absurdly.  It is plain that passion is something entirely beyond the conscious will, because it is continually excited from without, and because we are unable to produce it by a mere effort of the will without some external cause.  The common phrase, “He is working himself up into a passion,” indicates a perception of the fact that consciousness sometimes employs memories, thoughts, associations, etc. to arouse the lower nerve-centres that are connected with the emotion of anger.  It is so also with various other emotions.  The soldier who habitually faces death in the foremost rank of the battle, and yet shrinks in mortal fear or antipathy from a mouse, is not an unknown spectacle.  It is clear that his fear of the little animal is based not upon reason, but upon an uncontrollable sensitiveness in his nervous system acquired by inheritance or otherwise.  It does not follow from this that conscious will is not able to affect emotion.  As already pointed out, it can arouse emotion by using the proper means, and it undoubtedly can, to a greater or less extent, directly subdue emotion.  The law of inhibition, as it is called by the physiologist, dominates the whole nervous system.  Almost every nerve-centre has above it a higher centre whose function it is directly to repress or subdue the activity of the lower centre.  A familiar instance of this is seen in the action of the heart:  there are certain nerve-centres which when excited lessen the rate of the heart’s beat, and are even able to stop it altogether.  The relation of the will-power to the emotions is directly inhibitory.  The will is able to repress the activity of those centres which preside over anger.  In the man with red hair these centres may be very active and the will-power weak; hence the inhibitory influence of the will is slight and the man gets angry easily.  In the phlegmatic temperament the anger-centres are slow to action, the will-power strong, and the man is thrown off his balance with difficulty.  It is well known that power grows with exercise, and when we habitually use the will in controlling the emotional centres its power continually increases.  The man learning self-control is simply drilling the lower emotional centres into obedience to the repressive action of the higher will.  Without further demonstration, it is clear that emotion is distinct from conscious will, and is automatic in the sense in which the term has been used in this article.

Imagination also is plainly distinct from consciousness.  It acts during sleep.  Often, indeed, it runs riot during the slumbers of the night, but at times it works with an automatic regularity exceeding its powers during the waking moments.  It is also true that judgment is exercised in sleep, and that reason sometimes exerts its best efforts in that state.  But not only do the intellectual nets go on without consciousness during sleep, but also while we are awake.  Some years since I was engaged in working