The Principles of Psychology

Answers

• Q04AUTOMATON

  Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?

  Yes. consciousness is efficacious. Consciousness is selective and grows more complex where the nervous system is least determinate, which would be useless if it had no effect; the automaton theory is an unwarranted a priori claim.

  My conclusion is that to urge the automaton-theory upon us, as it is now urged, on purely _a priori_ and _quasi-_metaphysical grounds, is an _unwarrantable impertinence in the present state of psychology_. But there are much more positive reasons than this why we ought to continue to talk in psychology as if consciousness had causal efficacy. The _particulars of the distribution of consciousness_, so far as we know them, _point to its being efficacious_. Let us trace some of them. It is very generally admitted, though the point would be hard to prove, that consciousness grows the more complex and intense the higher we rise in the animal kingdom. That of a man must exceed that of an oyster. From this point of view it seems an organ, superadded to the other organs which maintain the animal in the struggle for existence; and the presumption of course is that it helps him in some way in the struggle, just as they do. But it cannot help him without being in some way efficacious and influencing the course of his bodily history.

  Chapter V, 'The Automaton-Theory' (developed from 'Are We Automata?', Mind 4, 1879) · Archive.org record for vol. 1 (1890); Wikipedia and IEP confirm chapter V title; 'Are We Automata?' (Mind 1879, 1–22) is at psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/automata.htm.

• Q20HABIT

  Does making an action habitual increase a person's freedom to act?

  Yes. habit frees attention. James recommends making useful actions habitual so that automatic performance of daily details releases higher mental powers for their own work.

  The great thing, then, in all education, is to _make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy_. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. _For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can,_ and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

  Chapter IV: Habit · Downloaded Gutenberg #57628; confirmed Chapter IV 'Habit' and the passage.