from the immediate performance of the will. The correspondence of
the motion to the intimation of the will, is the business of education
and the performance of habit.

The exertion of the will on the bodily organs having been generally
described, it now remains to demonstrate its influence on the mind; and
so far as we are enabled to discover, it appears to be performed by the
same process. The direction of the several organs of sense to the
examination of objects, is an act of the will, and has been named
Attention; which, by some writers, has been deemed a peculiar and
constituent faculty of the mind; but in the present view it is
considered only as the practical result of the operation of volition on
the organs of sense, on memory, and on reflection. The soundest mind (as
far as it has been hitherto considered) may be attributed to him who
possesses the most enduring control over the organs of sense, in order
to examine objects accurately, and thereby to acquire a full and
complete perception. That memory is the best, which can voluntarily and
immediately produce that which has been committed to its custody; and
that reflection is the most perfect, which is exclusively occupied with
the subject of consideration. There seems also to be a considerable
similarity between the morbid states of the instruments of voluntary
motion, and certain affections of the mental powers: thus, paralysis has
its counterpart in the defects of recollection, where the utmost
endeavour to remember is ineffectually exerted; tremor may be compared
with incapability of fixing the attention, and this involuntary state of
muscles ordinarily subjected to the will, also finds a parallel, where
the mind loses its influence on the train of thought, and becomes
subject to spontaneous intrusions; as may be exemplified in reverie,
dreaming, and some species of madness.

As attention is considered an exertion of the will on the organs of
sense and faculties of the mind, it may be allowable to remark on the
nature and meaning of the term. It was evidently imposed under a
prevailing hypothesis, that the mind possessed a power of stretching or
extending itself to the objects of its perception, or to the subjects of
reflection; it is therefore a figurative term. Indeed something of this
nature actually takes place in the organ:--in minute examinations by the
eye, we actually strain and stretch its muscles, and feel the fatigue
which results from over-exer