Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of ConsciousnessBergson, Henri
Philosophy
Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness
Bergson, Henri
Consciousness; Free will and determinism; Space and time
When a paralytic strives to raise his useless limb, he certainly does
not execute this movement, but, with or without his will, he executes
another. Some movement is carried out somewhere: otherwise there is
no sensation of effort.[4] Vulpian had already called attention to
the fact that if a man affected with hemiplegia is told to clench his
paralysed fist, he unconsciously carries out this action with the
fist which is not affected. Ferrier described a still more curious
phenomenon.[5] Stretch out your arm while slightly bending your
forefinger, as if you were going to press the trigger of a pistol;
without moving the finger, without contracting any muscle of the hand,
without producing any apparent movement, you will yet be able to feel
that you are expending energy. On a closer examination, however,
you will perceive that this sensation of effort coincides with the
fixation of the muscles of your chest, that you keep your glottis
closed and actively contract your respiratory muscles. As soon as
respiration resumes its normal course the consciousness of effort
vanishes, unless you really move your finger. These facts already
seemed to show that we are conscious, not of an expenditure of force,
but of the movement of the muscles which results from it. The new
feature in Professor James's investigation is that he has verified
the hypothesis in the case of examples which seemed to contradict it
absolutely. Thus when the external rectus muscle of the right eye is
paralysed, the patient tries in vain to turn his eye towards the right;
yet objects seem to him to recede towards the right, and since the act
of volition has produced no effect, it follows, said Helmholtz,[6]
that he is conscious of the effort of volition. But, replies Professor
James, no account has been taken of what goes on in the other eye. This
remains covered during the experiments; nevertheless it moves and there
is not much trouble in proving that it does. It is the movement of the
left eye, perceived by consciousness, which produces the sensation of
effort together with the impression that the objects perceived by the
right eye are moving. These and similar observations lead Professor
James to assert that the feeling of effort is centripetal and not
centrifugal. We are not conscious of a force which we are supposed to
launch upon our organism: our feeling of muscular energy at work "is
a complex afferent sensation, which comes from contracted muscles,
stretched ligaments, compressed joints, an immobilized chest, a closed
glottis, a knit brow, clenched jaws," in a word, from all the points of
the periphery where the effort causes an alteration.
[Sidenote: Intensity of feeling of effort proportional to extent of our
body affected.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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