Chapter 10

The conditions necessary for the rational principle if it is to produce the movements it wishes in its own body

351. The rational principle changes and causes movements in its own body by acting as intelligence and will. But it has dominion over its body solely through the action of its will.

352. The will's action, and hence its exercise of dominion over the body, is subject to certain conditions, which we must now investigate.
We said that movement of the body can be produced by the will in two ways: with or without knowledge of the effect of what it commands (cf. 343-347), that is, without knowledge of the effect of the extrasubjective movement as it appears to the external senses in its relationships to the other parts of the body.

Whenever, for example, a baby wishes to move its hands, it does so either by instinct or by command of its will. But the will commanding the movement is ignorant of the harm the movement will do when a finger is poked in the baby's eyes. The baby knows neither the relative extrasubjective position of its hands and eyes, nor the external effect of the internal act with which it initiates the movement.

Suppose someone has never seen himself, nor made any movement whatsoever. With his will he decides to move a part of his body for the first time. He knows the part only internally and subjectively; the choice of the movement is totally internal. No external movement is chosen precisely because he knows none. Nevertheless his internal choice results in an external movement, which for him is something new and extraordinary, the revelation of a mystery.

353. When he carries out the internal act causing the movement, he neither foresees the external effect nor knows the relationship between the part he moves and the other parts of his body; the subjective and extrasubjective phenomena differ so much from each other that one cannot be argued from the other without prior experience. The extrasubjective phenomena of the movement are not known a priori but only through the experience of his external sense organs to which the phenomena pertain. Nor can he deduce the phenomena from the fundamental feeling or its internal, purely subjective modifications. Hence, as long as he does not experience the extrasubjective phenomena of his body movements, they remain unknown, and he cannot choose one in preference to the other or even will them in any way.

354. The first condition therefore making it possible for the will to exercise its locomotive power by commanding extrasubjective movements is the knowledge obtained through actual experience.

355. But this condition is not enough. We also need to know the nexus between the external movements of the body (movements perceived by our external sense organs) and the commanded internal acts which produce them. We need to know that a given external movement corresponds to the internal act; for example, we need to know to which internal act a given movement of our hand or leg corresponds. These internal acts which command external, extrasubjective movements are active feelings. In our practical cognition therefore we have to unite these active feelings with their consequent external movements. Our internal movements, which vary in proportion to the subsequent external movements, must become the object of some perception, not of speculative cognition. This practical cognition is 'the association of perceptions we form from our active feelings with the extrasubjective movements consequent upon these feelings'.

356. The practical cognition of a certain system of actions, when it has become habitual, is an art. This art must be learnt if we are to activate our faculty of producing in our body the extrasubjective movements we desire. Until it is learnt, we cannot practise it although we have the faculty to do so. We need to learn how to hold ourselves erect and balanced, to walk and in short to make all external movements.

357. Not everybody is equally good at moving his body. Skilful dancers, instrument players, fencers and many others differ from the unskilled only because the latter have not acquired the habit of executing a certain order of bodily movements with precision and agility. The will (the first cause of these movements) does not choose individual movements but various groups of possible movements, groups which the will already knows in a practical way together with their nexus with the internal, subjective acts producing them. If a single internal act is sufficient to produce an entire group or order of movements, the act is called habit or art.

358. Nevertheless, all human beings learn to do certain bodily movements necessary for life or suggested by the various circumstances in which they find themselves.

Most people, however, put little importance on acquiring the art of producing with their will movements not needed for their existence and well-being, or even contrary to their well-being. Their will is not interested and lets the life and sensuous instincts act in their own way. This does not mean that we lack the faculty to produce these movements with our will, but simply that we do not activate the faculty and develop habits. This is so true that sometimes we use our freedom to oppose our spontaneous will even capriciously, and demonstrate our power to halt or modify instinctive, spontaneous movements. For example, eyelid flicker is certainly instinctive, and helps to protect the eyes against dust and other particles in the air as well as to give rest to our sensory system. Here, the will allows the instinct to act. Some individuals have used their power of freedom to do the opposite, and have learned to keep their eyelids open for as long as they liked. Similarly, closing our eyes when an object comes towards them is an instinctive movement; so too is contraction of the pupils against intense light and their dilation in darkness. Certain individuals, like William Porterfield and Felice Fontana, have freely trained themselves to do the opposite.

