The theory which connects desire fundamentally with appetite and thirst for pleasure can be defended, I think, only when supplemented from the side of simple ideo-motor suggestion. It is clear that appetite is at first organic, purely affective; it has no objective terminus.^ And it is only as appetites get tied to some well-defined visual or auditory memory picture, that the unrest of hunger and thirst becomes the desire for food and drink. But all desires are not thus founded in appetite, nor aimed at pleasure.^ It is only going a step farther, therefore, in the recognition of the essentials of the state called desire in normal and typical cases, to say, as I have said else- where,^ that " desire takes its rise in visual (or auditory) suggestion, and develops under its lead."
As a matter of fact, it seems to me to be extremely likely that the first cases of real desire in the infant's con- 1 The cries and other movements which are associated with appetite are largely organic pain reflexes.
2 See above, Chap. VI., § 4, and Handbook, II., pp. 323 ff. ^Handbook, II., p. 324.
Description and Analysis of Volition. 371 scioiisness find their expression in the movements of its hands toward or from objects which it sees. We have seen that hand-movements are the natural outlets for clear differences in consciousness. As soon as there is clear visual presentation of objects we find impulsive muscular reactions directed toward them, at first in an excessively crude fashion, but becoming rapidly refined. These move- ments are free and uninhibited — simple sensori-motor suggestive reactions. But we have seen, in the experi- ments described above, that the vain grasping at distant objects, which prevailed up to about the sixth month, tended to disappear rapidly in the two subsequent months — just about the time of the rise of imitation. During the eighth month, my child, H., would not grasp at highly- coloured objects more than sixteen inches distant, her reaching distance being ten to twelve inches. This train- ing of impulse is evidently an association of muscular sensations from the arm with visual experiences of dis- tance. The suggested reaction becomes inhibited in a growing degree by counteracting nervous processes which probably began their influence much earlier. Here are the conditions necessary to the rise of desire. It is a typical instance, at any rate, whether or not it be,^ as I think, the first instance, of the full fact of desire.
1 Of course, like all other dividing lines in consciousness, such a line of division is not well marked. It is impossible to say just how far the dumb, unpictured, organic ends in cases of appetite, unrest, muscular discomfort, etc., must crystallize into outline and objective reference to be no longer impulse, but desire. The needs of our terminology rather than the mental facts them- selves lead to such divisions. I also must disclaim having said — what I have been quoted as saying, in the passage of my Handbook referred to — that a blind and deaf child would never have desire! Sight and sound act first only because and when they are first as memory objects; if they are absent, then less clear mental pictures get to be desired, of course.
372 The Origin of Volition.
The further requisite to volition, as analysis gives it, is 'deliberation.' The phenomenon called 'deliberative suggestion ' has already been described and illustrated from child-life.i The line of cleavage between such sug- gestion and the deliberation of volition lies, I think, just where that between impulse and desire lies. The charac- teristic thing about desire is the advanced representative process it involves — the third-level process on the brain side — with the complex sensori-motor system which is the basis of various inhibitions. So in deliberation, the complexity actually present in deliberative suggestion passes up to a higher level. The elements of it become clearly pictured, co-ordinated in the attention, and esti- mated, as to relative suitableness for execution. It is a vivid, clear thing in consciousness, this deliberation, both as to the elements of representation and as to the motor tendencies which they represent. On the contrary, the child's mind, in ' deliberative suggestion,' is analogous to the state of conflicting impulse, motor jerkiness, unreason- able caprice, seen also in certain pathological subjects, who are victims of aboidia in any of its forms. The essen- tial difference — and it is essential, I think, functionally considered — is that the deliberation of volition involves attention at its normal gait, and the motor co-ordina- tions which are characteristic of it and of its seat among the highest brain relationships. Now the resolution of this conscious complexity of motives, as found in delib- eration, is another and the culminating characteristic of volition.
