This theory, as we have seen, is adopted, and more fully worked out, by the author of the Analysis. He proves, by many examples, that sensations excite muscular actions; that ideas excite muscular actions; and that, when a sensation has power to excite a particular muscular action, the idea of the sensation tends to do the same. It is true that many, if not most, of what he presents as instances of muscular action excited by sensations, are cases in which both the sensation and the muscular action are probably joint effects of a physical cause, a stimulus acting on the nerves. This misapprehension by the author reaches its extreme point when he declares traumatic tetanus to be produced not by the wound but by the pain of the wound; and cramps to be produced by sensations, instead of merely producing them. But the error is quite immaterial to the theory of the Will; the two suppositions being equivalent, as a foundation for the power which the idea of the muscular sensation acquires over the muscular action. Whether the sensation is the cause of the automatic action, or its effect, or a joint effect of the cause which produces it—on all these hypotheses the sensation and the action are conjoined in such a manner, as to form so close an association by contiguity that the idea of the sensation becomes capable of exciting the action. This being conceded, it follows, by the ordinary laws of association, that whatever recals the idea of the sensation, tends, through the idea, to produce the action.
Now, there is nothing so closely associated with the idea of the muscular sensation, as the idea of the muscular act itself, such as it appears to outward observation. Whatever, therefore, calls up strongly the idea of the act, is likely to call up the idea of the accompanying muscular sensation, and so produce the act. But the idea of the act is called up strongly by anything which makes us desire to perform it; that is, by an association between it as a means, and any coveted pleasure as an end. The act is thus produced by our desire of the end; that is (according to the author’s theory of desire) by our idea of the end, when pleasurable; which, if an end, it must be. The pleasurable association may be carried over from the ultimate end to the idea of the muscular act, through any number of intermediate links, consisting of the successive operations, probably in themselves indifferent, by which the end has to be compassed; but this transfer is strictly conformable to the laws of association. When the pleasurable association has reached the muscular act itself, and has caused it to be desired, the series of effects terminates in the production of the act. What has now been described is, in the opinion of the author, the whole of what takes place in any voluntary action of the muscles. At the [close] of the chapter we shall consider whether there is any part of the facts, for which this theory does not sufficiently account.—Ed.
355 II. But even when it is admitted that all muscular contraction is the effect of association, in the way we have described, there are other 356 phenomena to be accounted for. We may still be reasonably called upon to explain the power which the mind appears to possess over its associations. There is a 357 distinction in the trains of the mind which is observed by every body. Some trains, as those in dreams, in delirium, in frenzy, are supposed to proceed according 358 to the established laws of association without any direction from the mind. Other trains; a piece of reasoning, for example; any process of thought, directed to an end; are considered as wholly under the guidance of the mind. The guidance of the mind is but another name for the will. And thus it is inferred that the will is not association, but something which controuls association.
We now proceed to the solution of this difficulty. It can be supposed that the will controuls association, in only one of two ways; either, by calling up an Idea, independently of association; or, by making an Idea call up, not the Idea which would follow it spontaneously, but some other Idea.
The first supposition, that an Idea can be called up by the will, is relinquished by the common consent of philosophers.
We cannot will without willing something; and in willing we must have an Idea of the thing willed. If we will an Idea, therefore, we must have the Idea. The Idea does not remain to be called up. It is called up already. To say that we will to have an Idea, when we already have it, is a mere absurdity.[64]
[64] What we have in mind when we will to remember anything, is of course not the thing to be remembered, but some collateral, or something to determine our search for it. We will to remember an opinion found in a certain book. We have not in our mind the actual opinion sought; what we have in mind is the book, and portion of the book, and the subject that the opinion refers to; and we desiderate the filling up of the blank in our present ideas. We will to remember the Greek name of the god, called by the Romans, Bacchus. We have in mind the name Bacchus, and the knowledge that the Greeks had a different name for the god; we have not in our mind that name; and we put forth an effort of recollection to arrive at it.—B.
359 The second supposition is, that will can prevent an Idea from calling up one idea, make it call up another; prevent its calling up the Idea which would have followed it spontaneously, make it call up the Idea which the mind is in quest of.
The first question is, how the will, or the mind willing, can prevent an Idea from calling up another. We know that this is wholly impossible in all those cases in which the association is strong. We cannot think of colour without thinking of extension; we cannot think of the word bread without thinking of its meaning. It can be supposed that we have such power in those cases only in which an Idea has not an inseparable association with the idea in question, but only such an association with it as it has with many others. But how is it that we can hinder an idea which has those associations, from calling up any of the ideas with which it is associated? How can we foresee which of those ideas it will call up? And, if we do foresee that it will call up the idea which we desire to avoid, it follows that the Idea is already in our mind. There seems, therefore, the same incongruity in the supposition that the will can directly prevent, as that it can directly produce, an idea.
If the mind, then, possesses any power over its trains, it seems to be confined to its power of making 360 an idea call up other ideas than those which it would spontaneously excite. And if it possesses this power, it possesses that also of excluding ideas which would otherwise exist; since a new train of associations must take its origin from the state of consciousness thus produced. It is, therefore, in this, if in any thing, that the power of willing consists.