pecial attention, and may be distinctly remembered
afterwards. Now, according to the hypothesis proposed, we will our
actions, and are conscious both of the act, and the antecedent
volition, so long as their rapidity is confined to a certain rate; but,
as soon as the rapidity exceeds that rate, the operation is taken out of
our hands, and is carried on by some unknown power, of which we know no
more than we do of the circulation of the blood, or of the systole and
diastole of the heart! Such a supposition is about as reasonable as it
would be to say that a projectile passes through the intermediate space,
when it is thrown with such a moderate degree of velocity that we can
see it, in its progress; but, when it is thrown with such velocity as to
become invisible, it ceases to pass through the intermediate space, and
reaches the goal only because projectiles have the habit of doing so!

The hypothesis then breaks down, and we are forced back to our original
supposition, namely, that those actions which are voluntary originally,
never cease to be so; that when, as in the cases supposed, we retain no
recollection of particular volitions, it is because of some law of our
nature by which we are capable of recollecting only those acts upon
which the attention has been fixed with a certain degree of intensity
and for some perceptible space of time; that the volition, in other
words, is too feeble and too rapid to leave any impression on the
memory. To argue that there has been no volition, because we do not
recollect it, is as absurd as it would be to say that there has been no
muscular act, because in many cases we have as little recollection of
the muscular act, as we have of the antecedent volition.

Besides, there are many other mental acts, as rapid as those which have
been adduced,--so rapid that not the least recollection of them
remains,--where, yet, this mechanical or automatic hypothesis affords
not the least explanation. Thus the expert accountant in a Bank adds up
a long column of figures with the same rapidity and ease with which
ordinary persons would read a passage from a familiar author, and he
brings out in the end the exact sum, which he can do in no other way
than by taking note in passing of the precise character and value of
each figure. Yet, at the end of such a process, the accountant has no
more recollection of those rapidly succeeding acts of the mind, than has
the musical performer of those countless