The Will is that which seems more intimately a part of our inner Self
than almost any other portion of our mental being. We feel when we
actually _will_ a thing that we thereby set some hidden energy in
motion, which flows outwards, and sets our muscles into action. Or
we may will to accomplish a certain thing, or to feel or think in a
certain way. The will seems to be centered in the forehead, just above
the eyes and nose, and to form a part of the central Self or Ego.
Hence the doctrine of the “freedom of the will.” We _feel_ that we
are free to will, to perform any given action, or to refrain from
performing it. “The human will is free.” The contrary doctrine, on
the other hand, “Determinism,” contends that this is an illusion; we
are _not_ free; our every action is determined by our previous trains
of thought,--our education, environment, heredity, etc.,--and that we
must _necessarily_ choose and will as we do. This is the much-debated
philosophical question of “Free Will Vs. Determinism,”--which is really
a metaphysical question, and not a psychological one, and hence cannot
be discussed at greater length in this place.
We may really will to perform a certain action; or we may merely _wish_
to do so. This is little more than desire. A wish may exist without
giving rise to the will to carry it out; the _fiat_ of the will has not
gone forth. Action only follows this fiat of the will. Wish and desire
remain in the world of inaction. Hence the truth of the old adage,--“If
wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” The reason they do not ride is
that the wish is never translated into action.
Ideas of action may be expressed in action, or they may be
inhibited--prevented from being actively expressed. There is always
a tendency on the part of the body thus to carry out any given
volitional impulse. This is often checked, for our judgment tells
us that we should not perform the action in question. On the other
hand, we may force ourselves to perform a given action, from which we
instinctively shrink.
We may have an impulse to perform a specific action, but we “let
it go.” Again, we may hold steadily before the mind the idea of
performing that action, until we actually do so. Now, according to
many psychologists, this act of voluntary attention is all that the
will _is_; it is nothing else. “The essential achievement of the will
... when it is most voluntary, is to attend to the direct object and
hold it fast before the mind. The doing so _is_ the fiat; and it is a
mere physiological incident that when the object is thus attended to,
immediate motor consequences should ensue. Effort of attention is thus
the essential phenomenon of will....”
There are many of us, however, who cannot accept or believe this. We
see in the human will something more than this. There is something more
in will than mere effort of attention. Recent experiments, conducted
by means of delicate recording instruments, seem to show us that the
human will is indeed an energy, capable of registering itself, or being
registered, by suitable apparatus; while the experiments of Dr. Charles
Russ also appear to prove that the human eye, under the dynamic action
of the will, can be made to emit a living force, capable of affecting
delicate instruments. We feel that, when we love, some vital energy
radiates from the eyes; that the glance of hate is more than a mere
metaphor. The will and the outward vision (if I may use the term) seem
to be subtly connected, and experiments such as these seem to prove
it. And if so, they cast a new and vitally important light upon the
doctrine of free-will. For our immediate practical purposes, however,
it may be said that the will seems to send forth a fiat, of a nature
wholly unknown, following upon which definite actions are performed in
accordance with that volitional effort.