§ 9. Involuntary Action. Fixed Ideas.—In the strictest sense an involuntary action is one which takes place in opposition to a voluntary resolution. Thus if determined to make a certain stroke at billiards, and if in the moment of action the muscular apparatus fails me, so as to give rise to an unintended jerky movement, my action is strictly involuntary. But cases like this do not interest us here. What we are concerned with is the defeat of the will, not by an accidental circumstance interfering with its execution, but by an antagonistic conation. We have an example of this in the unsuccessful effort to restrain a reflex movement over which we have normally sufficient control. Suppose a party of soldiers to be climbing a crag in the dark so as to surprise a castle. Noiselessness is a condition of success. A sneeze or a cough probably means defeat and loss of life. Now it is possible to a large extent to restrain the actions of sneezing and coughing; but if the irritation of the mucous membrane is sufficiently intense and persistent temporary repression only makes the ultimate outburst more violent. One of the soldiers may be determined not to sneeze, although the impulse is so strong as to give him great uneasiness. The tendency to sneeze is a conation; to restrain it is painful, and to indulge it would be a relief. None the less, if the impulse prove irresistible, the sneeze is involuntary.

In this instance the involuntary act follows on organic sensation and not on an idea. It does not take place because the ideal representation of the act of sneezing has become predominant, but merely because of the intense irritation of the mucous membrane.

There is however a wide class of instances in which the will is defeated by the obtrusive intensity of an ideal representation. In spite of the mental assertion that we are not going to perform a certain action, the idea of that action, owing to other conditions, acquires and maintains a dominance in consciousness which ultimately leads to its realisation.

This may happen even when the ideally represented object is not desired, and even when the only feeling towards it is that of intense aversion. A man standing on an eminence, such as the top of a cathedral tower, and looking down into the vast depth beneath him, thinks of what it would be like to throw himself down. Owing to the fascinating interest of the thought the idea of the action and its consequences obtrudes itself upon him with intense vividness, and he feels himself impelled to carry it into execution. He may have a very distinct and clear volition to the contrary; he may utterly refuse to identify the idea of the action with the idea of Self. He mentally asserts, I shall not, or, I will not; and as a rule this voluntary decision triumphs over the "fixed idea," as it is called. But it still remains true that the fixed idea derives its vivacity from conditions independent of the will; and it is always possible that the impulse to realise it may acquire sufficient strength to overcome a contrary volition. Some people actually do throw themselves down precipices in this way.

This result however is not common under normal conditions. It is in pathological cases that the fixed idea becomes really formidable. This is partly due to imperfect powers of deliberation. The cognitive tendencies which would have restrained the act lie in abeyance; the concept of the Ego in its unity and totality can only be very inadequately developed in relation to the act contemplated. But there are instances in which this explanation does not apply. In such instances it is not the absence of inhibiting tendencies, but the positive strength of the impulsive idea which leads to action. Ribot gives a case of a man who was possessed by the idea of killing his mother. "'To you,' said he, 'I owe everything; I love you with all my soul; yet for some time past an incessant idea drives me to kill you.'" Tormented by this temptation, he leaves his home, and becomes a soldier. "Still a secret impulse stimulated him without cessation to desert in order to come home and kill his mother." In time, the thought of killing his mother gives place to that of killing his sisterinlaw. Some one tells him that his sisterinlaw is dead, and he accordingly returns home. "But as he arrives he sees his sisterinlaw living. He gives a cry, and the terrible impulse seizes him again as a prey. That very evening he makes his brother tie him fast. 'Take a solid rope, bind me like a wolf in the barn, and go and tell Dr. Calmeil' From him he got admission to an insane asylum. The evening before his entrance he wrote to the director of the establishment: 'Sir, I am to become an inmate of your house. I shall behave there as if I were in the regiment. You will think me cured. At moments perhaps I shall pretend to be so. Never believe me. Never let me out on any pretext; the only use I shall make of my liberty will be to commit a crime which I abhor.'" *

* Ribot, Maladies de la Volonte, p. 77, quoted by James, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii., p. 542.

This is a case in which the fixed idea was not executed; but it easily might have taken effect, and many similar cases could be adduced in which it actually did so. What it is important to note is the conflict between the Self as a whole arranged on the side of the volition, and the isolated impulse to action which derives its strength merely from the fixation of an idea by pathological conditions. In these cases the conation which resists the will arises primarily from the fixation of the idea in consciousness. The fixation of the idea itself does not arise from any desire for its object. But under normal as opposed to pathological conditions, the commonest cases of involuntary action are those in which an idea becomes fixed through intense appetite or craving arising from organic conditions. To take an example given by Mr. Shand, a man may have a morbid craving for drink or opium, and the ideas which move to its satisfaction may at last become irresistible. Now here there are four possible alternatives. In the first place, indulgence in the drink or opium may be contrary to the man's express volition at the moment when he drinks. This is probably a very rare occurrence. As a rule, when the impulse is strong enough to produce action, it is also strong enough to prevent or displace an opposing volition. In the second place, there may have been a preformed resolution to refrain from the action; but at the moment at which it takes place, the contrary impulse acquires such intensity as to preoccupy the field of consciousness, so that the volition is temporarily in abeyance. Here action at the moment is nonvoluntary rather than involuntary; but taking a broader view we may call it involuntary, because it runs counter to a volition which has only lapsed for the time being, and recurs in consciousness immediately after the act is over, in the form of remorse. In the third place, the action may take effect before a voluntary decision has been arrived at. In the midst of the conflict of motives, the idea corresponding to the animal appetite may become so vivified as to pass into action while the process of deliberation is still working itself out. We may act before we know our own minds. A man while still mentally hesitating whether he is to drink a glass of spirits or not, will find that the organic craving has so vivified the idea of drinking that he is swallowing the spirits before he has determined whether to do so or not. The action is then involuntary, because it interrupts the process of forming a volition. It may also be involuntary in a deeper sense; it may be that from the constitution of the man's whole nature, he would certainly have willed otherwise if full deliberation had been possible before acting. In the fourth place, the organic craving may be the motive of a genuine volition, and the action may therefore be voluntary at the time at which it takes place. None the less, there is a sense in which the action may be regarded as involuntary. A comparison may be made between the totality of interests defeated by indulging in the drink or opium, and the animal craving itself considered as a relatively isolated impulse. If the craving were taken away the Self would still be left. If on the other hand all the interests which are opposed to the indulgence were taken away, there would be little left but the morbid appetite itself. Thus the denial that the act is voluntary may have a good meaning. It may mean that the volition of the moment is discordant with the general volition of a lifetime, so that the intervals between the periods of indulgence are embittered by remorse. It is supposed that the morbid craving by its isolated intensity prevents full deliberation. There is, it is assumed, in the man's nature a vast system of cognitive tendencies which, if they had found fair play, and developed themselves in consciousness, would have determined volition even if they did not determine action. Of course, when we regard the question in this way, the voluntariness or involuntariness of an action is a matter of degree. We tend to think of the opiumeating of a man like Coleridge as a kind of external misfortune, because it is alien from the ideal aspirations which we regard as constituting his true Self. To this extent, we do not hold Coleridge responsible so much as the unfortunate craving which possessed and mastered him. In the case of a man of meaner nature, our judgment would be very different.