e. The real reasons for action, however, are
thoughts, in this case, just as in the earlier cases they were. In
this case we call them Motives; but we are dependent upon these
Motives, these Suggestions; we can not act without Motives, nor can we
fail to act on those Motives which we have; just as, in the earlier
cases, we could not act without some sort of Perceptions or
Imaginations or Memories, and we could not fail to act on the
Perceptions or other mental states which we had. Voluntary action or
Will is therefore only a complex and very highly conscious case of the
general law of Motor Suggestion; it is the form which suggested action
takes on when Apperception is at its highest level.

The converse of Suggestion is also true--that we can not perform an
action without having in the mind at the time the appropriate thought,
or image, or memory to suggest the action. This dependence of action
upon the thought which the mind has at the time is conclusively shown
in certain patients having partial paralysis. These patients find that
when the eyes are bandaged they can not use their limbs, and it is
simply because they can not realize without seeing the limb how it
would feel to move it; but open the eyes and let them see the
limb--then they move it freely. A patient can not speak when the
cortex of the brain is injured in the particular spot which is used in
remembering how the words feel or sound when articulated. Many such
cases lead to the general position that for each of our intentional
actions we must have some way of thinking about the action, of
remembering how it feels, looks, etc.; we must have something in mind
_equivalent_ to the experience of the movement. This is called the
principle of Kinaesthetic Equivalents, an expression which loses its
formidable sound when we remember that "kinaesthetic" means having the
feeling of movement; so the principle expresses the truth that we must
in every case have some thought or mental picture in mind which is
equivalent to the feeling of the movement we desire to make; if not,
we can not succeed in making it.

What we mean by the "freedom" of the will is not ability to do
anything without thinking, but ability to think all the alternatives
together and to act on this larger thought. Free action is the fullest
expression of thought and of the Self which thinks it.

It is interesting to observe the child getting his Equivalents day by
day. He can not perform a new mo