CHAP. XV.

WILL.-DIRECTIONS TO THE STUDENT,

Nature of the Will-Motives-Intentions-Habit-Mental and Bodily Habits-Moral Habits.-Directions to the Student.

THE WILL is that state of mind which is immediately previous to, and occasions, those express acts of memory, imagination, judgment, and bodily motion, which are termed voluntary. The will assumes different features, according to the nature of the motives influencing it: sometimes it is a simple determination of the understanding; at others, it is called into exercise by the affections, passions, &c. The causes influencing the will, with the variations in their influence, the connexion of it with action, mental or corporeal, its influence over the trains of thought and feeling, &c., open a wide field for investigation, equally important and instructive; but we can do no more than point it out to those of our readers whose minds have a philosophical bent.

The extent of this work will not permit us to enter," as we wished, into the consideration of this power of the mind; but we refer our readers with great satisfaction to the very valuable Essay of Dr. Reid on the Will, the second in the volume on the Active Powers of Man. Mixed with several positions, (particularly in respect to instinct) in which we cannot agree with him, there are many truly excellent observations, which

the young can scarcely read with due attention, without becoming wiser and better.

Whatever influences the will, is termed a motive. The intentions are those motives which the mind explicitly dwells upon and proposes to itself as its objects. The intentions may be good, and yet the really actuating motives very bad. A man may, for instance, have the intention of promoting the spread of important truth, when he persecutes those, who differ from him, by abuse and calumny, or even by fines, imprisonment, or death; but his real motives will often be those of personal hatred, of pride, of disappointment, of malice, and

revenge.

"In all determinations of the mind" (says Dr. Reid)" that are of any importance," (we should say in all whatever,) "there must be something in the preceding state of the mind that disposes or inclines us to that determination. If the mind were in a state of perfect indifference, without any incitement, motive, or reason, to act, or not to act, to act one way rather than another, our active power, having no end to pursue, no rule to direct its exertion, would be given in vain. We should either be altogether inactive, and never will to do any thing, or our volitions would be perfectly unmeaning and futile, being neither wise nor foolish, vicious nor virtuous." We think the former would be the case; and in this paragraph are contained the rudiments of what we would term the Doctrine of Motives. Without motives, (including under that term every thing which influences the will, either in the state of the body, or of the mind, its tendency to action, its opinions, its judgments, its affections, desires, passions, &c.) there could be no volition.

Some of the most remarkable phenomena connected with the will, are those of habit. Habit denotes the effects of custom on the motives, on the operations of the mind, and on those of the body in which the mind is in any way concerned. The effects of custom on the passive feeling, as we have already stated, is to lessen their vividness; be

the habit what it may, the effect of custom is to increase its power.

By habit is not only produced a tendency to a certain mode of operation, whether directly mental, or in part corporeal, but also a facility in it. Of this we may find examples in all the common actions of life; in walking, writing, speaking, &c.; and in all the common exercises of the mind, such as memory, judgment, &c.

Many of our mental processes are continually going on without the agency of the will. The operations of the understanding are often in some measure voluntary; but association acts more frequently without our volition, and even without our knowledge. We perceive its agency only by its effects. The influence of the will over the processes and operations of the mind, where gained at all, is only acquired gradually, and by exercise: the trains of thought and feeling, and even the habitual exercise of the memory, imagination, and understanding, often go on without its interference.

The same may be said with respect to the extensive classes of muscular action. Many of those which are by degrees brought under the power of the will so as to be properly termed voluntary, were at first produced by the influence of sensation on those mental changes which cause motion, without the will being in any way concerned. In the first state, these are called by Hartley automatic. By long exercise, on the other hand, many motory changes (that is, mental changes producing muscular actions,) which once were voluntary, become so associated with sensations, or with other motory changes, that express acts of volition are less and less necessary, and at last a long series of such motory changes (and their consequently muscular actions,) may go on without the will being in any way concerned. In this case Hartley denominates the muscular action, secondarily automatic. The most familiar instance of the transition from voluntary actions to such as are secondarily automatic, is what occurs in instrumental music. Suppose a person who has a perfectly voluntary com

mand over his fingers, to begin to learn to play upon the piano-forte. The first step is to move his fingers from key to key with a slow motion, looking at his notes, and exercising an express act of volition in every motion. By degrees the motory changes become connected with each other, and with the impression of the notes, through the influence of association; the acts of volition becoming less and less express all the time, till they become at last imperceptible. An expert performer will play from notes, or from the connexion of the several parts of the complex motory changes, and at the same time carry on a quite different train of thought in his mind, or even hold a conversation with another.-This view of the subject, which appears alike agreeable with observation, and with the laws of association, Mr. Stewart utterly rejects; and he supposes, that where the mind is most deeply attentive to some object of thought, all the habitual motions of the body which are exercised at the same time, have some portion of the attention, though we are not able to trace out any relict of consciousness respecting them.

The effect of custom on the motives, is to increase their power over the will. Where that power is become habitual, it often operates in opposition to the dictates of the understanding, and sometimes even to the most impressive feelings of remorse and apprehension. Many of the most ensnaring pleasures of vice, while they lose their vividness, leave behind them a tendency to repetition, which makes its votary more its slave and its victim. The habitual drinker, for instance, when he first began his intemperate course, experienced some pleasure, perhaps to him great, unworthy indeed of a rational being, but unhappily such as to drown the voice of conscience, and to leave the way open to all those causes of riotous mirth, from which sober reflection would derive no satisfaction. His pleasure is necessarily succeeded by a listlessness which makes the customary employments of life unsatisfactory, and leads him to resort again to the scenes of intemperance. By degrees the quantity of his intoxicating draughts must be increased to

produce the same unnatural excitement; that which once placed him on a level with the brute, will not now raise his spirits. He goes on increasing them in frequency and in strength; but the powers of enjoyment gradually lose their tone, and become scarcely susceptible of pleasure. The pains of privation (increasing in proportion to the degree of intemperate indulgence,)—the inability to relish those simple pleasures which temperance usually derives in abundance from the common bounties of Providence-the restless tendency to repeat that which may give a temporary ease, which all in such circumstances experience, accompanied and heightened, it may be, by the perception of present losses, arising from neglect of business, the consciousness of injury to others, the feeling of decaying health, and the reproaches of conscience,-together urge him on in the path of present and final ruin: he seeks for relief from his painful uneasiness, and melancholy reflection in that which only increases the causes of them, and makes him still more the slave of sin: and it is too probable that that habit, which is making such depredation in his present means of comfort, which is checking and indeed destroying his best affections, which is weakening his energies of body and of mind, will yield to none of the ordinary motives or discipline of life These representations are too often true in their full extent; and in proportion as this habit, or any other of sensual indulgence is exercised, will be its strength, and its destructive tendency. On this subject see also the chap. on Association.

With this important principle respecting the influence of habit, we should connect another, which is perhaps the most forcible call to moral caution, that though the power of habit is continually increasing, and sometimes even rapidly, though in all cases gradually, it increases imperceptibly; and to perceive its progress in others or in ourselves, we must compare its present state with what it was once. And there is still another law of habit, which requires serious thought, and should guide us in the regulation of our conduct; that the strength of any habit is increased, not only by the exercise of the habit itself, but by