Voluntariness

“ I ought'--we have within us a moral judge, to whom we feel ourselves subject, and who points out and requires of us our duty. 'I can'--we are conscious of power to do that which we perceive we ought to do. 'I will'--we determine to exercise that power with a volition which is in itself a step in the execution of that which we will. Here is a beautiful and perfect chain, and the wonder is that, so exquisitely constituted as he is for right-doing, error should be even possible to man. ”

“ Man, my son, has received the power of voluntary action. Let him not suffer either his deed or his will to perish uselessly, but let him earnestly seek out the portion of labour assigned to him by God in the work of the Universe. ”

“ For whereas another can speak to me with authority in so far as I can discern therein reason's commands, a voice that proclaims nothing but another's will speaks only in the language of force, and must either oppose or submit my will according to our relative mights. Furthermore, voluntarism, in subordinating reason, tends to merge the will and the passions, so that the ruling principle in society or the individual is merely the force of desire as such, and everyone seeks a maximum freedom to follow his own inclinations. ”

“ To this new life in the affections, duty becomes a pleasure. The conscience, no longer perplexed and overborne by evil desires, becomes able to assert its rightful authority. The will attains its rightful freedom and power to control efficiently in the domain of righteousness, and to hold the life in the harmonies of right and duty. ”

“ When we come to the chapter on the Will, we shall see that the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on the amount of attention, slightly more or slightly less, which rival motor ideas may receive. But the whole feeling of reality, the whole sting and excitement of our voluntary life, depends on our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago. ”

“ An action is said to be voluntary in itself when it is in itself and by itself the object of the will; if it is merely the effect of something else which is willed, it is then called voluntary in something else, or voluntary in the cause. ”

“ Now, there are voluntary, as well as involuntary associations; the voluntary, such as, from certain ends, individuals form one with another; the involuntary, that of the common society in which we live. ”

“ For when it is clearly seen, that what is voluntary is in connection with man’s will principle, or ruling love, and that this will principle, or ruling love, is the grand object to which religion applies herself, and which she is eager to secure as her own property and possession, how are man’s eyes immediately opened to discern the one thing needful for his sanctity and bliss! ”

“ His voluntary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. ”

“ Voluntary in the strict sense is used only of actions produced by the will with rational knowledge of, and inclination towards, the object. Voluntary actions are produced with consciousness and deliberation. ”

“ One way of conduct toward these objects, which we have called duty; one attitude of mind and will toward them which we have called virtue, leads to those completions and fulfillments of ourselves which we have called rewards. Duty then to self; duty in its most comprehensive aspect, is the obligation which the existence of capacity within and material without imposes on us to bring the two together in harmonious relations, so as to realize the capacities and powers of ourselves and of others, and promote society's well being. ”

“ Therefore we consider as dependent on ourselves what we do without the constraint of circumstances, necessity, or violence of passions—that is, voluntarily, and without an obstacle to our will.167 Hence the following definition: We are responsible for that which depends on our will, which happens or which is omitted according to our volition.168 We indeed call voluntary what we unconstrainedly do and consciously.169 On us depends only that of which we are the masters to do or not to do. ”

“ Or, if, singularly independent, you deem that you are accountable only to yourself for your conduct, that notion, beyond any other, must show you the high responsibility of all actions that are voluntary. ”

“ Again: "What can be more complete than our submission to the orders of our superiors in everything that concerns our state of life, the places we are to dwell in, the employments, the offices we are to be engaged in." [20] And again, this submission to the will and judgment of the superior, or general, is called "renouncing our own judgment," "the annihilation of self," "complete obedience, entire dependence upon the will of others, perfect abandonment of personal reputation." ”

“ The notion of duty, which the categorical imperative represents as a vague a priori law implanted in the human mind—a kind of moral instinct—can, as a matter of fact, be traced to a long series of phyletic modifications of the phronema of the cortex. Duty is a social sense that has been evolved a posteriori as a result of the complicated relations of the egoism of individuals and the altruism of the community. The sense of duty, or conscience, is the amenability of the will to the feeling of obligation, which varies very considerably in individuals. ”

“ Hitherto the life-blood has been gradually chilling in your veins, as you sat aloof within your circle of gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out its battle with one kind of necessity or another. Henceforth you will at least have the sense of natural and healthy effort for a purpose, and of lending your strength—be it great or small—to the united struggle of mankind. ”

“ And on the other hand, our voluntary activities are never known to us except as referring to facts to which we attribute in one way or another an intellectually significant Being, — a reality other than what is present to us at the moment. ”

“ To make this illustration, we must first cultivate religion or science or scholarship in ourselves.
This is the statement of the call to service which I have been approaching slowly and with care, for to the generous-hearted it is on first acquaintance a hard saying. Seek truth or seek goodness for yourselves, if you wish others to have it. If you rise to your own stature, you will thereby perform all the service you could desire—you will help others to rise. Doubtless some of your neighbors will think you selfish. ”

