So it is

the desire of a friend, or some other motive that prevails. in the second step; the mind's determining to give itself up to accident, by touching that which shall be most in the eye, or the idea of which shall be most prevalent in the mind, &c. The mind is not absolutely indifferent whether it proceeds by this rule or no; but chooses it because it appears at that time a convenient and requisite expedient in order to fulfil the general purpose aforesaid. And so it is in the third and last step ; it is determining to touch that individual spot which actually does prevail in the mind's view. The mind is not indifferent concerning this; but is influenced by a prevailing inducement and reason; which is, that this is a prosecution of the preceding determination, which appeared requisite, and was fixed before in the second step.

"As the acts of will, in each step of the fore-mentioned procedure, do not come to pass without a particular cause, every act is owing to a prevailing inducement: so the accident, as I have called it, or that which happens in the unsearchable course of things, to which the mind yields itself, and by which it is guided, is not anything which comes to pass without a cause; and the mind, in being determined to be guided by it, is not determined by something that has no cause, any more than if it determined to be guided by a lot, or the casting of a die. For though the die's falling in such a manner be accidental to him that casts it, yet none will suppose that there is no cause why it falls as it does. The involuntary changes in the succession of our ideas, though the cause may not be observed, have as much a cause as the changeable motions of the motes that float in the air, or the continual, infinitely various, successive changes of the unevenness on the surface of the water." An Inquiry into the Modern prevailing notions of that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame, p. 67.

(p. 427)." Sixthly, the will appears to be nothing but a desire or aversion sufficiently strong to produce an action that is not automatic primarily or secondarily. At least it appears to me that the substitution of these words for the word will may be justified by the common use of language. The will is, therefore, that desire or aversion which is strongest for the present time. Since, therefore, all love and hatred, all desire and aversion, are factitious and generated by association, i.e. mechanically, it follows that the will is mechanical also." HARTLEY'S Theory of the Human Mind, p. 205.

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Appetite, therefore, and aversion are simply so called as long. as they follow not deliberation. But if deliberation have gone

....

before, then the last act of it, if it be appetite, is called will; if aversion, unwillingness. Neither is the freedoin of willing or not willing greater in man than in other living creatures. For where there is appetite the entire cause of appetite hath preceded; and, consequently, the act of appetite could not choose but follow; that is, hath of necessity followed. And, therefore, such a liberty as is free from necessity is not to be found either in the will of men or of beasts. But if by liberty we understand the faculty or power, not of willing, but of doing what they will, then certainly that liberty is to be allowed to both, and both may equally have it, whensoever it is to be had."-Hobbes, vol. i. p. 409.

"The whole sum of desires, aversions, hopes, and fears, continued till the thing be either done or thought impossible, is that we call Deliberation."-Leviathan, vii.

3

(p. 436).-I extract the following remarks of Hume :—

I. "But do we pretend to be acquainted with the nature of the human soul, and the nature of the idea, or the aptitude of one to produce the other? . . . . We only feel the event, namely, the existence of an idea, consequent to a command of the will. But the manner in which this operation is performed, the power by which it is produced, is entirely beyond our comprehension."

2. "The command of the mind over itself is limited as well as its command over the body; and these limits are not known by ... Will any one pretend to assign the ultimate reason of these boundaries, or show why the power is deficient in one case, not in another?”

reason..

3. "Self-command is very different at different times. Can we give any reason for these variations, except experience? Is there not here, either in a spiritual or material substance, or both, some secret mechanism or structure of parts, upon which the effect depends, and which, being entirely unknown to us, renders the power or energy of the will equally unknown and incomprehensible?"

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4. 'The motion of our body follows upon the command of our will. Of this we are every moment conscious. But the means by which this is effected, the energy by which the will performs so extraordinary an operation; of this we are so far from being immediately conscious, that it must for ever escape our most diligent inquiry."

After explaining that volition does not act directly on a limb itself, but through certain muscles and nerves, through which the motion is successively propagated, he asks-"Can there be a more certain proof that the power by which this whole operation is per

formed, so far from being directly and fully known by an inward sentiment or consciousness, is to the last degree mysterious and unintelligible. Here the mind wills a certain event; immediately another event unknown to ourselves, and totally different from the intended, is produced. This event produces another equally unknown; till, at last, through a long succession, the desired event is produced."—Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding.

CHAPTER VIII.

MOTOR NERVOUS CENTRES OR MOTORIUM COMMUNE, AND ACTUATION OR EFFECTION.

In all

THUS far I have been engaged in considering the development of the mental organization, as it takes place in the production of simple or presentative ideas out of sensory impressions, with their associated motor reactions,—that is, in apprehension; in the production of representative ideas or conceptions by abstraction from the simple ideas,—that is, in comprehension; and in the production of volition as the result of the complex interworking of desires and conceptions. But it is not man's function in life merely to think and feel; his inner life he must express or utter in action of some kind. animals there is an instinct or impulse to perform movements, either spontaneously or in answer to conscious and unconscious stimuli; for bodily exercise is necessary to the procuring of food, to the preservation of health, and to defence against their enemies. When there is no exercise of the proper movements, sensations of discomfort and restlessness are produced which impel the animal to perform movements in order to obtain relief from the discomfort which is felt, and to procure the agreeable sensations which will follow activity. After exertion there is an instinct for repose; the energy stored up by nutrition in the nervous centres having been spent, and requiring renewal. The instincts to movements in

the different organs with which animals are thus furnished to fulfil the ends of their life produce the habits and actions of their so-called animal life, and the movements are really complex manifestations of sensori-motor action. Just as centripetal and centrifugal nerve fibres united by nerve cells and commissural fibres are the simple elements out of which the complicated structure of the nervous system is built up, so sensation and motion are the simple functional units from which the complex mental processes are evolved. The natural consequence of a sensation is a movement, which follows necessarily, unless it be inhibited, or unless it be transformed into an equivalent activity, as happens when its energy is expended in acting upon the blood-vessels and affects secretion and nutrition.

It is evident then that there are other residua besides those which have already been specially dealt with, which enter as constituents into his mental life—the residua, namely, that are left behind by movements or actions. The movements that are instigated or actuated by a particular nerve centre do, like the ideas, leave behind them their residua, which, after several repetitions, become so completely organized into the nature of the nerve centre that the movements may henceforth be automatic. There is then, intervening between the volitional impulse and the action, a department or repository of motor residua, in which exist the immediate. agents of movements-a region, psychologically speaking, of abstract, latent, or potential movements. If recourse be had to physiology, it is found that, conformably with what psychological analysis teaches, there are numerous special motor nervous centres, or nuclei of ganglionic cells, cerebral and spinal, from which motor nerves proceed, and by the experimental irritation of which movements may be artificially excited. These motor centres have their special connections, by means of internunciant