Effort, in all its forms, from simple consent, accept- ance, ratification, of an action as good or as real, to the Rise of Volition in the Child. 2)7 2> violent exertion of despair, or passion, — effort arises just after deliberation, and puts an end to it. We need not go into the vexed question of the meaning of effort, its basis, etc.; all we need here is its natural history. And everybody will admit that it puts an end to mental hesita- tion and deliberation, it settles things as far as one's atti- tude is concerned, and issues in action as far as inhibiting conditions will permit. The sense of effort, then, seems to accompany, or indeed to be, the passage of conscious- ness into a state of motor monoideism, or strong attention, after the perplexities of deliberation. It arises just when an end is put to motor plurality by synthesis or co- ordination.^ § 2. T/ie Typical Case of the Rise of Volition in the Child.
These three characters of volition — desire, attentive deliberation, effort — find their typical fulfilment, I think, in the * try-try-again ' experience of infants; and the evident case of this, seen in the persistent imitation of sounds heard and movements seen, the ' external copies ' spoken of above, may be now considered.
We have seen that sight and hearing, in direct association with muscular sensation, supply the materials for reproduc- tion largely at this early period; and it has now been urged that we are to look to imitation, considered as a type of reaction, as the principal method of adjustment of the organism to its surroundings. Independently, however, of this last presumption — indeed, in my own mental progress it was the facts of early volition that led me to the broader 1 Cf. the full treatment of the appropriate chapters of my Handbook of Psychology, Vol. II., especially Chap. XV., § i, and Chap. XVI., § i.
374 ^/^^' Origin of Volitioji.
view of imitation in mental development — the direct evidence on the point is quite convincing.
Persistent Imitation and Volition. — In persistent imita- tion we have an advance on simple imitation in two ways: (i) A comparison of the first result produced by the child (movement, sound) with the suggesting image or 'copy' imitated. This is nascent deliberation. For, when the dynamogenic influences of these presentations are taken into account, we find a conflict on the motor side. The old hand-movement, let us say, associated with the 'copy,' as it has been established by simple imitation, instinct, or impulse, does not adequately represent the influence now exerted by the * copy,' plus that of the new optical picture created by the reaction itself. The dynamogenic condition is now complex. This gives rise to the state of dissatisfac- tion, motor restlessness, which is desire, best described in this connection by the phrase ' will-stimulus '; (2) the out- burst of this complex motor condition in a new reaction, accompanied in consciousness by the attainment of a monoideistic state — the 'end in view' — and the feeling of effort. Here, then, in persistent imitation we have, thus briefly put, the necessary elements of the voluntary psychosis for the first time clearly present.
The reason that in imitation the material for volition is found is seen to be that here the 'circular process,* already described, maintains itself in a conscious way through the picturing of sights, sounds, etc. In reactions which are not consciously imitative, for example an ordi- nary pain-movement reaction, this circular process, whereby the result of the first movement becomes itself a stimulus to the second, etc., is not brought about; or, if it do arise, it consists simply in a repetition of the same motor event Rise of Volition in the Child, 375 fixed by association — as the repetition of the via sound so common with very young infants. Consciousness re- mains monoideistic. But in persistent imitation, the reac- tion performed comes in by eye or ear as a new and different stimulus; here is the state of motor polyideism necessary for the supervention of the feeUng of effort. The motor process must be reduced by co-ordination to a reaction which will reproduce the copy, and at the same time employ, with least modification, the channels of dis- /fl mc /fl mc mi Fig. XIII. — Simple Imitation. v,v' = Visual Seat; mp^ Motor Seat; w/= Muscle moved; w^ = Muscle-sense Seat; ^ = 'Copy' imitated; B= Imitation made. The two Processes v and v flow together in the Old Channel v, mp, fixed by Association, and the Reac- tion is repeated without Change or Effort.
charge already fixed by the association between presentation and movement.
