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Let us ask the following question: Suppose that, on one ground or another, B has said, “I can continue the series”, but on being asked to continue it he had shown himself unable to do so, – should we say that this proved that his statement, that he could continue, was wrong, or should we say that he was able to continue when he said he was? Would B himself say, “I see I was wrong”, or “What I said was true, I could do it then but I can't now”? – There are cases in which he would correctly say the one and cases in which he would correctly say the other. Suppose ''a'') when he said he could continue he saw the formula before his mind, but when he was asked to continue he found he had forgotten it; – or, ''b'') when he said he could continue he had said to himself the next five terms of the series, but now finds that they don't come into his mind; – or ''c'') before, he had continued the series calculating five more places, now he still remembers these five numbers but has forgotten how he had calculated them; – or ''d'') he says, “Then I felt I could continue, now I can't”; – or ''e''), “When I said I could lift the weight my arm didn't hurt, now it does”; etc. | Let us ask the following question: Suppose that, on one ground or another, B has said, “I can continue the series”, but on being asked to continue it he had shown himself unable to do so, – should we say that this proved that his statement, that he could continue, was wrong, or should we say that he was able to continue when he said he was? Would B himself say, “I see I was wrong”, or “What I said was true, I could do it then but I can't now”? – There are cases in which he would correctly say the one and cases in which he would correctly say the other. Suppose ''a'') when he said he could continue he saw the formula before his mind, but when he was asked to continue he found he had forgotten it; – or, ''b'') when he said he could continue he had said to himself the next five terms of the series, but now finds that they don't come into his mind; – or ''c'') before, he had continued the series calculating five more places, now he still remembers these five numbers but has forgotten how he had calculated them; – or ''d'') he says, “Then I felt I could continue, now I can't”; – or ''e''), “When I said I could lift the weight my arm didn't hurt, now it does”; etc. | ||
On the other hand we say, “I thought I could lift this weight, but I see I can't”, “I thought I could say this piece {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,62}} by heart, but I see I was mistaken”. | On the other hand we say, “I thought I could lift this weight, but I see I can't”, “I thought I could say this piece <span id="p-62"></span>{{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,62}} by heart, but I see I was mistaken”. | ||
These illustrations of the || our use of the word “can” should be supplemented by illustrations showing the variety of uses we make of the terms “forgetting” and “trying”, for these uses are closely connected with those of the word “can”. Consider || Contemplate these cases: ''a'') Before, B had said to himself the formula, now, “He finds a complete blank there”. ''b'') Before, he had said to himself the formula, now, for a moment he isn't sure “whether it was 2<sup>n</sup> or 3<sup>n</sup>”. ''c'') He has forgotten a name and it is “on the tip of his tongue”. Or ''d''), he is not certain whether he has ever known the name or has forgotten it. | These illustrations of the || our use of the word “can” should be supplemented by illustrations showing the variety of uses we make of the terms “forgetting” and “trying”, for these uses are closely connected with those of the word “can”. Consider || Contemplate these cases: ''a'') Before, B had said to himself the formula, now, “He finds a complete blank there”. ''b'') Before, he had said to himself the formula, now, for a moment he isn't sure “whether it was 2<sup>n</sup> or 3<sup>n</sup>”. ''c'') He has forgotten a name and it is “on the tip of his tongue”. Or ''d''), he is not certain whether he has ever known the name or has forgotten it. | ||
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Let us consider various characteristics of voluntary and involuntary acts. In the case of lifting the heavy weight, the various experiences of effort are obviously most characteristic for lifting the weight voluntarily. On the other hand, compare with this the case of writing, voluntarily, here in most {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,118}} of the ordinary cases there will be no effort; and even if we feel that the writing tires our hands and strains their muscles, this is not the experience of “pulling” and “pushing” which we would call typical voluntary actions. Further compare the lifting of your hand when you lift a weight with lifting your hand when, e.g., you point to some object above you. This will certainly be regarded as a voluntary act, though the element of effort will most likely be entirely absent; in fact this raising of the arm to point at an object is very much like raising the eye to look at it, and here we can hardly conceive of an effort. – Now let us describe an act of involuntary raising your arm. There is the case of our experiment, and this was characterized by the utter absence of muscular strain and also by our observant attitude towards the lifting of the arm. But we have just seen a case in which muscular strain was absent, and there are cases in which we should call an action voluntary although we take an observant attitude towards it. But in a large class of cases it is the peculiar impossibility of taking an observant attitude towards a certain action which characterizes it as a voluntary one: Try, e.g., to observe your hand rising when you voluntarily raise it. Of course you ''see'' it rising as you do, say, in the experiment; but you can't somehow follow it in the same way with your eye. This might get clearer if you compare two different cases of following lines on a piece of paper with your eye; ''A'') some irregular line like this: [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,118.png|60px|link=]], ''B'') a written sentence. You will find that in ''A'') the eye, as it were, alternately slips and gets stuck, whereas {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,119}} in reading a sentence it glides along smoothly. | Let us consider various characteristics of voluntary and involuntary acts. In the case of lifting the heavy weight, the various experiences of effort are obviously most characteristic for lifting the weight voluntarily. On the other hand, compare with this the case of writing, voluntarily, here in most {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,118}} of the ordinary cases there will be no effort; and even if we feel that the writing tires our hands and strains their muscles, this is not the experience of “pulling” and “pushing” which we would call typical voluntary actions. Further compare the lifting of your hand when you lift a weight with lifting your hand when, e.g., you point to some object above you. This will certainly be regarded as a voluntary act, though the element of effort will most likely be entirely absent; in fact this raising of