Good will

“ Again, I repeat, to effect in us this wonder of Mercy, God asks on our part an upright heart, a good-will.
Good-will consists, properly speaking, in submitting and conforming our will to that of God, who is the rule of all good-will; and this good-will attains its highest perfection when we embrace the Divine Will as the sovereign good, even then when it imposes the greatest sacrifices, the most acute suffering. ”

“ It is abundantly better to study the good will of all, than to excite the resentment of any. Make a trial, therefore, of your affability, and you will find your own happiness and the goodwill of all around you, to be the certain result. ”

“ Thus is the good will of the individual so often lost to this world, because it is but the will of the individual, and the will of the majority is not in harmony with his;—and then its results are to be found solely in a future world. ”

“ And the shock of having to transvalue all the accepted values, of having, in a world organized on the basis of fear, to conceive of a world organized on the basis of good will, made him a thinker in his own right. ”

“ The will or faculty of willing is undoubtedly a degree of being, and of good, or perfection; but good-will, benevolence, or desire of good, is another degree of superior good. For one may misuse will in order to wish ill, cheat, hurt, or do injustice; whereas good-will is the good or right use of will itself, which cannot but be good. Good-will is therefore what is most precious in man. ”

“ That from the thought and from the will
Must all that raises man proceed!
Though Pride should hold our calling low,
For us shall duty make it good;
And we from truth to truth shall go
Till life and death are understood. ”

“ Thus the primacy of the will is safe-guarded. It stands, or should stand, at the door; selecting from among the countless dynamic suggestions, good and bad, which life pours in on us, those which serve the best interests of the self. ”

“ Qualities of temperament, like courage, &c., gifts of fortune, like wealth and power, are good only with reference to a good will. As to a good will, when it is really such, the circumstance that it can, or cannot, be executed does not matter; its value is independent of the utility or fruitlessness of it. ”

“ They enquire for any good, not for the chief good; all they want is outward good, present good, partial good, good meat, good drink, a good trade, and a good estate; and what are all these worth without a good God and a good heart? Any good will serve the turn of most men, but a gracious soul will not be put off so. This way, this wish, of carnal worldlings is their folly, yet many there be that join in it; and their doom will be accordingly. ”

“ Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness. ”

“ The end is the ideal willed by me, the willing of the ideal in and by my will, and hence an ideal will. And my will as realizing the ideal is the good will. A will which obeys no law is not moral, a law which is not willed is nothing for morality. Acts, so far as they spring from the good will, are good, and a temper and habits and character are good so far as they are a present good will, result from it and embody it ”

“ We believe that, in spite of the fact that certain persons desire to imbue you with such an idea, you are assured of our good will and deed in all matters affecting you, which are such as love, duty, and reason demand. ”

“ Comes not of hatred of the wrong, nor love
Of the good, but rather from the shame which Pride
Knows which has gone astray and spent itself
Upon unworthy ends. So this strong soul
Laboured on unfulfilled. Yet who shall trace
By what hidden processes of waste and pain
The great Will is fulfilled, and doth achieve
The victory of Good? ”

“ And although this my good Will shall not be accepted by foolish and ungrateful men, nevertheless God shall have the praise, who hath committed to us a mutual participation of love and good will, which also in his own time will grant the benefit of this to be derived and redound to my Children after me, by some pious Souls, of which I make no doubt, and therefore readily acquiesce in my present condition. ”

“ It is the point in which personality is summed up in free and responsible selfhood, and where the great reality of responsibility is pivoted. The will, as another name for the soul's power of choosing, sustains the decisive relation between all the motives that precede and the actions which follow the volitions. The action contemplated may be right or wrong, the motive may be good or bad, but when the question is brought by the conscience into the presence of the will, the place of supreme and final responsibility for virtue or sin is reached. ”

“ Unselfish thoughts, training your mind to desire only universal good, the cultivation of the highest attributes, such as love, honesty, gratitude, faith, reverence and good will, all mean a life of usefulness and happiness in another incarnation, as well as satisfaction and self-respect in this sphere. ”

“ Be yours the strength by will to conquer fate,
Since to the man who sees his purpose clear,
And gains that knowledge of his sphere
Within which lies all happiness,—
Without, all danger and distress,—
And seeks the right, content to strive and wait,
To him all good things flow, nor honor crowns him late. ”

“ In his Foundation of the Metaphysic of Morals, 1785, the noble apostrophe to the Good Will no doubt appears formally to proclaim as possible and desirable a complete human disposition, in which no considerations of Happiness play any part: “The good will is good, not through what it effects or produces, not through its utility for the attainment of any intention or end, but it is good through the quality of the volition alone ”

“ VI. Remember that your eye is of all the senses most subject to the will, and therefore there is the more of duty or sin in it; for voluntariness is the requisite to morality, both good and evil. Your will cannot so easily command your feeling, tasting, hearing, or smelling, as it can your sight; so easily can it open or shut the eye in a moment, that you are the more unexcusable if it be not governed; for all its faults will be proved the more voluntary. ”

“ But if man's will is confronted with a good that exceeds its capacity, whether as regards the whole human species, such as Divine good, which transcends the limits of human nature, or as regards the individual, such as the good of one's neighbor, then does the will need virtue. And therefore such virtues as those which direct man's affections to God or to his neighbor are subjected in the will, as charity, justice, and such like. ”

“ The problem is to combine the absolute value of that Goodness which, as we say, 'saves the soul' with the relative values of the various good things that soothe or beautify life. For, if there is any value at all—I will not say in health and happiness, but in art, poetry, knowledge, refinement, public esteem, or human affection, and if their claims do clash, as in common opinion they sometimes do, with the demands of absolute sanctity, how is the balance to be struck? ”

