Among modern philosophers, who have confounded or identified Volition with Desire, may be noticed Dr. Thomas Brown. In his Inquiry into the Relation between Cause and Effect, pt. i. sect. 3, he has said, "These brief feelings, which the body immediately obeysthat is to say, on which certain bodily movements are immediately consequent are commonly termed Volitions; while the more lasting wishes, which have no such direct termination, are simply denominated Desires. Thus we are said to desire wealth, and to will the motion of our hand; but, if the motion of our hand had not followed our desire of moving it, we should then have been said not to will but to desire its motion. The distance, or the immediate attainableness, of the good, is thus the sole difference; but, as the words are at present used, they have served to produce a belief that, in the case of any simple bodily movement, there are both a desire and a volition. . . . Of this complex mental process, however, we have no consciousness; the desire of moving a limb being directly followed by its motion." Mr. Austin has said (Prov. of Jurisprud. Determined, vol. i. p. 87), "By the will or by volitions, we mean desires which consummate themselves,”—as I will to move my hand, and the movement immediately follows. But a volition to recollect anything is not followed immediately by recollection. Now, it may be difficult, in every voluntary motion of the body, to detect the presence of a desire to do so, followed by a volition or determination to do so. Our voluntary motions begin so early, and are repeated so frequently, that all sense of succession between the different steps in the process gradually disappears. But the difference is made plain by an appeal to consciousness. I have a strong desire to drink of some grateful beverage, or to eat of some tempting food; but I find or fear that to do so might be injurious to my health. I pause, and hesitate; but at length decline the dangerous gratification. According to Dr. Brown, and those who identify Volition with Desire, there is nothing in this case but the desire of eating or drinking being overcome by the desire of health-that is, a weaker desire being overcome by a stronger. But in this and all similar cases, there are three things of which we are distinctly conscious-viz., a desire felt, another desire which interferes with the gratification of the desire first felt, and then a Volition or Determination either to gratify the first desire, or to yield to the desire which is incompatible with the gratification of it. Now, this Volition or Determination is different from the Desire which it rejects, and it is equally different from the Desire with the promptings of which it concurs. And whether we seek to check and to resist some turbulent and vicious propensity, or to cherish and enflame some feeble but virtuous inclination, we feel that, in doing so, we put forth an act of Will; an act which, although it may be prompted and influenced by Desire, is altogether different from and superior to its impulse; and is no more to be confounded with it than any act or operation of mind is to be confounded with the act or operation which may have preceded it. And when, from attending to what passes in our own bosom, we turn to contemplate the conduct of others, we are brought to the same conclusion. We see some one placed in circumstances of trial and difficulty. He has an inordinate love of wealth, and an opportunity offers by which this desire may be gratified. The opportunity, though tempting, is not without its hazards. He pauses, and hesitates, and at length determines to check the desire of wealth, which would urge him to some doubtful enterprise, and holds fast his integrity and prudence. We applaud and esteem the man-and why? Because he has not yielded to the desire of increasing his wealth, but has resisted it because the higher and better elements of his nature have triumphed over the lower and less worthy. It may be said, perhaps, that the love of reputation or safety prevailed over the love of wealth, and that, after all, the man yielded to the desire which was strongest. But, if there were nothing but the contest of weaker and stronger desires, why should we applaud or esteem him for yielding to one desire rather than another? If such were the true state of the case it could scarcely be said that there was a man, a person, an agent at all. It is Will which gives birth to conduct and character, and makes the difference between a person and a thing. If there were no power to interpose between desire and action, there could be no room for self-government. Every one would be just what his natural impulses made him; and there could be no more ground for praise or blame, in refcrence to his conduct, than there is in reference to the rising or falling of the tide. The difference between Desiring and Willing is implied, not only in our estimate of character or conduct as prudent or foolish, but more clearly in our estimate of character and conduct as virtuous or vicious. In obeying the impulse of their instincts and appetites, the inferio animals act in accordance with the nature given to them; and in calling some cruel and rapacious, and others gentle and harmless, we imply neither praise nor blame. But men see, not only what is agreeable and desirable, but also what is fit and right. They have a sense of duty or obligation, which often prompts them to curb and to control their desires. If it be said, that the sense of duty or the feeling of obligation is merely a modification of desire, and that it is sometimes the strongest desire, and may thus prevail, an appeal to consciousness will convince every one of the difference between doing what is seen to be right, and doing what is felt to be agreeable. Conscience is different, in kind, from Desire, and is superior to it in authority. It tells us when desire may be gratified, and when it ought to be restrained. Desire may urge in one direction, Conscience may point in another, and the Will determines. Action follows, and character is formed by action. Some characters we esteem and praise; other characters we condemn and blame. In this it is implied, that in the conduct of rational and