Now on the other hand it has been said that when a man, say, gets out
of bed in the morning, all that happens may be this: he
deliberates, “Is it time to get up?”, he
tries to make up his mind, and then suddenly
he finds himself
getting up.
Describing it this way emphasizes the absence of an act of
volition.
Now first: where do we find the
paradigm || prototype of such a thing,
i.e., how did we come by the idea of such an
act?
I think the prototype of the act of volition is the experience
of muscular effort. ‒ ‒
Now there is something in this above description which
tempts us to contradict it; we say: “We don't
just
116.
‘find’, observe, ourselves getting up, as though we were
observing someone else: It isn't like, say,
watching certain reflex actions.
If, e.g., I place myself sideways close to a
wall, my wall side arm hanging down outstretched, the back of the hand
touching the wall, and if now keeping the arm rigid I press the back of
the hand hard against the wall, doing it all by means of the delta
muscle, if then I quickly step away from the wall, letting my arm hang
down loosely, my arm without any action of mine, of its own accord begins
to rise; this is the sort of case in which it would be proper to say,
‘I
find my arm rising’.”