Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Will
God takes men’s hearty desires and will, instead of the deed, when they have not power to fulfil it; but he never took the bare deed instead of the will.
Richard Baxter.
An involuntary act, as it has no claim to merit, so neither can it induce any guilt; the concurrence of the will, when it has its choice to do or to avoid the fact in question, being the only thing that renders human actions either praiseworthy or culpable.Sir William Blackstone.
The will is not a bare appetitive power, as that of the sensual appetite; but it is a rational appetite.Sir Matthew Hale: Origin of Mankind.
The will, properly and strictly taken, as it is (of things which are referred unto the end that man desireth) differeth greatly from inferior natural desire which we call appetite. The object of appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of will is that good which reason does lead us to seek.Richard Hooker.
Rewards and punishments do always presuppose something willingly done, well or ill; without which respect, though we may sometimes receive good, yet then it is only a benefit, and not a reward.Richard Hooker.
The determination of the will, upon inquiry, is following the direction of that guide; and he that has a power to act or not to act, according as such determination directs, is free. Such determination abridges not that power, wherein liberty consists.
Every man is conscious of a power to determine in things which he conceives to depend upon his determination. To this power we give the name of will.Thomas Reid.
A wish is properly the desire of a man sitting or lying still; but an act of the will is a man of business vigorously going about his work.Robert South.
When the will has exerted an act of command upon any faculty of the soul, or member of the body, it has done all that the whole man, as a moral agent, can do for the actual exercise or employment of such a faculty or member.Robert South.
There cannot be a more important case of conscience for men to be resolved in than to know certainly how far God accepts the will for the deed, and how far he does not; and to be informed truly when men do really will a thing, and when they have really no power to do what they have willed.Robert South.
The word “will,” however, is not always used in this its proper acceptation, but is frequently substituted for “volition,” as when I say that my hand moves in obedience to my “will.”Dugald Stewart.
