Voluntary action

“ I conceive first that volition necessarily implies thought or foresight, that is, that it is not accounted for from mere association. All voluntary action implies a view to consequences, a perception of the analogy between certain actions already given, and the particular action then to be employed, also a knowledge of the connection between certain actions and the effects to be produced by them ”

“ And thirdly and finally, it also follows that whereas every voluntary action, without exception, must be either right or wrong, it is by no means necessarily true of every voluntary action that it either ought to be done or ought not to be done,—that it either is our duty to do it, or our duty not to do it. On the contrary, cases may occur quite frequently where it is neither our duty to do a particular action, nor yet our duty not to do it. This will occur, whenever, among the alternatives open to us, there are two or more, any one of which would be equally right. ”

“ All voluntary action, that is all action proceeding from a will, or effort of the mind to produce a certain event, must relate to the future, or to those things, the existence of which is problematical, undetermined, and therefore capable of being affected by the means made use of with a view to their production or the contrary. ”

“ We can also take direct part in promoting objects that tend to the well-being of society. Much is left by the state to voluntary effort by its members. The state undertakes the defence of the country by the army and navy, the relief of the poor, and the elementary education of the people; but beyond these and other instances of direct state action there is much left to be done by the people themselves, and for themselves. ”

“ The consequence is that under voluntary systems there is continual progress, the constant development of new views, and the action necessary for their practical application; under political systems, immobility on the part of the administrators, discontented helplessness on the part of those for whom they administer. ”

“ Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary choice. Away with all whips, all chains, all compulsion! Be gentle toward all men, and see that you invariably do unto every one, as you would he should do unto you. ”

“ The same admirable qualities by which the associations were carried through their early struggles, maintained them in their increasing prosperity. Their rules of discipline, instead of being more lax, are stricter than those of ordinary workshops; but being rules self-imposed, for the manifest good of the community, and not for the convenience of an employer regarded as having an opposite interest, they are far more scrupulously obeyed, and the voluntary obedience carries with it a sense of personal worth and dignity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is important that every man who has any political power or influence should distinctly and explicitly avow this principle, and enforce it on the attention of our rulers; for it has become a common practice with public men to express a disapprobation of what they are pleased to call "the voluntary system," without explaining what they mean by the words. ”

“ The reason for not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. 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. ”

“ The course that will restore to the workmen a father's duties and responsibilities, between which and themselves the state has now stepped, is for them to reject all forced contributions from others, and to do their own work through their own voluntary combinations. ”

“ I have laid it down as a first principle to educate the people through the people themselves, by their own voluntary co-operation and exertion, through the usual elective municipalities and other acknowledged and responsible organs of a free people. ”

“ Seeing that experience clearly proves that the voluntary principle is a failure, or at least wholly inadequate, for it only touches the fringe of the difficulty, it becomes absolutely necessary that the State should step in and supplement charitable effort. ”

“ To share in the general benefit, he must voluntarily contribute time and money to the general good. The necessary machinery of society will, of course, exist — courts to settle disputes and police to keep order — but they will be maintained by voluntary co-operation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when actions are done, either from fear of greater evils, or from some honourable motive, as, for instance, if you were ordered to commit some base act by a despot who had your parents or children in his power, and they were to be saved upon your compliance or die upon your refusal, in such cases there is room for a question whether the actions are voluntary or involuntary. ”

“ Yet the spirit of voluntary association and giving was not only a virtue but also a practical necessity for those residing on the frontier.
Today, even with the best efforts of Federal, State, and local government, voluntary service remains essential to solving our Nation's most serious social problems. ”

“ And the more numerous the body, and the more changeable its component parts, the more difficult it will be to preserve the personal responsibility, as well as the uniform action, of the successive members to the great objects of the public welfare. ”

“ But the voluntary principle has been respected and vindicated! Has it? True it is that there has been a magnificent response to the Government's appeals. The patriotism and devotion of one half of the nation have effectively enabled the other half to evade its duty. But the time has again come when the demand for more men is imperative. Voluntarism is making its last efforts. Its devotees in their desperate endeavours to prevent its formal abandonment are eliminating from it every element of free will, and are introducing every device of veiled compulsion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the other hand, there is gradually developing a new sense of responsibility for assuming voluntary leadership in community activities, and a larger appreciation of the need of leadership and the duty of supporting it. ”

“ But if it is thought to be public policy to put certain voluntary conduct at the peril of those pursuing it, whether in the interest of safety or upon economic or other grounds, I know of nothing to hinder. A man employs a servant at the peril of what that servant may do in the course of his employment and there is nothing in the Constitution to limit the principle to that instance. ”

“ Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that step by step it would gradually and slowly work out a solution. Looking the country over, we see that voluntary organizations have accomplished temporary good, but their effort has never been persistent, continuous, permanent, authoritative, legal. ”

“ The sacred rights of this society we are to hold fast—such as, her right to elect her own officers, to call her own meetings, appoint her own fasts, and exercise her own discipline, independently of the state. ”

