WILL. The mind is divided into three distinct functions—feeling (see Emorrox), intellect or thought (see INTELLEar), and will or volition. Under will, is included the putting forth of active energy to move our own organs, or change something about us, but all energy is not voluntary energy. The peculiarity of action from will, in contrast to other activities, as the powers of nature--wind, gravity, etc. is its being preceded or inspired by feelings, or by the pleasures and pains of an individual mind. Hence, will is defined, action prompted by feeling. The feelings that prompt the will, called motives, limo our pleasures and our pains; pleasure felt or imagined moves us to continue and increase the pleasurable state; pain urges us to work for the abatement of the pained' condition.
In the maturity of the powers, a human being, or animal, can perform a great variety , of specific actions at the bidding of the various wants or desires. The sensation of thirst induces at once a series of complicated movements, eliding in the relief of the painful feeling. But no 111:1.11 or animal is horn with the ability to make a journey to a well, whenever thirst is felt; the human infant cannot even perform the voluntary act of lift. ing anything to its mouth. Our most ordinary voluntary movements are the result of an education; and the explanation of the volitional energies consists in ascertaining what are their beginnings or germs in the mental constitution, and how they are brought to the, finished state.
Three different facts of our nature appear to concur in forming the collective apti tudes of the will: I. The fact termed spontaneous activity, or the self-acting energy of the system, whereby movements arise without waiting the stimulus of the senses. Any actively disposed animal, after rest and nourishment, begins to move merely through a surplus of nervous power, and not because it is wakened out of dormancy by the solicitations of sensible objects. Without this tendency to commence movements in the first instance, there would be no apparent basis for the voluntary acquirements. See SPONTANEITY.
In imitation with the voice, for example, we must begin by uttering sounds, and then discover by the car their agreement or disagreement with the sounds heard.
II. The second fact is the tendency to abide by a movement giving pleasure, and to relax a movement coincident with pain. From the first moments of sentient life, every animal appears to possess this property. If a movement happens to coincide with an access of pleasurable warmth, the animal maintains, and possibly increases, the move ment: if the warmth passes into pain., the movement ceases. The infant sucks so long as the feeling is pleasurable, and ceases when satiety comes on. This power may be an offshoot of the general law connecting pleasure with an increase, and pain with a dimi nution of vital energy. See EMOTION. However arising, the fact is unquestionable, and is exemplified all through life. Without our going through any process of deliber ation or resolution, we sustain an activity that brings us agreeable sensation, and remit an activity ending in pain. We keep our eyes fixed on a cheerful flame, and withdraw them when the glare is overpowering; the process is self-acting and intuitive.
III. The third fact is the operation of the retentive power of the mind, in joining together, by a permanent association, movements and feelings that have existed together for some time. This is a branch of the great law of contiguous association. See Asso CIATION OF IDEAS. The will is an educated function, and education supposes the plastic or fixing operation expressed by the above-named law.
But the chief nicety in explaining the growth of the will consists in showing how the proper movements and feelings originally came together. This is the problem of the development of which would demand an extended illustration. A brief indication of the process must suffice.