William James tells us that the instance that first convinced him of this general law was the way in which he eventually got up of a morning. In due course after waking, the thought came to him, "I must get up."
But this idea instantly suggested the inadvisability of doing so. The bed was too cosy, the world too cold. So he lay where he was. How, then, did he ever get up? Consciously, he never got up at all; the first thing he knew, he was up. He had fallen into a revery upon the day's doings, when suddenly the idea that he must lie there no longer popped up again, and at that lucky instant, before it could start objection, had started him.
Introspection will soon yield any one countless instances of the same thing; but it is introspection of the second order of difficulty. One cannot simply stalk out into his thought preserves and pot his instance; the fugitive character of the action obliges him to take it on the wing. For to catch it stationary, is, by its very nature, impossible. So soon as one thinks about his thinking, he is, ipso facto, engaged upon a different thought, namely, the thought of thinking,
