Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/55

PSYCHOLOGY 43 action, including under this term vhat are called sensori- motor and ideo-motor actions. In all these the movement seems to be the result of a mere transference of intensity from the associated sensation or idea that sets on the movement. But, when by some chance or mischance the same sensory presentation excites two alternative and con- flicting motor ideas, a temporary block, it is said, occurs ; and, when at length one of these nascent motor changes finally prevails and becomes real, then we have the state of mind called volition. 1 But this assumption that sen- sory and motor ideas are associated before volition, and that the volition begins where automatic or reflex action ends, is due to that inveterate habit of confounding the psychical and the physical which is the bane of modern psychology. How did these particular sensory and motor presentations ever come to be associated ? It is wholly beside the mark to answer that they are " organically de- termined psychical changes." In one respect all psychical changes alike are organically determined, inasmuch as all alike so far, at least, as we at all know or surmise -have organic concomitants. In another respect no psychical changes are organically determined, inasmuch as physical events and psychical events have no common factors. Now the only psychological evidence we have of any very intimate connexion between sensory and motor representa- tions is that furnished by our acquired dexterities, i.e., by such movements as Hartley styled secondary automatic. But then all these have been preceded by volition : as Mr Spencer says, " the child learning to walk wills each movement before walking it." Surely, then, a psycho- logist should take this as his typical case and prefer to assume that all automatic actions that come within his ken at all are in this sense secondarily automatic, i.e., to say that either in the experience of the individual or of his ancestors volition, or something analogous to it, preceded habit. But, if we are thus compelled by a sound method to regard sensori- motor actions as degraded or mechanical forms of voluntary actions, instead of regarding voluntary actions as gradually differentiated out of something physi- cal, we have not to ask : What happens when one of two alternative movements is executed 1 but the more general question : What happens when any movement is made in consequence of feeling ? It is obvious that on this view the simplest definitely purposive movement must have been preceded by some movement simpler still. For any dis- tinct movement purposely made presupposes the ideal pre- sentation, before the actual realization, of the movement. But such ideal presentation, being a re-presentation, equally presupposes a previous actual movement of which it is the so-called mental residuum. There is then, it would seem, but one way left, viz., to regard those movements which are immediately expressive of pleasure or pain as prim- ordial, and to regard the so-called voluntary movements as elaborated out of these. The vague and diffusive char- acter of these primitive emotional manifestations is really a point in favour of this position. For such " diffusion " is evidence of an underlying continuity of motor presenta- tions parallel to that already discussed in connexion with sensory presentations, a continuity which, in each case, becomes differentiated in the course of experience into comparatively distinct and discrete movements and sensa- tions respectively. 2 1 Compare Spencer's Principles of Psychology, i. 496. 2 It maybe well to call to mind here that Dr Bain also has regarded emotional expression as a possible commencement of action, but only to reject it in favour of his own peculiar doctrine of "spontaneity," which, however, is open to the objection that it makes movement precede feeling instead of following it an objection that would be serious even if the arguments advanced to support his hypothesis were as cogent as only Dr Bain takes them to be. Against the position But, whereas we can only infer, and that in a very roundabout fashion, that our sensations are not absolutely distinct but are parts of one massive sensation, as it were, we are still liable under the influence of strong emotion directly to experience the corresponding continuity in the case of movement. Such motor-continuum we may sup- pose is the psychical counterpart of that permanent readi- ness to act, or rather that continual nascent acting, which among the older physiologists was spoken of as "tonic action"; and as this is now known to be intimately de- pendent on afferent excitations so is our motor conscious- ness on our sensory. Still, since we cannot imagine the beginning of life but only life begun, the simplest picture we can form of a concrete state of mind is not one in which there are movements before there are any sensations or sensations before there are any movements, but one in which change of sensation is followed by change of movement, the link between the two being a change of feeling. Having thus simplified the question, we may now ask Depend- again : How is this change of movement through feeling ence of brought about 1 The answer, as already hinted, appears ^ OI to be : By a change of attention. We learn from such observations as psychologists describe under the head of fascination, imitation, hypnotism, &c., that the mere con- centration of attention upon a movement is often enough to bring the movement to pass. But, of course, in such cases there is neither emotional experience nor volition in question ; such facts are only cited to show the connexion between attention and movements. Everybody too has often observed how the execution of any but mechanical movements arrests attention to thoughts or sensations, and vice versa. Let us suppose, then, that we have at any given moment a certain distribution of attention between sensory and motor presentations ; a change in that dis- tribution means a change in the intensity of some or all of these, and change of intensity in motor presentations means change of movement. Such changes are, however, quite minimal in amount so long as the given presentations are not conspicuously agreeable or disagreeable. As soon as they are, we find pleasure to lead at once to concentra- tion of attention on the pleasurable object ; so that pleasure is not at all so certainly followed by movement as we find pain to be, save of course when movements are themselves the pleasurable objects and are executed, as we say, for their own sakes. In fact, pleasure would seem rather to repress movement, except so far as it is coincident either with a more economic distribution, or with a positive augmentation, of the available attention ; and either of these, on the view supposed, would lead to increased but indefinite (i.e., playful) movement. Pain, on the other hand, is much more closely connected with movement, and movement too which for obvious reasons much sooner acquires a purposive character. Instead of voluntary con- centration of attention upon a painful presentation we find attention to such an object always involuntary ; in other words, attention is, as it were, excentrated, dispersed, or withdrawn. If, therefore, the painful presentation is a movement, it is suspended ; if it is a sensation, movements are set up which further distract attention, and some of which may effect the removal of the physical source of the sensation. maintained above he objects that " the emotional wave almost invari- ably affects a whole group of movements," and therefore does not furnish the "isolated promptings that are desiderated in the case of the will " (Mental and Moral Science, p. 323). But to make this objection is to let heredity count for nothing. In fact, wherever a variety of isolated movements is physically possible, there also we always find corresponding instincts, ' that untaught ability to perform actions," to use Dr Bain's own language, which a minimum of prac- tice suffices to perfect.