the purpose. The ultimate cause of the voluntary contraction of the muscles is the mind. The action of the mind in producing voluntary muscular action, terminates on the nerves, and is communicated by them to the muscles. The agents of voluntary muscular action are: 1. The mind acting on the nerves; 2. The nerves affecting the muscles; 3. The muscles contracting and moving the limbs. The. muscles of the dead may be contracted by galvanism, communicated to them by the nerves of motion, so as to produce actions like those of living beings. This has often been done, to the surprise and astonishment of beholders. In life, the mind acts on the nerves of motion, and these organs on the muscles. There is no evidence that it acts at all directly on the muscles in voluntary corporeal actions, any more than there is, that it acts directly on external objects, which it moves through the medium of the limbs. The contraction of the muscles by the galvanic fluid, after death, proves that they are adapted to operate in performing their legitimate functions as an effect of galvanic or other similar exciteTheir living action, therefore, may be by means of this excitement. According to this hypothesis, the nerves act upon the voluntary muscles in living beings, by means of a galvanic or other fluid, and serve as conductors of this fluid to the muscles. The energy with which the muscles contract, other things being equal, is proportionable to the amount of galvanism which they receive; and all that the nerves receive they give.

ment.

The facts which are clearly involved in voluntary muscular action are: 1. Conscious and voluntary mental exercises; 2. The accumulation of the nervous fluid in those parts of the nervous system where the action is to be performed, and on the particular nerves with which the muscles to be operated upon, are connected; 3. The discharge of this fluid from the nerves to the muscles with which they communicate; and, 4. The consequent contraction of the muscles and motion of the limbs or other organs. In this case, the agency of the mind is concerned directly; 1. In accumulating the galvanic fluid where it is to be used; and 2. In discharging it from the nerves of motion connected with the muscles to be moved, and in such proportions as are requisite for the ends contemplated.

The theory of a nervous fluid does not weaken the evidence of the existence of human and animal minds, derived

from voluntary action, and other conscious exercises. Material muscles may be excited by a material fluid; the nervous system may serve as organs for the secretion and distribution of this fluid; but beyond the nerves and nervous system, and the fluid which they secrete and distribute, there must be another agent to govern the secretion and distribution of this element. That ultimate agent is the mind, and is the exclusive subject of volitions. Voluntary corporeal actions originate in volitions. Their subjective causes are entirely material; their ultimate causes spiritual. The mind is the ultimate cause of all the corporeal actions which it produces by volitions.

§ 483. Mental exercises are not, in any case, appropriate objects of volition, in the sense that corporeal voluntary actions are. The mind does not produce sensations, ideas, emotions, or choices, by the direct agency of volttions. It produces these exercises as it produces volitions, and is their common subjective cause. Some of its exercises are

agreeable to its choice respecting them, and some are not. No possible conscious exercise can be an object of choice, except as far as it is at the same time an object of ideas. Mental exercises occur, and are then objects of choice as to their continuance or non-continuance. We have ideas of mental exercises, which do not exist at the time, as the objects of certain relations, and prosecute the more perfect attainment of them as objects of pursuit; but not as direct objects of volitions.

We can

Judgments, imaginations, emotions, affections, and desires, are in some degree under our voluntary control. obtain many of them or not obtain them, as we choose; but we cannot obtain any of them as the direct objects of volitions. Men move their limbs by means of volitions; but they do not judge, know, imagine, or remember, by these means; neither do they experience emotions, affections, and desires, or form purposes by them, except to a limited extent. Volitions are not necessary to sensations, where the appropriate organic impressions exist; and they are not necessary to the formation of judgments on the ground of sensations; or to the exercise of emotions as the consequence of emotionproducing ideas. Volitions which have respect to mental exercises, are denominated acts of attention; and in attention, the mind is exercised voluntarily in existing ideas and their accompanying emotions. We attend to existing ideas in

order to obtain others; and to some existing ideas in prefer ence to others, according as we suppose they are preferable, either as means of attaining desirable emotions or other desirable ideas. A large portion of our mental exercises depend on volitions directed immediately to the production of corporeal actions; such as seeing, hearing, and tasting. We perform certain corporeal acts as objects of volitions, with a view to obtain mental exercises, and by that means obtain them.

