contrary, it is probably still too wide. We are as powerless to direct
our bodies as we are to manage affairs in China. This, at least, is
the modern psychological doctrine of effort. It is now believed that
volition is entirely a mental affair, and is confined to the single
act of attention. It is alleged that when I attend to an ideal, fixing
my mind fully upon it, the results are altogether similar to what
occurred on my touching the button. Every idea tends to pass
automatically into action through agencies about which I know as
little as I do about ocean telegraphs. This physical frame of mine is
a curious organic mechanism, in which reflex actions and instincts do
their blind work at a hint from me. I am said to raise my arm. But
never having been a student of anatomy and physiology, I have not the
least idea how the rise was effected; and if I am told that nerves
excite muscles, and these in turn contract like cords and pull the arm
this way or that, the rise will not be accomplished a bit better for
the information. For, as in electric transmission, it is not I who do
the work. My part is attention. The rest is adapted automatism. When I
have driven everything else out of my mind except the picture of the
rising arm, it rises of itself, the after-effects on nerves and
muscles being apprehended by me as the sense of effort.

We cannot, then, exercise our will with a wandering mind. So long as
several ideas are conflictingly attended to, they hinder each other.
This we verify in regrettable experiences every day. On waking this
morning, for example, I saw it was time to get up. But the bed was
comfortable, and there were interesting matters to think of. I meant
to get up, for breakfast was waiting, and there was that new book to
be examined, and that letter to be written. How long would this
require, and how should the letter be planned? But I must get up.
Possibly those callers may come. And shall I want to see them? It is