WILL (AS. wills, Goth. trill°, Ger. 1Vilie, will, Wish, from AS. willon, Gatti. wiljan, 011(;. wcllun, motion., Ger. icollen, to will, to wish: connected with Lat. relic, Wit., OChurch Slav, rel0e, to will. Welsh, Corn., Bret. gac/-/, hotter, Ski. rar, to choose, or perhaps with (4k. ethcicin, OAcw, 51st. haroy, to wish). A term in psychology variously connoting volition. It may denote: (1) a gen eral phase or mode of consciousness, as when will or willing is set over against thinking or intellection; or (2) it may be employed as the equivalent of voluntary action, action which has conscious antecedents as distinguished front re flex and instinctive movements; or (3) it may be restricted to the group of mental processes in cluded in deliberation, choice, desire, and a con scious anticipation of the result of action. Will, with this connotation, implies a selective activity. In the first sense (1) will corresponds to what was termed, in the older psychologies, one of the fundamental faculties, or powers, or activities of mind. (See FActIurv.) Will in the second sense (2) is discussed under ACTION. The terms vo lition and conation are often used synonymously with it. See CONATION.
The chief question in connection with the first definition of will is that of an ultimate and elementary will-quality constituting the essence of volition. Some psychologists contend that there is such an unanalyzable quality, which they make cos rdinate with sensation and affection or feeling: others deny that it exists and explain its apparent presence in collation or effort or the feeling of subjective initiation of action or thought by an analysis of consciousness into strong affection, muscular and tendinous sensa tions, and an idea of end or result toward the realization of which the organism is tending. (See EFFORT.) The question of an elementary will-quality loses much of its importance as soon as it becomes clear that it is a question of analysis and has nothing whatever to do with the validity of will and the efficacy of the will as a determinant of action. A volition directed to ward the selection of one of two possible lines of action, for example, has precisely the same sig nificance whether there is in willing an ultimate collative element or whether the volition is a complex analyzable into a dozen part-processes all different from the whole. Introspective evi dence in the matter of analyzability falls on both sides of the question. and the dispute at is undecided. It may be said, however, that those who claim an elementary quality of will often confuse a root-function, i.e. a primitive mode of conscious action (q.v.), with such a quality. It is, perhaps, true that, genetically, the remote ancestor of true volition was a simple, impulsive movement toward, or away from, an object; a movement which was accompanied by the consciousness of fruitful endeavor: i.e. a collative attitude toward a presented object. But even if this attitude were present in the most primitive consciousness, it does not follow that either it or its derivatives are qualitatively simple or that they ecnttain an element which is lacking to other more 'passive' forms of con sciousness.
Ilowever we answer the question just pro posed, we have still to give an analysis of will in the third sense, for deliberative action is al ways a highly complex grouping of elements. In such action the individual both feels (is pleas antly or unpleasantly affected) and has vivid ideas (of movement, of results to be attained, ele.). We shall most easily understand its na
ture, its constituent parts, and its relation to other forms of conseiousnef,s by bringing it into eonneetion with attention (q.v.) and action. In voluntary choice, attention is always active, there is more than a single claimant for the at tention. In impulse, on the other hand, a single sensation or idea draws the attention and leaves no room for hesitation or choice. The first pe culiarity of will (in the third sense) is, then, the turning of the attention to a thing which in not sulliciently attractive to hold the attention in the giren situation. Under ordinary eireum stances food is passively attended to by a hungry man, but it may happen that a toothache bids so strongly for the attention that a powerful voli tion is required in order to continue the proee,s of eating. The effort involved in such a ease and its subsequent success are (apart from social and ethical traditions) responsible for the belief in the subject's initiative in voluntary actions. There is no proof in the action itself that the ac companying consciousness of 'willing' is causally related to the issue. (For freedom of the will, See DETERMINISM.) Psychology prefers to regard the will as mechanically' determined in the sense that, so far as the 'self' is the agent, it is the psychophysical organism as modified by the in dividual's whole experience and his inherited tendencies. (See SELF ; SELF- CONSCIOVSNESS ; TENDENCY; DISPOSITION; :MENTAL CONSTITU TION.) In deliberative action, then, the issue is not decided by the alternative 'attractions' set before consciousness, neither is the decision made by an occult power which intervenes and carries the day, but it if made by the predominance of one group of ideas over another in accordance with the habitual tendencies of discharge in the nervous system. Now one of these groups is at tended to, now another. Attention (q.v.), it must be noted, is both an inhibiting and a facilitating process. As soon as one group has clarified and completed itself by the addition of associations and has inhibited the rise of its rival, delibera tion ceases, for lack of material, and choice, the final term in the volition, ensues. The choice may take the form of resolve and may not issue in external action for days or even years. In the ease of a profession to be chosen, the various associations which cluster around the verbal ideas, `law' or 'medicine' or 'engineering,' to gether with the pleasantness or unpleasantness which is always present in the state of atten tion, form the motive to action. It is the coin position of this motive, and not the resulting movements. which distinguishes the 'willed' ac tion from the impulsive, idemnotin., instinctive. and reflex types. (See APPERCEPTION.) It i-s clear that the coneept stands in need of further delimitation and definition. Probably it will, in the future, find its most useful applica tion in the sphere of deliberative action, i.e. in the last of the three uses indicated above.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. .James, Principhs of PsycholBibliography. .James, Principhs of Psychol- ogy (New York, 1890) ; Sully, Human Mind (ib., 1S92) ; Wundt, Physiologische Psychologie (Leip zig. 18931 ; Kiilpe. Outlines of Psychology (Lon don. 1899) ; Bain, Emotions and Mill (ib., 1883) ; Schneider, Der menschUche Wine (Ber lin, 1882) ; Mfinsterberg. Die Willenshandlung (Freiburg, ISSS).