484. Volitions, like choices and purposes, are subsequent in the order of succession to desires. We first desire, then will, in confomity with our desires. The immediate causes of desires, are remote concurring causes of volitions and voluntary actions. Considered with respect to the voluntary actions which they concur in producing, desires are denominated motives, and are distinguished from the the objects to which they relate, under the title of subjective motives, while their objects are denominated objective motives. Thus, wealth is an objective motive, and the desire of it a subjective motive to industry; and the favor of God an objective motive, and the desire of it a subjective motive to piety. Objective motives are essential conditions of subjective ones; and subjective motives, of choices, purposes, volitions, and voluntary actions.

Volitions vary in respect to intensity, like sensations and emotions; and some volitions have more intensity, and others less. Other things being equal, their consequent actions or effects are proportionable to their intensity. With volitions of one degree of intensity, we lift one pound; with those of two degrees of intensity, two pounds; with those of a hundred degrees of intensity, a hundred pounds; and so on to the most intense possible. Voluntary actions are more or less difficult and laborious, and uniformly become less and less so by repetition ; and processes which are difficult and laborious at first, become easier by practice, till we perform them almost without effort. The muscular strength which we exert on different occasions, other things being equal, is proportionable to the energy of our volitions.

CHAPTER VII.

GENERAL LAWS OF THE WILL.

$485. Choices, purposes, and volitions, exert a powerful influence in determining our happiness and misery; and every other class of mental exercises is to a great extent determined by them. Their influence is of two kinds, direct and indirect. They exercise a direct influence on sensations and ideas in attention; and on the body in voluntary muscular action ; and an indirect influence on these exercises and on the future acts of will, by the effects of attention and of voluntary corporeal action. In these two modes our past acts of will determine, to a great extent, our present experience; and our present acts of will, together with those which are past, our future experience. The experience of each successive portion of life is thus linked to the exercises of the will. Our first acts of will modify our earliest experience, and extend their indirect influences to the remotest future. All our successive acts of will are added to the common stock of our previous exercises, and exert similar immediate and remote influences, which extend forward indefinitely. The exercises of will in infancy affect the experience of youth, manhood, and old age. Those of youth, affect the experience of manhood and old age; those of manhood affect the experience of old age; and those which belong to all the different periods of life, affect the experience of a future state forever. These influences ought to be constantly borne in mind, and carefully studied, that we may know beforehand what effect particular choices, purposes, and volitions will have on our whole destiny. We always act in view of some of their anticipated effects; and we ought, as far as possible, to obtain a view of all of them, and to make such a view the basis of our judgments pertaining to this class of exercises.

The capacity of acting in view of motives, and for the accomplishment of those ends which we judge desirable, enhances the value of all our other capacities, and renders them available for the attainment of happiness. Without this endowment we might be sentient machines, operating according to the will and judgment of our Creator; but

with this we are moral agents, acting according to our own will and judgment, and are the subjects of moral responsibility for our actions.

486. The will is adapted to the other mental faculties. It is the servant.of the susceptibilities of pleasure and pain, and of the consequent affections and desires; but operates - according to the deductions of reason, deciding different modes of action to be both possible and desirable, at the time of their being resolved on or performed. According as our judgments are right or wrong, dependent acts of will are really useful or injurious. Reason is the guide of the will, and is exercised under its influence and direction. Here is the mystery of human nature; and on this point multitudes are involved in endless perplexity. This mystery, however, admits of an easy solution, and may be solved as follows:

The first exercise of will occurs under the direction of reason, uninfluenced by any previous purpose or volition. It is purely a dictate of reason, or a dictate of unbiased reason. Its results become matters of experience, and produce corresponding judgments. Judgments resulting from that exercise of will, together with others not derived from that source, produce other exercises of will; and every successive exercise of will modifies the judgments which follow; the judgments constantly producing acts of will, and the acts of will producing and modifying future judgments. The changes which occur in our susceptibilities of pleasure and pain, in the course of our experience, modify both our judgments and acts of will. In judging what is good or evil, we always consider the objects to be judged of, with respect to our existing or future possible capacities and conditions; not in respect to those which we may have previously had and lost, or to those which we may yet have in future, but which we do not anticipate.

§ 487. Our capacity of willing, is limited by our susceptibilities of pleasure and pain, and our other mental and bodily faculties; and is greater or less, in proportion as these capacities are increased or diminished. Will is not omnipotent nor independent. Its powers correspond to the other faculties of voluntary agents, and its exercises depend entirely on previous or contemporaneous mental exercises.

So far from being an independent and despotic ruler, wielding the mighty energies of sensation, emotion, reason,