irect their actions, could have answered no
purpose: to be effective, volition must have an object on which its
influence can be exerted. In the case of a paralytic arm or leg, the
exercise of the will is a fruitless endeavour; and the command to render
fixed a tremulous hand is equally unavailing. The power or capacity of
moving the muscles,--of directing the organs of sense to the examination
of objects,--of recollecting,--and of regulating our thoughts or
reflections, constitutes the will; but this acquirement is of very
gradual formation, and the result of mutual and progressive exercise,
both of mind and organ. Ordinary persons have no information of the
structure by which they perform their motions; and it may be also
doubted if an able anatomist would be competent to describe the action
of the different muscles, in complicated movements. The most dexterous
artificer, is wholly ignorant of the intimate construction of the organs
by which he performs his wonderful elaborations,--he has acquired the
happy facility by repeated exercise. There is a tacit and practical
convention between his mind and the powers which produce the
performance; tacit, as he is unable to describe them, and practical, as,
if naturally left-handed, he is unable by any mental directions or
influence of volition, to exhibit the same performance with the right.
The apparent facility and astonishing rapidity with which, by practice,
we perform many of our voluntary motions, has induced an opinion, that
such motions might be considered as automatical, which implies that they
were performed by the organ independently of the will; but this would be
to maintain, that the most difficult and felicitous of our voluntary
motions were themselves involuntary. This supposition is so absurd that
it refutes itself; its admission would be a libel on the perfection of
human attainment, and tend to subvert the best portion of our existing
morality.

That voluntary muscles may be converted into involuntary, has been
already observed; but this conversion is to be considered a morbid
state, and must be regarded as a degradation of our nature, instead of
its perfection. Excess in the use of fermented liquors, will generally
produce it; and the habitual practice of intemperance will destroy the
influence of volition over the intellectual powers; so that the control
over the succession of our thoughts can be no longer exerted, and when
we give them utterance they are