“ But let us return to the psychologists. Another aspect of the tendency to glorify the mind and to give to it, or to some part of it, or to something like it, a leading role on the stage of events is seen in the voluntaristic movement. The voluntarists do not necessarily hold to any old-fashioned notions of the will as real. The tendency in voluntarism is a part of the general tendency to believe that processes are more real than things. Our volitions, therefore, being obviously processes, movements, springs, are better types of psychical reality than sensations or ideas. ”

“ It is true, that both rectitude and duty, together with liberty, are resolvable into the essential good. Or, in other words, freedom, rectitude, and duty are the modes of thought in which we conceive of the good as existing in the soul of man, and that they are, each of them, in their distinct nature and harmonious union, the true ideal of the good—the modes of thought, also, in which the intuition of man perceives the good in the case of every moral action which is good. ”

“ A voluntary action, then, is that of which the beginning is in the agent — he knowing the particular circumstances under which he is acting. Some persons have treated actions, performed through passion or through desire, as involuntary ”

“ 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. ”

“ A voluntary movement, if it is not linked to any sympathetic movement—or that which comes to the same thing, if there is nothing involuntary mixed up with it having for principle the moral state of sensibility in which the subject happens to be—could not in any manner present grace, for grace always supposes as a cause a disposition of the soul. ”

“ But, let a man by his excellencies command the willing services of free men -- of men who can do their own will and pleasure; yet voluntarily obey him, and, if he required it, are prepared to sacrifice their lives, fortunes, and estates, and all for the love they bear him; would not such a man esteem himself honoured, and glorified, in the highest degree by such signal conformity to his will? ”

“ All that could be agreed upon was that a voluntary action is right whenever and only when its total consequences are as good, intrinsically, as any that would have followed from any action which the agent could have done instead. ”

“ Every individual, no doubt, has his own particular path of duty, which is designed to promote his own best happiness and the well-being of all mankind. How important for each to follow that path in watchfulness and obedience, that the work may not be marred! How important to keep the heart with all diligence, that the issues of life may be in accordance with divine will! ”

“ Our theory does assert that, if any voluntary action is once right, then any other voluntary action which resembled it in one particular respect (or rather in a combination of two respects) must always also be right ”

“ Unless we like our work, we can do neither it nor ourselves justice. In a word, the calling must be congenial. Only if our vocations are congenial, only if duty and pleasure can be harmonised in them, can we adopt the attitude of loyalty towards them. And unless we are loyal to our vocations we cannot hope to fulfil them well. But, it may be asked, what does loyalty to vocation imply? In being loyal to my vocation, must I practise self-denial, or may I make my vocation the means to my own self-assertion? ”

“ Behind an our desires, aversions, and inclinations each one of us possesses a capacity for a higher will, the exercise of which, on the side of order and righteousness, brings into being the greatest power in human life. ”

“ For what is the fortune of any detached self as compared with the one cause of the whole country? And just such a voluntary devotion to a cause can ennoble the routine of the humblest daily business, in the office, in the household, in the school, at the desk, or in the market place, if one only finds the cause that can hold his devotion—be this cause his business firm or his profession or his household or his country or his church, or all these at once. ”

“ By the arrangement of forces in that world, the adjustment of equilibriums, the Lord maintains the free-agency of man, and secures that freedom of will and thought which is requisite for regeneration. ”

“ J. RUSKIN. Every duty, even the least duty, involves the whole principle of obedience. And little duties make the will dutiful, that is, supple and prompt to obey. Little obediences lead into great. The daily round of duty is full of probation and of discipline; it trains the will, heart, and conscience. We need not to be prophets or apostles. The commonest life may be full of perfection. The duties of home are a discipline for the ministries of heaven. ”

“ Yes; for the task before you requires a daring spirit, and a most stoical indifference to privation, to suffering, and to death, as you will have to bear a voluntary part in every dangerous or arduous enterprise, on every desperate duty; and have to volunteer for every forlorn hope and reckless adventure. ”

“ Now I suggest that we put all this positively to ourselves, for every one of us knows that we are treading near some of the moral realities of weakness and need in our day and nation. Why should restraint, obedience, the authority of duty and God be let into our lives? In order that out of all these things self-control may come. And why should there be this submission and control of our lives by duty, and truth and God? ”

“ Both concern us. He would first work in us, that He may work through us in His passionate outreach for a world. His will includes every bit of one's life; and therefore obedience must also include every bit. ”

“ With us the duties, as far as Christian duties can be said to be optional, are voluntary; and the voluntary discharge of duties, like the voluntary support of religion, we know, from sad experience, to be sometimes imperfectly performed, at others intermitted, and often wholly neglected. ”

“ The appeal for volunteers in the great battle of life, in exterminating ignorance and error, and planting high on an everlasting foundation the banner of intelligence and right, is directed to you. Burst the trammels that impede your progress, and cling to hope. ”

“ I saw that though our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances; and that what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities of willing. ”

“ Then we must ask ourselves what our duty is. Not, I think, with all our comforts about us, to chant loud odes about its being all right with the world, but to see what we can do to make it all right, to equalise, to share, to give. ”