VOLITION. 
Ill 
we Lave learned to speak; read, because we have learned to 
read ; dress ourselves, because we have learned to dress our¬ 
selves ; that is, because in each case a mechanism has been 
gradually constructed, which needs only a touch to set it 
going. This touch—the volition—is really of the nature of 
an impulse, and can be distinguished from impulse only by its 
inferior strength, or by the superiority of the obstacles that 
stand in its path. It is an impulse either intrinsically feeble 
or strongly opposed. Often two volitions conflict, causing a 
painful mental struggle ; often volition and automatism 
conflict, the volition trying to turn the thoughts from a 
habitual channel, and not succeeding unless it be so strong 
and energetic as to merit the name of impulse, or unless the 
counter-channel be well-worn. Will has little or no effect on 
the primary automatic actions, such as coughing, or irritation 
of the larynx, lieart-beating, the contraction of the iris; 
because their channels are better worn than the channels of 
any secondary automatic actions can possibly be. 
But how can a volition be truly inhibitory t If a volition 
be a comparatively faint impulse, how can it ever overcome a 
powerful impulse? It must be remembered here that every¬ 
thing hinges on that word “ comparatively,” and that if a 
strong initiatory volition is opposed to an impulse of 
moderate strength, the sense of effort may be transferred 
to the impulsive side, which then, by our definition, becomes 
volitional. But an inhibitory volition seems usually to be 
a mixture of impulse and automatism, in which automatism 
preponderates. An effort of will is generally powerless to 
restrain the expression of emotion, unless there is an 
ingrained habit of self-restraint; a habit which may be 
inherited, or may have been born of impulse of some rival 
emotion, as fear or love. This is acknowledged in the 
common phrase—“ the triumph of principle over passion.” 
The impulse to be inhibited may be powerful, and yet 
may be neutralised by a comparatively faint counter-impulse 
setting at work the moral machinery. 
Among a number of similar cases related by Dr. Maudsley 
in the “ Pathology of Mind ” is the following:—“ On several 
occasions I have been consulted by a married lady, the 
mother of several children, who is afflicted with recurring 
impulses to kill her youngest children, of whom she is most 
fond ; she cannot bear sometimes to be in the room with 
them when there are knives on the table and no one else is 
. present; and she is driven to retire to her bedroom, where 
she weeps in an agony of despair, because of what she calls 
her wicked thoughts, and prays frantically to be delivered 