responsible agents there is not the mere yielding to impulse, but a struggle between contending principles, and that they have, and exercise, a power by which it is determined which of these principles shall prevail. According to the nature of the principle is the nature of the action, and according to the nature of the action is the character of the agent. Of two who stand in the relation of parent, one may be so swayed by parental affection that he cannot, or at least does not, correct his children when they do wrong, while the other is so governed by a sense of duty that he will not allow their faults to go unpunished. Both are so far influenced by the impulse of natural affection, and both are conscious of a sense of duty; but, in the case of the one, natural affection, and in the case of the other, a sense of duty, prevails. In the case of both, however, there may have been a struggle, and it was an exercise of Will which put an end to the struggle, by determining, in the case of the one parent, to punish the fault, and in the case of the other, to pass by it. We blame the one and praise the other; but, it is plain that we could not do so, if there was nothing in either case but an impulsive principle prompting the conduct. Praise and blame imply that the parties praised or blamed had knowledge of more ways of acting than one, and that, while various considerations might urge them to act in one way rather than another, it was by an exercise of Will that they determined to act in the way they did. * Appetite is the Will's Solicitor, and the Will is Appetite's Controller; what we covet according to the one, by the other we often reject."-Hooker, Eccles. Pol., book i. "Desire is the very opposite of the Will, inasmuch as the two reciprocally strive to limit each other-yea, rather to destroy each other. Appetite, as hunger or thirst, involuntarily springing up from the deep ground of mere feeling, and from a sensible need, has its sole attraction towards self, and seeks to satisfy itself; and in its ascendancy indicates an absence, or rather a passiveness, of the Will and of Intelligence. Hence the desirous man (or man in a state of desire) is not only something very different from the willing man, but the direct contrary of him."-Bockshammer, On the Will, 12mo., Andover, 1835, p. 34. (See also Morell, Hist. of Mod. Phil. pt. ii. ch. 4, sect. 1.) CHAPTER III. OF PREFERRING, CHOOSING, AND WILLING. "SUCH is the difficulty of explaining and giving clear notions of internal actions by sounds, that I must here warn my reader,” said Mr. Locke (Essay on Hum. Understand., book ii. ch. 21, sect. 15), "that ordering, directing, choosing, preferring, &c., which I have made use of, will not distinctly enough express volition, unless he will reflect on what he himself does when he wills. For example, preferring, which seems, perhaps, best to express the act of volition, does it not precisely. For though a man would prefer flying to walking, yet who can say he ever wills it?" From this illustration it is plain that, according to Mr. Locke, preference might be directed towards what is not in our power, while volition implies that the object of it is something which is conceived to be in our power to do or not to do that the former may be speculative and inactive, while the latter is practical and accompanied or followed by effort. In a subsequent passage (sect. 17) Mr. Locke has said, that "the will signifies nothing but a power or ability to prefer or choose." This latter word, with its conjugates, was employed by Edwards to denote the will and its acts. He has said (Inquiry, pt. i. sect. 1), "The will is that by which the mind chooses anything. The faculty of the will is that faculty or power by which it is capable of choosing ; an act of the will is the same as an act of choosing or choice. Whatever names we call the act of the will by, choosing, refusing, approving, disapproving, liking, disliking, embracing, rejecting, determining, directing, commanding, forbidding, inclining, or being averse, a being pleased or displeased with;-all may be reduced to this of choosing. For the soul to act voluntarily is evermore to act electively." But although a voluntary action implies election or choice,1 that is, power to do or not to do, it does not follow that willing is always and precisely of the same meaning as choosing or preferring, or those other words here enumerated as equivalent to it. Approving and disapproving, primarily and properly denote acts of the Judgment or Reason; liking and disliking, inclination and aversion, pleasure and displeasure, are states of feeling. These may have an influence upon the will in reference to its determination. But none of these words, nor the words preferring and choosing, are always used in a sense precisely synonymous with willing. Such is the poverty of language or want of discrimination in the use of it, that the words preference and choice are employed to denote a command of the conscience, or a conclusion of the reason, a state of desire or affection, or a volition or act of will. But commands of the conscience may be disobeyed, conclusions of the reason may be rejected, and a man may will or determine to do what he knows to be wrong, or sees to be imprudent. In like manner, inclinations and desires, though strong, may be resisted and overcome. So that the words preferring and choosing can be considered as synonymous with willing only when employed to denote the determining or resolving to act in accordance with conviction and inclination, that is, not the grounds or reasons of preferring or choosing, but the mental act by which an agent fixes or sets himself to the doing of one thing and not of another. This is Willing or Volition-a manifestation of mind to be distinguished from the operations of Intellect, and from the impulses of the Sensitivity. (See Tappan, Doctrine of the Will, ch. 3, sect. 4 and 5.) 1 " Choice there is not, unless the thing we take be so in our power that we might have refused and left it. If fire consumeth the stubble, it chooseth not so to do, because the nature thereof is such that it can do no other. To choose is to will one thing before another."-HOOKER, Eccles. Pol., book i. |