“ Rules once established, no matter how rude, vulgar, or barbarous, or how enlightened and beneficial, were adopted to secure a general uniformity of conduct or line of action for each individual or family belonging to the community or people, for what was considered the best interest of the whole, and their mutual benefit and safety. ”

“ And the voluntary consent of men must here have the greater efficacy, that the authority of the magistrate does at first stand upon the foundation of a promise of the subjects, by which they bind themselves to obedience ”

“ Or shall we refuse to determine what is the meaning of voluntary and involuntary, and maintain that our words have come down from heaven, and that they should be at once embodied in a law?' All states legislate under the idea that there are two classes of actions, the voluntary and the involuntary, but there is great confusion about them in the minds of men; and the law can never act unless they are distinguished. ”

“ And we must keep these principles in mind—the principle of conduct based upon a personal example rejecting force, and the principle of conduct based upon a social edifice relying upon force for its well-being and advancement; otherwise we confuse the issue, and weaken our appreciation of the moral position which each side assumes. It is surely quite evident that the State, while based upon force, cannot (except as an indulgence) countenance the claim of any individual to make the morality of its action the test for personal allegiance and service. ”

“ No doubt, however, our growing system of voluntary institutions—churches, philanthropic societies, fraternal orders, labor unions and the like—are training us in the habit of expressing ourselves through the check-book and other indirect agents. ”

“ It is a general condition growing out of the relations of all its members, and hence becomes a governmental function, not only so far as they, as a class, are concerned, but also to protect individuals of other classes from being made to bear the burdens of them, either by voluntary contributions or from the impositions of beggary and theft. ”

“ I am properly obliged to those actions and forbearances which are necessary to the general freedom, necessary if each is not to interfere with the realisation of another's will. My duty is to be interested positively in my neighbour's well-being. And it is important to understand that, while the enforcement of obligations is possible, that of moral duties is impossible. But the establishment of obligations by law or authoritative custom, and the gradual recognition of moral duties, have not been separate processes They have gone on together in the history of man. ”

“ The wisdom and efficacy of these acts have been approved by results, and the like spirit of unity, endurance, and self-devotion in the people, which has hitherto sustained their action, must be relied on to assure their enforcement under the continuing necessities of our situation. ”

“ The proper attitude of voluntary workers is to initiate and demonstrate the value of reforms, to persuade local authorities to adopt them, themselves to become members of these local authorities to ensure this end, and thus eventually render the voluntary organization for the object in question superfluous. There need be no fear; openings for further desirable voluntary work will always appear, as official work increases. ”

“ It implies, that men will lay voluntary restraints upon themselves, in proportion as they are indulged by their governours; and that all prohibitory laws tend to the promotion of the practices which they condemn ”

“ Society, therefore, must frame and enforce rules for the regulation and control of the conduct of its individual members, must even restrain them to some extent from the gratification of some of their desires. ”

“ Nothing in an act is voluntary but the consequences that are intended. The idea of good consequences intended, is the pleasurable feeling of moral approbation; the idea of bad consequences intended is the painful feeling of moral disapprobation. The very term voluntary, therefore, applied to an act which produces good or evil consequences, 320 expresses the antecedence of moral approbation or disapprobation.”b ”

“ Let society, therefore, but do its duty, and it is plain that it may, by a proper exertion of the power which it has, and which it actually exercises even now, restrain, and restrain much more effectually, without duelling, the very evils which duelling professes to remedy. ”

“ To enforce these obligations—all new since 1834—upon the individual citizen, experience shows that some other pressure on his volition is required than merely leaving him alone. Hence the community, by the combination of the principles of Curative Treatment, Universal Provision and Compulsion, deliberately 'weights the alternatives,' in the guise of a series of experiments upon volition. The individual retains as much freedom of choice as—if not more than—he ever enjoyed before. ”

“ The question whether voluntary charity is mischievous or not is one thing; the question whether legislation which forces one man to aid another is right and wise, as well as economically beneficial, is quite another question. ”

“ The voluntary system is in its very earliest development and so, in calculating the prospects of associations among large groups of people, a league of nations, industrial government, or a federal union of states, the degree to129 which the material for a common consciousness exists determines how far coöperation will depend upon force, or upon the milder alternative to force, which is patronage and privilege. ”

“ To do and bear whatever is necessary to maintain that organization of life which the state represents is the imperative duty of every citizen. This duty to serve the country is correlative to the right to be a citizen. ”

“ Everywhere we are commencing to hear of "social duty," of obligation to the lesser and unfortunate, of the responsibility of the leaders to the led, of the well to the sick, of the law-abiding to the criminal. ”

“ Hence before the completion of the process through which the individual comes to conceive the performance of the actions expected of him under the general form of a duty which in the freedom of his own reason he recognises as binding, there is apt to occur a revolt against conventional morality. ”

“ To the agent, who in his existent sphere of liberty is essentially as a particular, his interest and welfare must, on account of that existent sphere of liberty, be essentially an aim and therefore a duty. ”