Note note 63 — ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF THE HUMAN MIND James Mill

63 This analysis of the power of the Will over muscular action is substantially that of Hartley, though more clearly and forcibly stated, and more amply illustrated. In the field of mental philosophy this is the point at which Hartley approached nearest to the most advanced thoughts of his successors, and left least for them to do beyond the task of commentators and defenders.

The doctrine of Hartley on the Will may be summed up in the following propositions. 1. All our voluntary movements were originally automatic: meaning by automatic, involuntary, and excited directly by sensations. 2. 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. The idea of this muscular act excites, by association, the idea of the sensation which originally excited the same muscular action automatically. And lastly, the idea of this sensation excites the action, as the sensation itself would have done. 5. These associations being formed gradually, and progressively strengthened by repetition, this gives us the explanation of the gradual and slow process whereby we gain what is called command of our muscles; i.e. the process by which the actions, originally produced automatically by sensations, come to be produced, and at last, to be easily and rapidly produced, by the ideas of the different pleasurable ends to which those muscular actions are the means. 6. In this chain of association, as is so often the case in chains of association, the links which are no otherwise interesting to us than by introducing other links, gradually drop out of consciousness, being, after many repetitions, either forgotten as soon as felt, or altogether thrown out; the latter being the supposition which Hartley apparently favours. The link that consists in the idea of the internal sensations which excited the muscular action when it was still automatic, being the least interesting part of the whole series, is probably the first which we cease to be aware of. When the succession of the ideas has become, by frequent repetition, extremely prompt, rapid, and certain, another link tends to disappear, namely, the ideas of the muscular feelings that accompany the act. A practised player, for example, on a keyed instrument, becomes less and less conscious of the motions of his fingers, until there at last remains nothing in his consciousness to shew that the muscular acts do not arise without any intermediate links, from the purpose, i.e. the idea in his mind, which made him begin playing. At this stage the muscular motion, which, from automatic, had become voluntary, has become, from voluntary, what, in Hartley’s phraseology, is called secondarily automatic; and it seems to be his opinion that the ideas which have disappeared from consciousness, or at all events from memory, have not been (as maintained by Stewart) called up, and immediately afterwards forgotten, but have ceased to be called up; being, as it were, leapt over by the rapidity with which the succeeding links rush into consciousness.

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.