Will power may deviate from the normal in either of two directions--in the direction of excess or of insufficiency. To both of these two forms of volitional disturbance the subjects of tic have become slaves. Weakness of will is seen in irresoluteness of mind, flight of ideas, want of perseverance; exuberance of will in sudden vagary or imperious caprice. The man who tics has both the debility and the impulsiveness of the child; to his impatience his incapacity for sustained effort acts as a set-off; he is impressionable, wavering, thoughtless, even as he is mettlesome and irascible. He does not know how to will; he wills too much or too little, too quickly, too restrictedly. As a single example of volitional activity, let us take the attention. Diminution of attention on the part of tic patients has been judiciously commented on by Guinon: It is impossible for them to address themselves to any subject: they skip unceasingly from one idea to another, and apply themselves with zest to some occupation only to forget it immediately. No further proof of this need be sought than the inability of the patient, if he be at all severely affected, to read, a proceeding at once intellectual and mechanical, and absolutely familiar to most. Read the patient cannot, and though the attempt to concentrate the attention diminishes or inhibits the tic at once, there is no sequence in his effort; his eye jumps erratically from one line to another, and his many unavailing trials end in his throwing the book away. Excess of voluntary activity is disclosed in the whole series of impulsions. The germ of homicidal or suicidal tendencies, which we have indicated in the case of O., is discoverable also in one of Charcot's patients.[23] _M. Charcot_ (to the patient)--Tell us what you said the other day about razors. _The Patient_--Whenever I see a razor or a knife, I begin to thrill and feel afraid. I imagine I am going to kill some one, or that some one is going to kill me. I have the same sensation when I see a gun, or even if the notion of a gun comes to my mind. The mere thought of it agonises me. The fancy of murdering some one strikes me, and up to a certain point I am envious of fulfilling the desire. Often I am conscious of an irresistible longing to fight somebody, and I am frequently impelled to it by the sight of a cabman. Why a cabman more than any one else, I have not the remotest idea. We have already touched on the close affinity between an act and the idea of the act, and we have emphasised the absence of any appreciable interval between the idea and its execution, unless the brake of volitional interference be put on at the proper moment. It is in these circumstances that the feeble of will betray their debility; the inadequateness or inopportuneness of their will's activity allows the performance of the act they would fain repress.