Motility

“ We learn from anatomy, that the immediate object of power in voluntary motion is not the member itself which is moved, but certain muscles and nerves and animal spirits, and perhaps something still more minute and unknown, through which the motion is successively propagated, ere it reach the member itself, whose motion is the immediate object of volition. Can there be a more certain proof that the power by which the whole operation is performed, so far from being directly and fully known by an inward sentiment or consciousness, is to the last degree mysterious and unintelligible? ”

“ But the motor is in the two-fold sense of unmoved, and both motor, and moved—the unmoved is the practical good ; the motor and moved is the appetitive stimulus or appetition (for that which is moved moves only in so far as it desires, and appetite is a motion or an act of some kind) ; and the moved is the animal. As the organism by which appetite effects motion is obviously corporeal, its nature must be studied together with those functions which are common to the body and the Vital Principle. ”

“ I can not admit that our consciousness of the volition contains in itself any a priori knowledge that the muscular motion will follow. If our nerves of motion were paralyzed, or our muscles stiff and inflexible, and had been so all our lives, I do not see the slightest ground for supposing that we should ever (unless by information from other people) have known any thing of volition as a physical power, or been conscious of any tendency in feelings of our mind to produce motions of our body, or of other bodies. ”

“ Ascending from visceral actions to muscular and nervous actions, we find the correspondence displayed in a manner still more obvious. Every act of locomotion implies the expenditure of certain internal forces, adapted in amounts and directions to balance or out-balance certain external forces. The recognition of an object is impossible without a harmony between the changes constituting perception, and particular properties co-existing in the environment. Escape from enemies implies motions within the organism, related in kind and rapidity to motions without it. ”

“ Now a sensation implies a force added to, or evolved in, that part of the organism which is its seat; while a mechanical movement implies an expenditure or loss of force in that part of the organism which is its seat. Hence if, as we find to be the fact, motion is habitually propagated from those parts of an organism to which the external world adds forces in the shape of nervous impressions, to those parts of an organism which react on the external world through muscular contractions, it is simply a fulfilment of the law above enunciated. ”

“ The current ideas of the growth of voluntary motion and the will are based upon an ill-defined notion that the muscular and nervous systems were first developed, like a piece of complex machinery, and then the mind somehow came into rapport with it, or happened to be there, just at the right time, and commenced to learn how to work a certain part of it—for it is admitted that the rest can get along without the mind. ”

“ The movements to the study of which we now address ourselves, being desired and intended beforehand, are of course done with full prevision of what they are to be. It follows from this that voluntary movements must be secondary, not primary, functions of our organism. This is the first point to understand in the psychology of Volition. Reflex, instinctive, and emotional{416} movements are all primary performances. The nerve-centres are so organized that certain stimuli pull the trigger of certain explosive parts ”

“ When we move a muscle, we Will to move it. This state of consciousness, the Will to move it, is part of the feeling of the motion. What that state of consciousness, called the Will, is, we have not yet explained. At present we speak of it merely as an element in the compound. Of what elements it is itself compounded we shall see hereafter. In the idea of resistance, then, there is the will to move the muscles, the sensations in the muscles, the occasion or antecedent of those feelings, and the effects or consequents of them. ”

“ Given that force can be exerted by an act of will, do we understand the mechanism by which this is done? And if there is a gap in our knowledge between the conscious idea of a motion and the liberation of muscular energy needed to accomplish it, how do we know that a body may not be moved without ordinary material contact by an act of will? ”

“ Instead of the power of control being more and more acquired by experience of muscular and tactual sensations, and of the results produced by the external or emotional stimulation of these sensations, we have the increasing effect of the deliberate and persistent voluntary attempt to regain control, with its advancing degrees of success and increased differentiation; and last of all, and most imperfectly, the resumption of non-volitional motor functions under the stimulation of sensation and emotion. ”

“ When a sensation has the power of exciting a given muscular action, the idea of that sensation, if sufficiently vivid, will excite it likewise. 3. The idea of the sensation which excites an automatic action of the muscles, persists during the action, and becomes associated with it by contiguity, in such a manner as to be itself, in its turn, excited by any vividly recalled idea of the muscular act. 4. The following is what takes place in voluntary motion. The idea of the end we desire, excites by association the idea of the muscular act which would procure it for us. ”

“ I will to move my hand; the hand obeys my will, so rapidly, that the motion, though truly subsequent, seems almost to accompany my volition, rather than to follow it. In conformity with the definitions before given of power and susceptibility, the one as implying a reference to something consequent, the other a reference to something antecedent, I should be inclined to consider the sensation which follows the presence of an external object as indicating a mental susceptibility of being so affected;—the production of muscular motion by the will, as indicating a mental power. ”

“ As there are always some muscles in a state either of tension or of activity it follows that we never lack a sense, either dim or clear, of the positions or movements of our body.... This permanent sense, moreover, has this peculiarity, that we are aware of our power at any moment voluntarily to arouse any one of its ingredients. We excite the sensations of movement immediately by such impulses of the will as shall arouse the movements themselves; and we excite the visual and tactile feelings of our body by the voluntary movement of our organs of sense. ”

“ It cannot also have escaped your observation, that there are other motions over which you have control, such as are all those which proceed from the determinations of your will and understanding, by virtue of which determinations your arms and hands, your legs and feet, and your whole body, are put in motion, and continued so for a certain length of time, which motions may not improperly be called voluntary motions. ”