359. Although some modern authors attribute the contraction of the pupil struck by intense light to the influence of the blood, it is impossible to explain the influence of mechanical excitation caused by light without having recourse to the vital, sensitive principle. The contraction is evidently explained by the irksome sensation of excessive light. The sensation is a subjective phenomenon pertaining to the feeling principle, which is forced by the irritation to initiate the movements of the iris. These contract the opening of the pupil where the light enters and thus lessen the sensation. Granted that the sensitive principle obtains this effect by initiating the flow of blood, the influence it exercises on the circulation in the tiny vessels is evident. On the other hand, the free will, by doing the opposite, can prevent the pupil's dilation or contraction, in which case it affects the circulation by its influence on the sensitive principle.(156)

360. Townshend's famous example confirms the will's power over the circulation of the blood. This Englishman, shortly before his death and while on his back, could evidently control at will the movement of his heart and pulse.(157) I suspect that if his body had been dissected some peculiarity would have been found at the juncture between cerebral and ganglionic nervous systems. Because both these nervous systems are always in continuity with each other, it seems that the will's influence on the circulation cannot be absent, although individual physiology in people can vary the circulation.

361. Sleep is also an animal phenomenon which must certainly be attributed to the sensitive principle, although the will's influence through its dominion over the sensitive principle certainly cannot be excluded. On the other hand, the influence of the intellectual feeling is obviously apparent if we consider how mental exercise, particularly some fixed, passionate thought, prevents sleep, or how mental inertia helps sleep, as in babies, daydreamers and the indolent.

362. But no observer of nature will deny that the intellective principle acts during sleep, although the effective command of the will varies.
The will, by suspending the action and effect of the sensitive principle, can contribute with its energy to blocking the principle as it is about to cause sleep. The will can also stimulate the principle to produce sleep, particularly in people of great nervous mobility.
It is true that when we want to sleep, we relax our body and reduce the action of our will; we refrain from acting on our understanding or co-operating with and directing its action. Consequently the action of our mind, stimulated and directed by our will, particularly our free will, has a greater role in preventing sleep.

But to show that the will can in fact act positively to produce sleep, I have no hesitation in calling on the phenomena of artificial somnambulism which others rather rashly call animal magnetism.(158) Somnambulism is a special state of sleep. I myself knew a certain Ricamboni who slept at will and when called in the middle of his sleep began to walk. This at first seemed so extraordinary that I thought it was a trick. Later, however, after comparing this fact with other facts and considering all the circumstances, I stopped doubting and accepted its truth. I was also present at experiments made on a girl who had the faculty of artificial somnambulism. The person doing the experiments used not only so-called magnetic movements but any sign or arbitrary act to make her fall asleep. When I asked her if she could will herself to sleep without the gestures which the doctor made before her eyes, she said quite ingenuously 'Yes' and assured me that she fell asleep at will.

363. The will also exercises its power over the organs of secretion by influencing the peristaltic movement of the intestines. And we all know how highly excitable people, like women, weep or stop weeping at will.

364. To sum up, the intellective principle, to which the will pertains, has natural dominion over the sensitive principle, provided: 1. it knows by experience extrasubjective movements, if indeed these are to be the object of its volitions, and 2. it has come to know in a practical way the nexus between extrasubjective movements and the acts (active feelings) with which it must produce them, and over which it has acquired a habit.

Notes

(156) Porterfield must be counted among those who were fully aware that animal phenomena had to be attributed to the soul. His observations on the internal movements of the eye are found in Esperienze ed osservazioni mediche d'Edimburgo, vol. 4. But even this author, like other animists, confuses the volitive, intellective principle with the instinctive, sensitive principle. In fact, to show that animal movements are produced by the will, he advances Lister's observation that the heartbeat of the snail is WILLED (De cocleis et limacibus, Londini 1694, p. 38). The snail certainly has no will, but Lister's observation is important and efficacious in showing that the heartbeat depends on the animal sensitive principle. Only in the human being is this principle subordinate to the will, which rules and modifies the human subject with different degrees of dominion. Lister's observation however will be of use to us later.

(157).Cf. George Cheyne, Sulla malattia inglese (London, 1733), p. 40. This doctor, together with others, maintains that the cause of all animal phenomena must be referred to the soul.

(158) Cf. La lettera del sonnambolismo artificiale in the last volume of my works [Apologetica, Milan, 1840, p. 454].