WILL In the Hartleyan acceptation of the term, the will is that state of mind which is immediately previous to, and causes those express acts of memory, imagination, reasoning, or bodily motion, which we term voluntary ; corresponding to the common acceptation of the term volition. In the more customary use of the term, it comprehends the whole class of feelings by which volition is produced, (for an account of which, see MENTAL PHILOSOPHY, § It would be an interesting and very important inquiry, how far volition may become connected with and regulate the trains of thought and feeling, and the state of mind which we call attention; but this would lead us into a field which neither our limits of time, nor of space, would allow us to survey even cursorily.
That such connection can be formed in var ous instances, there is no room for doubt ; and were it otherwise, man would be merely the creature of external cir cumstances : that, on the other hand, there are limits to such establishment, is indisputable; and were it not so, man might become the creator of his own mind, and all the benefits arising from the intellectual and social powers de pend upon caprice. But we must con. tent ourselves with laying before our readers some of Hartley's valuable prac tical remarks respecting the will.
"The will appears to be nothing but a desire or aversion, sufficiently strong to produce an .action that is not automatic, primarily or secondarily (§ 101). The will is therefore that desire or avershin which is strongest for the present time ; for if any other desire were stronger, the muscular motion connected with it by as sociation would take place, and not that which proceeds from the will, or the vo luntary one.
" Since the things which we pursue do, when obtained, generally afford plea. sure, and those which we fly from affect us with pain, if they overtake us, it fol lows that the gratification of the will is generally associated with pleasure, the disappointment of it with pain. Hence a mere associated pleasure is transferred upon the gratification of the will ; a mere associated pain, upon the disappointment of it : and if the will were always gratified, this mere associated pleasure would, ac cording to the present frame of our na tures, absorb, as it were, all our other pleasures ; and thus, by drying up the source from whence it sprung, be itself dried up at last ; and the first disappoint ments, after a long course of gratifica tion, would be intolerable. Both which
circumstances are sufficiently observable, in an inferior degree, in children that are much indulged, and in adults, after a long series of successful events. Grati fications of the will without the conse quent expected pleasure, and disappoint ments of it without the consequent ex pected pain, are particularly useful to us here: and it is by this, amongst other means, that the human will is brought to a conformity with the divine; which is the only radical cure for all our evils and disappointments, and the only earnest and medium for obtaining lasting happi ness.
" We often desire and pursue things which give pain rather than pleasure. Here it must he supposed that at first they afforded pleasure, and that they now give pain on account of the change in our nature and circumstances. Now, as the continuance to desire and pursue such objects, notwithstanding the pain arising from them, is the effect of the power of association ; so the same power will at last reverse its own steps, and free us from such hurtful desires and pursuits. The recurrency of pain will at last render the object Undesirable and hateful ; and the experience of this painful process, in a few particular instances, will at last, as in other cases of the same kind, beget a habit of ceasing to pursue things, which we perceive by a few trials, or by ration al arguments, to be hurtful to us on the whole.
" A state of desire ought to be plea sant at first, from the near relation of de sire to love (§ 71), and of love, to plea sure and happiness ; but in the course of a long pursuit, there intervene so many fears and disappointments, apparent or real, with respect to the subordinate means, and so many strong agitations of mind passing the limits of pleasure, as greatly to chequer a state of. desire with misery. For a similar reason, states of aversion are chequered with hope and comfort."