CHAPTER XLVI. VOLITIONAL DEVELOPMENT. § 1. THE development of volition in the individual consists in the development of the selective power to choose and steadily pursue ends, and in the formation of habits according to the selections made. It accomplishes a greater or less control of feelings, thoughts, and actions by means of, and in obedience to ends. An end is more than a motive. A motive is that which moves mental energy, considered merely as the cause which sets in motion; an end is that which is expected to satisfy energy. Ends are pleasures represented. Pains are motives, but never ends. § 2. Of the exercise of the dynamic element in volition we have no consciousness, when it is unchecked and unimpeded. We are conscious of antecedents and of consequents, but of the movement of the power itself we know nothing intuitively. And yet this power lies at the foundation of mental existence. Thus the unconscious is the basis for the conscious. But as there is hindrance and opposition in the action of automatic power, there arise delay, selection, and the various forms of volitional consciousness. § 3. We reduced all automatic activity to the two heads, Redintegration and Efferent Activity (Chap. XXXII. § 36). The latter of these may be exercised without consciousness; and indeed, in the genesis of mind, existed before consciousness. The former process may also go on without consciousness, but it likewise exhibits the sphere of conscious activity. Within the course of redintegration lies the development of selective volition, and the exercise of this selective power gives a greater or less degree of control both over redintegration itself and efferent activity. § 4. How is this control accomplished? I have already said by ends, that is, represented pleasures. On the intellectual side, then, is required construction. Representation brings up certain objects which involve static or dynamic power, contemplation, or action, and these are projected into the future, as capable of reali sation and as desirable. Thought and action follow to realise; but hindrances arise from habit which may be either habits of redintegration or habits of efferent activity. Out of the interferences thus resulting arise all the phases of volitional consciousness. Let us briefly trace the course of acquiring volitional control, following here the admirable course of exposition of Professor Bain. DIRECT ENDS FROM MOVEMENT AND SENSATION. § 5. Where any given movements produce immediate pleasure or pain, an increase of the movement giving pleasure and the abatement giving pain, or the converse, we have the simplest case of active determination of the mind. If exercise gives rise to delight, there is a volition to continue it; when fatigue comes, there is an abatement of the exercise. A connection is thus readily established between pleasure and movement or rest. In cases where the requisite movement for alleviating a state of pain is not directly touched upon, a series of tentatives must be and is gone through with until fortuitously an accord is reached. A few repetitions of this fortuitous accord cement a firm association between the idea of the given pleasure and the movement required to produce it. A great many of our earliest volitional tendencies, away from pain and toward pleasure, take their rise in the experience attained by uncertain, blind movements in obedience to the law of pleasure and pain. § 6. This is seen in all sensations. The education of a child to dread the fire is a pointed example. When a burn is experienced, pain is felt, and a movement is produced which is not intelligent; it may be toward the fire, as well as away from it; but, if there be a repetition of the burn, a more energetic movement is made, and in the course of the movements a direction away from the cause of the pain is likely to be followed. When, sooner or later, the body is moved away from the fire, a feeling of grateful relief creates a satisfaction and forges a link of association between the relief and the means for attaining it. The same process occurs within the whole range of our early acute pains; when once it is started, its progress is very rapid. The situation of uneducated volition occurring in mature life is often seen when, cramps in the leg attacking a person, he has no suggestion of alleviating novements; there is no association established which brings volitions which procure immediate relief. All that can be done is to try till a happy means is touched upon. § 7. Following organic sensations still farther, it may be noted how voluntary control arises gradually in connection with movements for alleviating thirst and hunger. Infants at first cannot drink liquid from a cup or other receptacle; no more can they eat; but the process of mastication is learned at a much later stage than that of drinking. Sucking is the earliest act connected with taking aliment. This is a reflex instinctive action; but leaving off sucking when the hunger is relieved is a purely selective activity. The graduation of the force of the act before cessation is also selective. It is difficult to determine exactly where in sucking the reflex ends and the voluntary begins; probably the first purely voluntary movement is the effort to withdraw energy from the act. Though the infant is able to suck from the beginning, it is not able to find the nipple, and a very appreciable process has to be gone through in order to learn the connections necessary to direct the infant in its motions to reach the breast. Mastication is acquired without great difficulty. The tongue is a member which is amenable to very free movements, and the process of adaptation to the morsel in the mouth is readily learned. The relish and taste are quickly associated with the movements necessary to sustain them. From spontaneous undirected movement controlled associated movements are acquired by a series of trials and errors. The use of the jaw in mastication is acquired later, but exemplifies the same process. We have thus far been supposing the case of a pleasurable stimulus in the mouth. Where a bitter, unpleasant morsel is introduced, the infant does not know how to spit out its disagreeable food; the mouth is usually left a little open, and the child slobbers.' After a process of education, however, of the same sort, namely, tentative movements till the right one is hit upon, he learns to eject the unpalatable mouthful with decision and force. A similar method of acquiring voluntary control is observable in the offices of carrying waste matter from the system. Acquisitions of movements responsive to the feelings. of heat and chilliness are gained by similar trials. The curling up of the body, the drawing close to a warm object, huddling, embracing, all, by repeated experiences, become associated means for relieving cold, and their opposites for protection against heat. § 8. In smelling, two acts must be conjoined; one, snuffing the air through the nose, and the other, closing the mouth. This presents a complication which delays acquirement. If the former alone were sufficient to generate the feeling which the organs of |