PHYSICAL AGENCY RESULTS FROM PHYSICAL FORCES. 437 and concentrating, in a small compass, numerous physical, chemical, physiological forces, balanced and adjusted, in an organization, self-supporting indeed, but requiring perpetual renovation and perpetual means of elimination. We find that the mental property, in alliance with this corporeal aggregate, is remarkably susceptible to every physical effect and every trifling disturbance. In a word, mind, as known to us in our own constitution, is the very last thing that we should set up as an independent power, swaying and sustaining the powers of the natural world. 17. Moreover, I have not adverted to the circumstance of familiar occurrence, that the habitual actions, including some of our most difficult displays of power and skill, tend to become unconscious. A man can walk, turn a wheel, attend on a machine, cast up accounts, play on an instrument, with the mind completely at his disposal for something else. There are moments in the performance of our routine processes, when the consciousness of them falls under a total eclipse, while at the same time the organs continue to operate. Whatever act is very much repeated, approaches more and more to this predicament; and although feeling was requisite at the commencement, we come to dispense with it in the end. These are the actions that, from their resemblance to the reflex processes inherent in our constitution, have been termed the secondarily automatic. The nervous framework is adjusted to perform the one by original conformation, and the other by the plastic property at the basis of all our acquirements. Here, then, is a large mass of various activity, maintained without the co-operation of the mind, or with that in a small and diminishing degree. Mind, it is true, was concerned in the commencement, but after a time the execution is committed to the purely physical part of the mechanism. Thus we derive another illustration of the accidental, temporary, and intermitted presence of the mental property, and the indispensable and perennial character of the corporeity, in giving origin to moving power. CHAPTER VIII. DESIRE. DESIR 1. ESIRE is that phase of volition where there is a motive, but no ability to act upon it. The inmate of a small gloomy chamber conceives to himself the pleasure of light and of an expanded prospect; the unsatisfying ideal urges the appropriate action for gaining the reality; he gets up and walks out. Suppose, now, that the same ideal delight comes into the mind of a prisoner. Unable to fulfil the prompting, he remains under the solicitation of the motive; and his state is denominated craving, longing, appetite, Desire. If all motive impulses could be at once followed up, desire would have no place. The state of craving is thus, in the first place, a want or deficiency, an inferior level of happiness. In the second place, there is the idea or conception of some delight, with the notion that the ideal form is much below the realized condition; consequent on which is a motive to the will to compass the reality. And, thirdly, there is a bar in the way of acting, which leads to the state of conflict, and renders desire a more or less painful frame of mind. 2. We have a form of desire in all our more protracted operations, or when working for distant ends. The suppression of the state of craving is complete, only when the gratification is under the hand; as, when I become thirsty, having a glass of water on the table before me. If I have to ring a bell, and send some one off to fetch the water, I remain under the urgency, but in a modified shape, seeing that I am bringing about my ALTERNATIVES WHEN VOLITION IS CHECKED. 439 sure relief. In such cases, Desire is synonymous with pursuit, industry, or voluntary action for distant, intermediate, or comprehensive ends. Many of our pleasures and pains have names that denote them not in their actuality but in the condition of desire and pursuit. Thus, 'avarice' expresses not the fruition but the pursuit of wealth. There is no name for the pure pleasure of knowledge; 'curiosity' signifies the state of active desire. So. with 'ambition;' to indicate the real gratification we are obliged to use complex phrases, as 'the pleasure of power,' 'the sentiment of power possessed and exercised.' It would be mere repetition of what has been already said respecting the regular operation of the will, to exemplify desire in connexion with industrial pursuit. The only form remaining to be considered is the case where the gratification is unattainable. 3. The question then arises, what are the courses open to us, when no volition is possible. It is but too common to experience pains that prompt to action in vain, as regards their alleviation; to feel actual pleasures slipping away before we have had our fill of them; and to conceive ideal pleasures not to be realized. Neither by present exertion, nor by postponed, but sure, opportunities of action, can we obey the mandate to work for pleasure or to remove pain. It is in this state of things that we bring to light the peculiar workings of desire, as contrasted with the routine of proper volition. 