mth, are exercises of volition."

The last of these definitions, which we may most conveniently take
first, seems to us very faulty. We cannot but feel astonished that Mr.
Bain, familiar as he is with the phenomena of reflex action, should have
so expressed himself as to include a great part of them along with the
phenomena of volition. He seems to be ignoring the discriminations of
modern science, and returning to the vague conceptions of the past--nay
more, he is comprehending under volition what even the popular speech
would hardly bring under it. If you were to blame any one for snatching
his foot from the scalding water into which he had inadvertently put it,
he would tell you that he could not help it; and his reply would be
indorsed by the general experience, that the withdrawal of a limb from
contact with something extremely hot, is quite involuntary--that it
takes place not only without volition, but in defiance of an effort of
will to maintain the contact. How, then, can that be instanced as an
example of volition, which occurs even when volition is antagonistic? We
are quite aware that it is impossible to draw any absolute line of
demarcation between automatic actions and actions which are not
automatic. Doubtless we may pass gradually from the purely reflex,
through the consensual, to the voluntary. Taking the case Mr. Bain
cites, it is manifest that from a heat of such moderate degree that the
withdrawal from it is wholly voluntary, we may advance by infinitesimal
steps to a heat which compels involuntary withdrawal; and that there is
a stage at which the voluntary and involuntary actions are mixed. But
the difficulty of absolute discrimination is no reason for neglecting
the broad general contrast; any more than it is for confounding light
with darkness. If we are to include as examples of volition, all cases
in which pleasures and pains "stimulate the active machinery of the
living framework to perform such operations as procure the first and
abate the last," then we must consider sneezing and coughing as examples
of volition; and Mr. Bain surely cannot mean this. Indeed, we must
confess ourselves at a loss. On the one hand if he does not mean it, his
expression is lax to a degree that surprises us in so careful a writer.
On the other hand, if he does mean it, we cannot understand his point of
view.

A parallel criticism applies to his definition of Emotion. Here, too, he
has departed from the ordinary a