possible that we might not find it as easy to notice our several
steps as we do at present. Even as it is, if while we are running we
would consider the action of our muscles, we come to a dead stop, and
should probably fall if we tried to observe too suddenly; for we must
stop to do this, and running, when we have once committed ourselves
to it beyond a certain point, is not controllable to a step or two
without loss of equilibrium.

We learn to talk, much about the same time that we learn to walk, but
talking requires less muscular effort than walking, and makes
generally less demand upon our powers. A man may talk a long while
before he has done the equivalent of a five-mile walk; it is natural,
therefore, that we should have had more practice in talking than in
walking, and hence that we should find it harder to pay attention to
our words than to our steps. Certainly it is very hard to become
conscious of every syllable or indeed of every word we say; the
attempt to do so will often bring us to a check at once; nevertheless
we can generally stop talking if we wish to do so, unless the crying
of infants be considered as a kind of quasi-speech: this comes
earlier, and is often quite uncontrollable, or more truly perhaps is
done with such complete control over the muscles by the will, and
with such absolute certainty of his own purpose on the part of the
wilier, that there is no longer any more doubt, uncertainty, or
suspense, and hence no power of perceiving any of the processes
whereby the result is attained--as a wheel which may look fast fixed
because it is so fast revolving. {2}

We may observe therefore in this ascending scale, imperfect as it is,
that the older the habit the longer the practice, the longer the
practice, the more knowledge--or, the less uncertainty; the less