4. The first alternative is described by the names endurance, resignation, contentment, acquiescence, patience, fortitude. In consequence of the pain of the conflict, and the impossibility of terminating it by fruition, the will is urged. to suppress the longing itself, which is possible by dismissing the idea from the thoughts. The craving for unattainable wealth, or for a hopeless affection, may be met by a grand effort not to entertain the ideal as a subject of contemplation. This is to induce the state of contentment. When the longing is for fancied bliss, as when people sigh after honour, splendour, power, or unusable wealth, the coercion of the intellectual trains may be such as to restore the quiet of the mind. It is somewhat different when we are under the pressure of some actual pain-as physical agony, destitution, contumely, oppression, the privation of what we are accustomed to; granting that we suppress the thought of relief, we have still the irritation to bear up against. The counter-volition of endurance now consists in being urged, by the pains of spasmodic gesticulation and fruitless endeavour, to remain still; not permitting either the diffusive manifestations or the vain attempts at relief. Under this stern regimen, the system sooner adapts itself to the new situation, and the fortitude is rewarded by a mitigation of the pain. The misery of fruitless endeavour is not the sole motive inspiring this forced composure of the irritated frame. The reflecting and cultivated mind is urged to it by remote considerations also. The waste of valuable strength in these struggles, the feeling of dignity associated in the mind with endurance, the approbation that it brings, and the reprobation so often given to the impatient temper-all concur in moving the counter resolution of forced quietism. The history of the world is full of wonderful feats of endurance, and these not limited to civilized peoples. The fortitude of the old Spartan in physical suffering and privation is rivalled or surpassed by the Indian fakeer, and the American savage. Such displays can often be commanded, when that most overwhelming of all motives, public opinion, determines that they shall be. 5. Endurance is talked of as being either physical or moral. The fact is, that it applies to every one of the long catalogue of our possible pains, whether those that are so in their first origin, or those that arise from the privation of some pleasure. All the disagreeables reaching us through the senses, and all the modes of emotion that belong to the side of suffering, stimulate the will into action, and, if an effectual means of alleviation is known, that will be followed out. If the means are unknown, one attempt after another will be entered upon; and, if nothing succeeds, the secondary vexation of conflict, disappointment and unrest, will overtake us. Rather than go on with this new evil, we fall back upon the quiet endurance of the first; which, however, cannot be done except by a new act of will, dictated and kept up by the suffering of abortive action, and those other considerations that make up a powerful array of motives in favour of the patient attitude. The same counteractive may be brought into play, when we are torn and exhausted by the extreme outbursts of the emotional manifestation. We have seen that pain may, in one set of circumstances, run out into violent expression, and, in others, to volition. In both cases, we may incur new evil, to a greater extent than we obtain relief, and hence a motive, for total suppression of both outgoings, is brought before the mind. It is within the power of the will to suppress the diffusive movements of a strong emotion, by bringing a force to bear upon the voluntary members in the first instance, and by that control of the thoughts, which is the most direct method accessible to us for affecting the states of consciousness in their inmost recesses. No doubt it is always a question, if the secondary force is strong enough to cope with the first, whether that be a voluntary stimulus or an emotional wave. Anything like the complete endurance of all the incurable pains that come over the human being is not a usual endowment, nor can it be bred without a superior force of voluntary determinations generally, as compared with the other impulses of the system, accompanied by a protracted education on this special head. There is a class of minds specially sensitive to those secondary pains now alluded to, and with whom, therefore, the motive to quietism has more than ordinary efficacy. Goethe may be quoted as a case in point. Being so constituted as to suffer acutely the nervous exhaustion of internal conflict, such minds are strongly induced to throw the whole weight of the voluntary impetus into the scale of prevention, or to concentrate in one conflict the decision of the mind, instead of suffering the distraction of many. It is possible even to form a passionate attachment to a serene mode of life, so as to surrender many positive pleasures rather than not realize the end. 6. So much for one solution of the problem of ungratified |