“ Is it to cause a body to act in such a manner that the reaction shall be greater than the action itself, and by that means generate force by the accumulation of the surplus? Or, can the motion communicated be greater than that lost by the agent? ”

“ Mind directs the motion of the body by directing the motion of the organs of locomotion, and these are directed by the device of opposing muscles—the one being contracted and the other relaxed. So the choice of the animal is delegated to the choice of the organ, and the choice of the organ is delegated to the choice of the muscles. ”

“ By the Spontaneity of Movement is meant the tendency of human beings, and of animals generally, to begin acting without the express stimulus of sensation from without, and by virtue of the fund of power residing in the active organs themselves. By means of nourishment, the animal is disposed to pass into movement, from the mere abundance of the motor energy in the nerve centres and in the muscles. ”

“ Force.—When the faculties of observation and thought are developed in man, the idea of causation is applied to those changes which we see and feel in the state of rest and motion of bodies around us. And when our abstract conceptions are thus formed and named, we adopt the term Force, and use it to denote that property which is the cause of motion produced, changed, or prevented. This conception is, it would seem, mainly and primarily suggested by our consciousness of the exertions by which we put bodies in motion. ”

“ The physiological explanation, that the mechanism of locomotion, as of habitual movements, grows to the mode in which it is early exercised, and that it then works automatically under the general control and direction of the will, can scarcely be put down by any assumption of an hypothetical necessity, which rests only on the basis of ignorance of one side of our composite nature. ”

“ So that volition is as truly a cause of bodily movement as is the physical activity of the brain; seeing that, in an absolute sense, the cause is one and the same. But if we once clearly perceive that what in a relative sense we know as volition is, in a similar sense, the cause of bodily movement, we terminate the question touching the freedom of the will. ”

“ Big movements, such as the combined action of all four legs of an animal in walking, require cord and brain stem to work together, and throw into relief what is really true even of simpler reflexes, namely that a reflex is a coordinated movement, in the sense that different muscles cooperate in its execution. ”

“ When we say that it occurs automatically, we mean that it takes place, as it were, of itself, spontaneously, without the intervention of the will. By saying that it is mechanical, we mean that there exists no consciousness of the process involved, nor of the relation of the means, the various muscular adjustments, to the end, locomotion. ”

“ If the reader will extend his right arm and hold his forefinger in the position required for pulling the trigger of a pistol, he may without actually moving his finger, but by simply making believe, experience a consciousness of energy put forth. Here, then, is a clear case of consciousness of energy without actual contraction of the muscles either of the one hand or the other, and without any perceptible bodily strain. ”

“ In between, we accompany the movement with a dim awareness of the momentary positions of the parts of the body involved, so that we know whether or not they are moving in the intended manner. This awareness is due to a particular sense, the 'sense of movement' or 'muscular sense' - one of those senses whose existence physiology has lately come to acknowledge. Nothing, however, is known to us of all the complex changes which are set into play within the muscles themselves in order to carry out some intended movement. And it is these that are the direct outcome of the activity of our will. ”

“ With regard to the mechanism of motion, let us take the case of a man who is walking a crowded thoroughfare, and we shall see how active are all the servants of the Soul, under the influence of the mind. He walks along in a given direction. But for the act of volition in the mind, not a muscle would stir. The eye is watching his footsteps. ”

“ For it is nothing but thought which moves our bodies, and all the members of them, which are the immediate instruments of all human force and power: excepting mechanical motions which do not depend upon our wills, such as the motion of the heart, the circulation of the blood, the concoction of our meat and the like. ”

“ That under certain bodily or mental conditions of one or more of the persons present, a force is exhibited sufficient to set in motion heavy substances, without the employment of any muscular force, without contact or material connection of any kind between such substances and the body of any person present. ”

“ Such a useful movement is known in physiology as a reflex action. Every act, even the free voluntary act, is, physiologically speaking, a reflex action, differing from the spinal reflex of the brainless frog only in its vastly greater complexity. ”

“ In all forms of active exercise there are three powers simultaneously in action,—the will, the muscles, and the intellect. Each of these predominates in different kinds of exercise. In walking, the will and muscles are so accustomed to work together and perform their task with so little expenditure of force, that the intellect is left comparatively free. The mental pleasure in walking, as such, is in the sense of power over all our moving machinery. ”

“ Is the bare idea of a movement's sensible effects its sufficient motor-cue, or must there be an additional mental antecedent, in the shape of a fiat, decision, consent, volitional mandate, or{423} other synonymous phenomenon of consciousness, before the movement can follow? ”

“ In action grown habitual, what instigates each new muscular contraction to take place in its appointed order is not a thought or a perception, but the sensation occasioned by the muscular contraction just finished. A strictly voluntary act has to be guided by idea, perception, and volition, throughout its whole course. In habitual action, mere sensation is a sufficient guide, and the upper regions of brain and mind are set comparatively free. A diagram will make the matter clear:
Fig. ”

“ Since, however, we are ourselves in the practice of directing the motion of our own bodies, and of moving other things in this way, we have acquired a copious store of remembered sensations relating to these actions, and therefore our ideas of force are connected in our minds with ideas of conscious power, of exertion, and of fatigue, and of overcoming or yielding to pressure. ”

“ Both of these latter tendencies, these evolvements, are merely refinements of the motory system, and not independent entities; that is to say, they are the blossoms of a plant that propagates from its roots. The motory system is the first ... nor am I surprised that such prodigious muscular energy is developing. It promises yet to surpass the wildest dreams of human strength. ”