From this and the other lines of evidence given below, we are able to see more clearly the conditions under which effort arises. It seems clear that (i) the muscular sen- sations arising from a suggestive reaction do not present all the conditions; in young children, just as in habitual adult performances, muscular sensations simply tend to give a repetition of the muscular event by strict association, 37^ The Origin of Volition.
without any new attentive co-ordination at all. There is no new adaptation, and so no effort. The kinaesthetic centre empties into a lower motor centre in some such way as that described by James/ along the diagonal line vti\ mp in the 'motor square' diagram given above (Fig. XIII.). This is also true when (2) sensations of the 're- mote ' kinaesthetic order, the sight or hearing of movements made, are added to the muscular sensations. They may all coalesce to produce again a repetition of the original reaction. The ' remote ' and * immediate ' sources of motor stimulation reinforce each other. This is seen in a child's satisfied repetition of its own mistakes in speaking and drawing, although it hears and sees its own performances. Consequently (3) there is muscular effort only when the ' copy ' persists and is compared with the result of the first reaction; that is, on the mental side, when the two presen- tations are held together in the attention, so that together they represent one intended movement or mental end; and on the physical side, when the two processes, started respec- tively by the 'copy' and the reactive result, are co-ordinated together in a common motor discharge {ccy inp' in Fig. XIV.). The stimulus to repeated effort arises from the lack of this co-ordination or identity in the motor influences of the different stimulations which reach a possible centre of co-ordination simultaneously; or if we consider such co-ordination only functionally — instead of making it a matter of a separate local seat — this will-stimulus repre- sents the degree of difficulty these stimulations have in getting thus united in a common motor function. ^ The 1 Princ. of Psychology, II., p. 582.
2 This does not necessarily imply a central vs. peripheral theory of the setise of effort; for the 'relative difficulty' spoken of in effecting the co-ordination in the attention may itself represent peripheral elements which inhibit the Rise of Volition in the Child.
Zll mental outcome, effort, accompanies the gathering of these combined influences, and, as soon as this outburst repro- duces the 'copy,' the effort is said to 'succeed,' the subject is satisfied, * will-stimulus ' disappears, and the reaction tends to become simple as habit.
Fig. XIV. — Persistent Imitation with Effort. C= Successful Imita- tion; <;^ = Co-ordinating Centre, either Local or Purely Func- tional. Other Letters same as in Fig. XI 1 1., with the added Circuit cc, mp', mt', mc. The Processes at v and v' do not flow together in the Old Channel v, mp, but are co-ordinated at cc IN A New Reaction mp', jni', which includes all the Elements of THE 'Copy' {A) and more. The Useless Elements then fall AWAY because THEY ARE USELESS AND THE SUCCESSFUL EFFORT IS established.
Physiologically the point which distinguishes persistent imitation with effort from simple imitation with repetition is this co-ordination of processes in the centre. In simple imitation the excitement aroused by the reaction, as its result is reported inwards by the eye or ear, finds no outlet except that already utilized in the earlier suggesattention, or lack of the necessary peripheral elements to stimulate the atten- tion, or the very feeling of effort may be really sensations from the muscles which are used in the act of attention. See Chap. XV., §§ I ff.
37^ The Origin of Volition, tive reactions. Hence it passes off in the way of a repe- tition of the earlier discharge, which represents inherited tendency, reflex movement, accidental association, pleasure- pain acquisition, or what not. All this is an affair of the 'second level,' of suggestion, of reactive consciousness. The child repeats its prattle over and over, as it lies abed in the early morning, simply from vigour, not from desire, nor from effort, least of all with deliberation. The sounds he makes are accompanied by sensations in his vocal organs, and what he hears he makes again, and so on, simply because his machinery works that way — works easily and gives him the pleasure of exercise and rhythm. But persistent imitation — how different! The same reaction is not repeated. He is no longer delighted with his circular activity. He detects differences between what he sees or hears and what he produces by hand or tongue,^ and finds these differences unpleasant to him. Then he makes effort to reduce the difference by alter- ing his movements, and what is most remarkable, he succeeds in doing so. How he does this — how he brings about a change in his reactions, from senseless repetition to intelligent conformity to the copy which he imitates — that is the question of adaptation;2 but he does it, and the least that this can mean is that there is in some way a ^ " It seems just to say," remarks Janet {AtitofJi. Psych., p. 475), "that voluntary effort consists in the systematization of images and memories which are accustomed to express themselves one at a time automatically"; and (p. 474), "the patient copies the movement of my arm automatically, while I copy a drawing voluntarily; the reason of it is that the patient acts only because he has an image of the action, and he carries it out without pass- ing judgment upon it [simple imitative suggestion], while I copy the drawing, perceiving the resemblance, and because I perceive it " [persistent imitation, or volition]. Compare his context.
