Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/160

Rh To think of a bodily act is to perform the act, or at least mentally to initiate the performance of the act. According to Professor Bain’s now generally accepted principle, the memory or the conception of an act is physiologically connected with the fainter excitation of just the same nerve-tracts as would be more intensely excited in the real performance of the act. Therefore it is true that to think of yawning is to initiate a yawn, to think of walking is to initiate steps; and, in case of any excitable person, or in case of any momentary predisposition to perform the act, the conception may immediately become the act, because the nascent excitation involved in the conception of the act may at once pass over into the completer excitation, and the ideal deed may become a visible fact. Thus the excited man, if not checked by company, may at once talk aloud to himself, his thoughts becoming words. If very much excited, he may mutter to himself even in the presence of company. He is much more apt to do this if he thinks not only of the words themselves, but of the act of speaking them, namely, if he imagines himself talking to somebody, and emphatically bringing his thoughts home to that other. In a weak state of body, this tendency to repeat an act whenever one conceives it may become quite distressing. To think of vomiting may mean to vomit. Or again, to think of laughter or of tears may in such a case make one laugh or cry. Hence the weak man may dislike to begin laughing, because he knows that, other exciting causes apart, the mere memory that he has laughed may keep him