Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/118

110 that, although we may have a sub-consciousness of objects and acts, that sub-conscious state is true automatism, and that such automatic acts are in no sense voluntary until the attention has been concentrated upon them. For example, again I press this tambour, because I desire to raise the flag, and I keep that raised while I attend to what I am saying to you. My action of keeping the flag raised is only present to my consciousness in a slight or subordinate degree, and does not require my attention, deliberate thought, or choice, and therefore, I repeat, is not a voluntary action; in fact, it could be carried on perfectly well by this lower sensori-motor center, which only now and then sends up a message to say it is doing its duty, in the same way as a sentry calls out "All is well" at intervals.

But to return. In consequence of the obvious fact that we have two nerve-organs, each more or less complete, some writers have imagined that we have two minds; and to the Rev. Mr. Barlow, a former secretary of this Institution, is due the credit of recognizing the circumstances which seem to favor that view. It was keenly taken up, and the furore culminated in a German writer (whose name, I am ashamed to say, has escaped me) postulating that we possess two souls.

Now, the evidence upon which this notion rests, that the two halves of the brain might occasionally work independently of one another at the same moment, was of two kinds. In the first place it was asserted that we could do two different things at once, and in the second place evidence was produced of people acting and thinking as if they had two minds.

Now, while of course admitting that habitually one motor center usually acts at one moment by itself, I am prepared to deny in toto that two voluntary acts can be performed at the same time, and I have already shown what is necessary for the fulfillment of all the conditions of volition, and that these conditions are summed up in the word attention.

Further, I have already shown that, when an idea comes into the mind owing to some object catching the eye, both sensory areas are engaged in considering it. It seems to me I might stop here, and say that here was an a priori reason why two simultaneous voluntary acts are impossible; but as my statements have met with some opposition, I prefer to demonstrate the fact by some experiments.

The problem, stated in physiological terms, is as follows: Can this right motor region act in the process of volition, while at the same time this other motor area is also engaged in a different act of volition? Some say this is possible; but in all cases quoted I have found that sub-conscious or automatic actions are confused with truly voluntary acts. I mean that such automatic acts as playing bass and treble are not instances of pure volition, as the attention is not engaged on both notes at once.