- See above, Chap. VII., §§ i, 2.
Rise of Volition in tJic Child, 379 modification of the impelling influence of his old associa- tions.
What happens is an 'effort,' and by this effort the two stimulations, the original 'copy' and his own reproduction of it, are combined in one motor response. The two centres, or partial centres, stimulated by the original copy, on one hand, and by the reaction as it is seen or heard, on the other hand, get combined in a common action, whose outcome is not carried off entirely by the old associated channel of discharge, but finds in part new ad- jacent channel; and so the external reaction becomes different and more adequate, only to be reported in again by eye or ear, and so by co-ordination to produce again a new effort, etc.
The foregoing development uses the term ' co-ordina- tion ' with a twofold application: first, it is applied to the physical process in the brain, whereby, as we may suppose, different areas of stimulation are brought together for a united function in a very complex way. It involves at once greater complexity and larger unity. It is the type of function characteristic of the highest level, the cortex. The lower reactions, the reflexes, suggestive responses, etc., are each, when taken alone, independent in great measure; each acts for itself on its own stimulus. But cortical processes are not so. While they are more varied, they are also more unstable and more intercon- nected. They coalesce in a single function which does not show its enormous complexity on its face. For exam- ple, speech involves five or six well-localized areas co-ordi- nated in a common discharge, and it is rare that one is injured without injuring the common function which draws support from each.
380 The Origin of Volition.
On the mental side we find co-ordination also, and it is always a process which takes attention in the learning and, until it becomes fixed by habit, in the execution also, invariably. Every original co-ordination of stimulations involving desire, deliberation, effort, is an act of attention. This, of course, cannot be a mere incidental or unessential fact. All that we know of attention shows it to be too central a thing for that. It remains, therefore, among the problems yet to be answered, what attention is, how its rise takes place, and what its presence means in the beginning of voluntary movement.^ Here I may only add that the function of consciousness, in this act of persistent imitation, seems to be exhausted in the fact of close atten- tion to the * copy.' The infant does not attend to his movements,^ nor does he shift his attention from his copy to his own imitation, except between his efforts. On the contrary, in visual imitation, for example, he keeps his eye fixed on the movement, the tracing, or the action of the person whom he is imitating; and his success in the effort seems to depend upon the degree in which he is able to hold this copy series up steady and unchanged before him. How it comes that during this concentration upon the copy, and by reason of it, the muscular actions are con- forming themselves more and more to its exact reproduc- tion— this has been the topic of the earlier chapter on Adaptation.
The complex 'copy' of persistent imitation is necessary, therefore, as a stimulus to the tentative voluntary use of the muscles. The theory that all voluntary movements are led up to by spontaneous reactions which result in pleas- 1 See below, Chap. XV.
^ So we have seen in connection with ' tracery-imitation,' above, p. 87.