the arm to point at an object is very much like raising the eye to look at it, and here we can hardly conceive of an effort. – Now let us describe an act of involuntary raising your arm. There is the case of our experiment, and this was characterized by the utter absence of muscular strain and also by our observant attitude towards the lifting of the arm. But we have just seen a case in which muscular strain was absent, and there are cases in which we should call an action voluntary although we take an observant attitude towards it. But in a large class of cases it is the peculiar impossibility of taking an observant attitude towards a certain action which characterizes it as a voluntary one: Try, e.g., to observe your hand rising when you voluntarily raise it. Of course you ''see'' it rising as you do, say, in the experiment; but you can't somehow follow it in the same way with your eye. This might get clearer if you compare two different cases of following lines on a piece of paper with your eye; ''A'') some irregular line like this: [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,118.png|60px|link=]], ''B'') a written sentence. You will find that in ''A'') the eye, as it were, alternately slips and gets stuck, whereas {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,119}} in reading a sentence it glides along smoothly. | ||
Now consider a case in which we do take up an observant attitude towards a voluntary action, I mean the very instructive case of trying to draw a square with its diagonals by placing a mirror on your drawing paper and directing your hand by what you see by looking at it in the mirror. And here one is inclined to say that our real ''actions'', the ones to which volition ''immediately'' applies || for which volition is ''immediately'' responsible, are not the movements of our hand but something further back, say, the actions of our muscles. We are inclined to compare the case with this: Imagine we had a series of levers before us, through which, by a hidden mechanism, we could direct a pencil drawing on a sheet of paper. We might then be in doubt which levers to pull in order to get the desired movement of the pencil; and we could say that ''we deliberately'' pulled this particular lever, although we didn't deliberately produce the wrong result that we thereby produced. But this comparison, though it easily suggests itself, is very misleading. For in the case of the levers which we saw before us, there was such a thing as deciding which one we were going to pull before pulling it. But does our volition, as it were, play on a keyboard of muscles, choosing which one it was going to use next? – For some actions which we call deliberate it is characteristic that we, in some sense, “know what we are going to do” before we do it. In this sense we say that we know what object we are going to point to, and what we might call “the act of knowing” might consist in looking at the object before we point to it or in describing its position by words or {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,120}} pictures. Now we could describe our drawing the square through the mirror by saying that our acts were deliberate as far as their motor aspect is concerned but not as far as their visual aspect is concerned. This could || would, e.g., be demonstrated by our ability to repeat a movement of the hand which had produced a wrong result, on being told to do so. But it would obviously be absurd to say that this motor character of voluntary motion consisted in our knowing beforehand what we were going to do, as though we had had a picture of the kinaesthetic sensation before our mind and decided to bring about this sensation. Remember the experiment | Now consider a case in which we do take up an observant attitude towards a voluntary action, I mean the very instructive case of trying to draw a square with its diagonals by placing a mirror on your drawing paper and directing your hand by what you see by looking at it in the mirror. And here one is inclined to say that our real ''actions'', the ones to which volition ''immediately'' applies || for which volition is ''immediately'' responsible, are not the movements of our hand but something further back, say, the actions of our muscles. We are inclined to compare the case with this: Imagine we had a series of levers before us, through which, by a hidden mechanism, we could direct a pencil drawing on a sheet of paper. We might then be in doubt which levers to pull in order to get the desired movement of the pencil; and we could say that ''we deliberately'' pulled this particular lever, although we didn't deliberately produce the wrong result that we thereby produced. But this comparison, though it easily suggests itself, is very misleading. For in the case of the levers which we saw before us, there was such a thing as deciding which one we were going to pull before pulling it. But does our volition, as it were, play on a keyboard of muscles, choosing which one it was going to use next? – For some actions which we call deliberate it is characteristic that we, in some sense, “know what we are going to do” before we do it. In this sense we say that we know what object we are going to point to, and what we might call “the act of knowing” might consist in looking at the object before we point to it or in describing its position by words or {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,120}} pictures. Now we could describe our drawing the square through the mirror by saying that our acts were deliberate as far as their motor aspect is concerned but not as far as their visual aspect is concerned. This could || would, e.g., be demonstrated by our ability to repeat a movement of the hand which had produced a wrong result, on being told to do so. But it would obviously be absurd to say that this motor character of voluntary motion consisted in our knowing beforehand what we were going to do, as though we had had a picture of the kinaesthetic sensation before our mind and decided to bring about this sensation. Remember the experiment [[#p-62|p. 62]]; if here, instead of pointing from a distance to the finger which you order the subject to move, you touch that finger, the subject will always move it without the slightest difficulty. And here it is tempting to say, “Of course I can move it now, because now I know which finger it is I'm asked to move.” This makes it appear as though I had now shown you which muscle to contract in order to bring about the desired result. The word “of course” makes it appear as though by touching your finger I had given you an item of information telling you what to do. (As though normally when you tell a man to move such-and-such a finger he could follow your order because he knew how to bring the movement about.) | ||
(It is interesting here to think of the case of sucking a liquid through a tube; if asked what part of your body you sucked with, you would be inclined to say your mouth, although the work was done by the muscles by which you draw your breath.) | (It is interesting here to think of the case of sucking a liquid through a tube; if asked what part of your body you sucked with, you would be inclined to say your mouth, although the work was done by the muscles by which you draw your breath.) | ||