ndence of voluntary actions does not
fundamentally preclude the existence within us of a wonderful
_spontaneity_, which in a certain sense makes the soul in its resolves
independent of the physical influence of all other creatures. This
spontaneity, hitherto little recognized, which exalts our command over our
actions to the highest pitch, is a consequence of the System of
Pre-established Harmony, of which I must give some explanation here. The
Scholastic philosophers believed that there was a reciprocal physical
influence between body and soul: but since it has been recognized that
thought and dimensional mass have no mutual connexion, and that they are
creatures differing _toto genere_, many moderns have acknowledged that
there is no _physical communication_ between soul and body, despite the
_metaphysical communication_ always subsisting, which causes soul and body
to compose one and the same _suppositum_, or what is called a person. This
physical communication, if there were such, would cause the soul to change
the degree of speed and the directional line of some motions that are in
the body, and _vice versa_ the body to change the sequence of the thoughts
that are in the soul. But this effect cannot be inferred from any notion
conceived in the body and in the soul; though nothing be better known to us
than the soul, since it is inmost to us, that is to say inmost to itself.

[156]
60. M. Descartes wished to compromise and to make a part of the body's
action dependent upon the soul. He believed in the existence of a rule of
Nature to the effect, according to him, that the same quantity of movement
is conserved in bodies. He deemed it not possible that the influence of the
soul should violate this law of bodies, but he believed that the soul
notwithstanding might have power to change the direction of the movements
that are made in the body; much as a rider, though giving no force to the
horse he mounts, nevertheless controls it by guiding that force in any
direction he pleases. But as that is done by means of the bridle, the bit,
the spurs and other material aids, it is conceivable how that can be; there
are, however, no instruments such as the soul may employ for this result,
nothing indeed either in the soul or in the body, that is, either in
thought or in the mass, which may serve to explain this change of the one
by the other. In a word, that the