Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/139

 imagination, that we need only foresee certain evils as the consequences of our actions in order to avoid them. Further, the supposition that the idea of any particular motion necessary to a given end, or of the different motions which combined together constitute some regular action is sufficient to produce that action by a subtle law of association, can only apply to those motions after they are willed, not to the willing them. That is, there must be a previous determination of the will, or feeling of remote good connected with the idea of the action before it can have any effect. The idea of any particular action must be in itself perfectly indifferent, being always advantageous, useless, or mischievous according to circumstances. I cannot therefore see any reason according to this hypothesis, why I should will or be inclined to make any exertions not originating in some mechanical impulse that happens to be strongest at the time, merely because they may be necessary to avoid an imaginary evil which of itself does not appear to cause the slightest emotion in my mind: on the contrary, if the barely thinking of any external action is always immediately to be followed by that action without a particular warrant from the will, there could be no such thing as reasonable action among men; our actions would be more ridiculous than those of a man possessed with St. Vitus's dance; they would resemble the diseased starts and fits of a madman, not the actions of a reasonable being. We should thrust our hands into the fire, dash our heads against the wall, leap down precipices, and commit more absurdities every moment of our lives than were performed by Don Quixote with so much labour and study by way of penance in the heart of the Brown Mountain. The momentum of the will is necessary to give direction and constancy to any of our actions; and this again can only be determined by the