“ And here is the line which divides the effective from the non-effective people, the great from the small, the good from the well-intentioned and respectable; it is in proportion as a man has self-controlling, self-compelling power that he his able to do, even of his own pleasure; that he can depend upon himself, and be sure of his own action in emergencies.
How the Will operates.--Now, how does this autocrat of the bosom behave? Is it with a stern 'Thou shalt,' 'Thou shalt not,' that the subject man is coerced into obedience? ”

“ Grant us and teach us to have real and perfect patience when our will is broken or hindered. Help us, if anyone speaks or is silent, does or omits anything that is contrary to our will, that we become not angry or wrathful, neither curse, nor complain, nor cry out, nor judge, nor condemn, nor accuse. Help us with all humility to give place to those who oppose or hinder our will, and letting our own will go, to praise and bless them and do good to them as those who, against our own will, fulfil Thy divine will, which is altogether good. ”

“ Make it your constant effort to mortify and trample underfoot your own will, to such a degree as not to satisfy it in anything, if it be possible. Be careful, therefore, to desire and rejoice that it may be often crossed; and when you see anyone oppose it either in temporal or spiritual things, follow his will rather than your own, if only his be good, even though your own be better. ”

“ Our will, compared with Thy will, is never good, but always evil; but Thy will is always best, lovable above all things and most to be desired. Therefore, be merciful to us, dear Father, and let nothing be done according to our will. ”

“ In other words, this state of the will is a means to good, not intrinsically a good; and does not contradict the doctrine that nothing is a good to human beings but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable, or a means of attaining pleasure or averting pain. ”

“ For he says, “I have chosen rather to express myself thus, that the will always is as the greatest apparent good, or as what appears most agreeable, than to say the will is determined by the greatest apparent good, or by what seems most agreeable; because an appearing most agreeable to the mind, and the mind's preferring, seem scarcely distinct.” We have taken the liberty to emphasize his words. ”

“ Much more do they want that moral perfection which the blessed partake of; those holy dispositions of mind; that cheerful readiness to do the will of God; that perfect rectitude of all their actions. Instead of these, they have that perverseness of will, that loathing of good, that love to evil, that violence of passion, which they had on earth. ”

“ Such a Will, if not the only good, is certainly the highest; and happiness, unattainable by Reason as a primary aim, and subject in this life altogether to much limitation, is to be sought only in the contentment that arises from the attainment by Reason of its true aim, at the sacrifice often of many a natural inclination. ”

“ Wherefore, as thou now lovest thine own will, and endeavorest to gratify it in all things, so thou must, [pg 484] for the future, prefer the will of God to thine own will, and think it better to submit to God's good pleasure than to humor and gratify thyself. Thou art in love with honor and esteem, and wouldest have everybody bow to thy superior merit and character; turn now this inclination of thine, and apply it to promote the glory of God, and pray that all men may unite to do the same. ”

“ The soul says, in effect, "In searching after my Beloved I will practice great virtue, and abase myself by lowly mortifications and acts of humility, for the way to seek God is to do good works in Him, and to mortify the evil in ourselves, as it is said in the words that follow: "I will gather no flowers." ”

“ We will all that He wills, and will nothing that He does not will; we attach our feeble will to that all-powerful will which performs everything. Thus, nothing can ever come to pass against our will; for nothing can happen save that which God wills, and we find in His good pleasure an inexhaustible source of peace and consolation. ”

“ At every moment the will is, consciously or subconsciously, making a choice either for good or evil. Our part is to seize upon these moments and force that inevitable choosing to be not only righteous, but definitely and explicitly a choice of righteousness. ”

“ Reasonable Use of so effective an Instrument.--And, once more, only the man of cultivated reason is capable of being ruled by a well-directed will. If his understanding does not show good cause why he should do some solid reading every day, why he should cling to the faith of his fathers, why he should take up his duties as a citizen,--the movement of his will will be feeble and fluctuating, and very barren of results. And, indeed, worse may happen: he may take up some wrong-headed, or even vicious, notion and work a great deal of mischief by what he feels to be a virtuous effort of will. ”

“ The realization of the good in personal morality is the habituated will, the moral character of individuals. It is actual in the virtues of the heart, and those virtues are the habits which, embodying good acts of will, have become part of the man’s self, and which answer to the various sides of his station, or more generally to his various relations to the ideal. ”

“ Thy will alone is ever good, and just, and perfect, in all things. To the know* ledge of this he gently leads us by counsel, by precept, and by inspiration, as well as by the commands of those who are set over us in God’s name. To do this will it is enough for us that God wills and enjoins what we are to perform, so that if I obey him, and keep his commandments, I shall merit life, 'but if otherwise, death. ”

“ In matters that affect us personally, let us acquiesce in God's will. For example, in hunger, thirst, poverty, desolation, loss of reputation, let us always say: "Do thou build up or tear down, O Lord, as seems good in thy sight. ”

“ There needs, however, it appears to me, something still before our charity shall be effectual for good. The feeling is there, the conscience is there, but there is wanting the wise thought and the resolute, because educated, will. ”

“ Seize every opportunity to act in the direction of the desired habit, and permit no emotional prompting in its behalf to escape you. 'Hell is paved with good intentions,' hence to have good desires, thoughts, intentions without actually working them out weakens and destroys the moral fibre. 'Character is a completely fashioned will,' says J.S. Mill, and a will in this sense is an aggregate of tendencies which act in a firm, prompt, and definite way in every emergency of life. ”

“ Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; ”