Rise of Volition in the Child. 381 ure or pain, and then get repeated only because of their hedonic result, will not hold water for an instant in the presence of the phenomena of imitation. Suppose H. endeavouring in the crudest fashion to put a rubber on the end of a pencil, after seeing me do it, — one of her earliest imitations. What a chaos of ineffective movements! But after repeated efforts she gets nearer and nearer it, till at last, with daily object-lessons from me, she accomplishes it. Here one of the most valuable combinations of thumb and finger movements is acquired, simply by imitation, and in the face of constant discouragement, anything but pleas- ant to the child. If it is due to the fact simply that movement gives pleasure, why does she not turn to other movements } Why persist in this one failure-bringing thing? Suppose there had been no impulse to do what she saw me do, no motor force in the simple idea of the rubber on the pencil, no instinct to imitate; what happy combination of Bain's spontaneous and accidental move- ments would have produced this result, and how long would it have taken the child if she had waited for experi- ences actually pleasurable to build up this motor combi- nation } In cases of persistent imitation there is more than asso- ciation as such. The movements imitated are new, as combinations. It is probable, it is true, that various ideas of former movements are brought up, and that the child has the consciousness of general motor capacity, resting, in the first place, upon spontaneous impulsive reactions, and it is probable that this consciousness is a kind of massed or bunched sense of the particular member whose action is necessary, arising from former movements of it; but on this insufficient associational basis he strikes out 382 The Origin of Volition, into the deepest water of untried experience. For this reason, as was said above, I believe that in persistent imitation we have the skeleton-process of volition; mean- ing that at this stage consciousness is not held down in its motor outcome strictly to past reactions held in memory, but issues as a new and more adaptive co-ordination of them. Physiologically, we would expect that the brain energy released by such a new stimulus as the pencil- rubber combination would pass off by the motor channels already fixed by spontaneous, reflex, and associated reac- tions, e.g., that the child would be content with a motor reaction of the suggestive kind. But not so. He is not content until he produces a new reaction of this particular sort; and we must suppose that, in consequence of each effort of the child, the physical process is heightened and its issuing movement selected from, until the one copy imitated is produced by him.
It will be strange, in my opinion, if this view of the origin of volition do not seem quite the most natural one. What are we really bringing about in willing anything t Are we not hoping that through us a kind of experience, object, thing in the world, may be brought about after the pattern of our idea or purpose.? Are we not trying to reinstate something which we think ought to be reinstated for us or for others.? But is not this just the essential thing in imitation, — the reinstatement of something, the copying of what has already been in us, in others, or in the world.? A child imitates automatically a sound he hears — one case; and then, remembering it but not hear- ing it, wills to make it — a second case. Where is the difference in the type of occurrence in the two cases, as far as the child's active life is concerned.? The only dif- Rise of Volition in the Child. ^^^^ ference is that, in the former case, his ear brings to him what he imitates, and his motor apparatus is ready for it; in the latter case, his memory brings it to him, and his motor apparatus is not altogether ready for it. Is it not likely, therefore, that the simplest case of the more com- plex instance of this one typical process springs out of the most complex case of the simpler instance, — that the growing complexity of the conditions is just what is meant by the child's desire, and that the growing richness and explicitness and difficulty of the conscious performance, what is meant by his volition?
The position of volition in the progress of the individual, in his life history, may be depicted by Fig. XV., in which the environment (i), in the shape of suggestion (2), in impinging upon the organism, stimulates to volition (3), which, when ratified and repeated, gives rise to habits (4), and these habits tend to become automatic reactions and impulses, only to come in contact with new sugges- tions from the environment, and so on. Thus the life plan becomes fuller and wider. I have used the spiral to denote this progress, which is continuous throughout the life period. Its analogue — the 'life-spiral' of race devel- opment— is given in the next figure below.
The crisis in the child's motor development, which is precipitated by persistent imitation, tends to come again and again to the front in later years in many interesting situations. The following game of my children, H., of five, and E., of nearly three years, reflects perfectly the elements of choice, as my theory of the origin of volition requires them. I set the two children to walking fast around an oval table in contrary directions, marking the places where they were to meet, on the two opposite sides.
The Qj^igiu of Volition.
with chairs drawn up to the table. They were to meet behind the first chair, shake hands, and then pass on to the second chair, and so on. On coming to the first chair, the smaller girl, E., was so impressed with the process of hand-shaking, in which she closely imitated her sister, and so thoroughly won over to her sister's action, that she EaUt Environment Fig. XV.— Illustrating Ontogenetic Development.
invariably started off in the same direction with her, thus retracing her own steps, instead of passing on alone to the other chair. H. remonstrated with her again and again; and the child's conflict in motor impulses was instructive in the extreme. She always took at least one step with H., generally more, then turned and started off alone in a Phylogc7ietic. 385 hesitating and uncertain way, and never seemed quite confident until she saw her sister coming around the table to meet her again.