
What is a voluntary action? It is very easy to answer. 
“ An action controlled by the will,” or “ An action determined 
by motives;” but we are only plunged into deeper perplexities, 
for we now have to seek a definition of “ Will ” and 
Motive ”—two elusive Will-o'-the-wisps, which will lead 
us on till we lose footing in metaphysical swamps. Even if 
we turn away from metaphysics altogether, and question 
anatomy and physiology, we are not much enlightened, for 
many actions which follow on stimulation of the so-called 
“voluntary” muscles are by no means voluntary. The only 
way of getting an answer is, apparently, by interrogating our 
own consciousness; the distinction between volition and 
automatism or volition and impulse is primarily psychological. 
It has, as I hope to show, its grounds in physiology also; 
but, as a mode of classifying actions, it should be reserved 
exclusively for psychology. 
Under the term “action” I shall include every modifica¬ 
tion of the organism which results from its own internal 
activity. It would be wrong to confine the word to those 
external manifestations which make up the visible life ; for 
although I will to move my arm, and not to contract a 
set of muscles, still the muscular contraction is the immediate 
sequence of my volition. I eat to live, not to excite the 
gastric glands; but the gastric glands help to carry out my 
purpose by their involuntary and unconscious activity. An 
action, then, may be a muscular contraction, a secreting 
process, or a neural process, or the inhibition of any of these. 
First, let us look within for the meaning of “Volition ” 
and “ Voluntary,” putting aside all preconceived notions 
about the freedom of the will, and its power of proceeding in 
diametrically opposite directions under precisely similar 
conditions; putting aside those questions of “fate, free-will, 
foreknowledge absolute,” which occupied Milton’s fallen 
angels, and confining ourselves to the facts of mental experi¬ 
ence. I think we shall find that what, in common parlance, 
we mean by a “voluntary action” is simply an action 
accompanied or immediately preceded by a conscious mental 
* Read at a Meeting of the Mason College Physiological Society, 
February 8th, 1887. 
