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Chapter 8

The Way In Which Spontaneity
Of The Will Acts

612. We have distinguished two kinds of motives in the activity of the will: reasons and impulses (cf. 607). Because reasons appertain to the order of ideas, they are of themselves isolated and naked, unaccompanied by images, feelings or passions. They do not excite the will to action, therefore, but simply to contemplation. This is not the case with impulses, which appertain to the order of real things, are true, efficient causes and effective stimuli of the will. These impulses can all be reduced to instincts which are either aroused in us without our intervention, or have been excited in us by ourselves. In this last case, our freedom can play some part, but for the moment we have to consider instincts in themselves without reference to the cause which activates them; we consider them therefore as stimuli of the will.

613. There are two great classes of instincts, animal and human. Of their nature, the latter move the will to what we have called evaluative volitions, but the same cannot be said of the former.

614. We first ask about animal instincts `whether the will, which allows itself to be moved by them, must not only perceive the object to which they tend, but perceive it as good.' At first sight, it would seem that this must be the case, but very careful consideration may show that in the human animal the instinct's enjoyment of its object is sufficient to move the will. The will may make no judgment on the goodness of the object which it perceives only as a being, and not yet distinctly as something good. We can grasp the possibility of these merely affective volitions (which, as the first made by babies, are totally non-evaluative) if we keep in mind the unity of our extremely simple subject which is simultaneously animal and volitive. When animal instinct moves the baby to an action such as sucking the breast, the entire subject wishes to receive satisfaction through this animal pleasure. Consequently all the baby's forces, of whatever kind, are brought to bear in the act. The will, one of the baby's forces, plays its part, therefore, although it has no need to direct the operation, which depends for its direction and determination on the instinct. The will simply abandons itself blindly, without need of any judgment, when it perceives what the instinct places before it. The entire action comes from the subject which simultaneously is the root of instinct and of will, and requires no more of the will than its co-operation in its instinctive act.

615. It will be helpful if we note the analogy that obtains between the first act of the intellect, that is, perception, and the first act of the will, affective volition. In perception, the intellect does not first form the subject to which it may then add a predicate, but in one act adds the predicate and forms the subject. This occurs because the matter presented to the intellect is simply sensations devoid of every idea; the intellect's task is to carry out its act upon them by supplying the idea. In the same way, the sense-instinct does not present the will with some good judged to be such by the intellect, but only with pleasing sensations which do not form the proper object of the will. Nevertheless, the will carries out its act in their regard by blindly obeying the subject who rules it and moves it with physical movement. The subject wants that entity or those acts to which instinct tends because it feels them as pleasing, not because it judges them as good.

616. I admit, however, that this is a very subtle question. If the solution I have offered is true, the adage, Voluntas non fertur in incognitum [The will does not tend towards the unknown] is still valid, but has to be understood in the sense that while the will must know the object in order to desire it, it has absolutely no need to judge it as good. It is sufficient that the subject move the will physically to want the object. This the subject can do when the object is pleasing and because it is pleasing to the subject's animality. In this case, the will would act knowingly relative to the desired object, but blindly relative to the reason for desiring it. The reason for its act would be found totally in the movement of the subject to which the will belongs as one of its powers.

617. The baby soon begins to judge, however, that what pleases its feeling is good, and what displeases it is bad. Nevertheless, these first judgments can only be of a most general kind. Although the baby realises that what feeling finds acceptable is good, he conceives this simply as good without classifying it any further. The specific and generic ideas of good still remain unformed in the baby, who needs more experience and comparisons. The idea of good in general, with its foundation in the idea of being in general, precedes the ideas of specific or generic good in the baby's mind because being and good are in the last analysis the same thing under two relationships. In other words, any being whatsoever is known as good as soon as it is considered as a pleasing object of desire.

618. It is true that the attractive sensation experienced by the baby is itself a particular good. Nevertheless, although this proves that the baby perceives a particular good, it does not necessarily follow that he has the corresponding specific idea of such good. The particular aspect of the feelable good experienced by the baby remains entirely enclosed in the feeling; the intellect simply adds a general judgment that this sensation is good. The idea apprehended in this first intellective perception, that is, the predicate of this first judgment, is simply the idea of good, and not the idea of some specific good. The baby will be determined to a given choice by its prevalent instinct only when he experiences good of different kinds and has to compare different kinds of good in order to make his choice. And this instinct acts with extreme rapidity, of course, in determining the subject to action. But the baby soon makes the choice with his understanding, and for the first time begins to classify good for himself, although the only rule he depends upon is the preponderance of the instincts themselves according to generic or specific ideas formed for this purpose from the various kinds of good he has known.(266)

619. As long as a human being judges that an object is simply good or bad without using any generic or specific idea, I call his volition affective, not evaluative, although it does include a very general evaluation - if indeed evaluation can be present where comparison is totally lacking.(267)

According to this kind of terminology, affective volitions would be of two kinds: 1. those made without any judgment on the goodness of some thing; 2. those made on the basis of a very general judgment which concludes that some thing is good, but without determining its degrees of goodness. But such a general judgment can scarcely be considered `evaluation', which implies determining the worth of something.

620. Having distinguished the two species of affective volitions, we are now faced with the problem of the degree of impulse or stimulus required in order that the will may produce these volitions.

I do not think that every act of sensuous instinct is sufficient to excite the will to the first kind of volitions. Such an act does not, in fact, move the will directly, but exercises its activity immediately on the subject, the common root of instinct and will. The subject then calls the will to its aid in order to obtain full satisfaction for its animal, sensuous instinct. However, if this satisfaction can be obtained very easily by the instinct itself, the subject does not need to call upon the will, which it cannot stimulate without contributing some activity of its own. This degree of activity emitted by the subject in order to stimulate and move the will would have no sufficient cause if the instinct were already self-induced to carry out everything easily, immediately and pleasantly.

621. If, on the other hand, the subject cannot satisfy its animal instincts without their encountering difficulties and delay in reaching the fulfilment of their inclinations, it is frustrated by the obstacles it encounters, and needs to call in aid some new activity to fight and overcome them. The subject cannot altogether avoid some discomfort in this state because it must either bear with the contradiction it finds in the obstacles opposed to its appetites or activate some new degree of energy in itself in order to motivate the will. But both courses of action cause discomfort: moving from inaction to action always causes unease because it calls for a level of effort that the subject will not undertake without a sufficient reason. Consequently, the principle governing the subject's movements is that applicable universally to instinctive activity as well as to spontaneous activity of the will: the subject `determines itself to whatever action is easiest and requires the least activity, amongst all those actions which lead it to a state to which it is already determined to tend'.

622. We may conclude that in the baby the first kind of affective volitions requires the following two conditions: 1. the animal instinct finds some obstacle in obtaining satisfaction; 2. that in attempting to overcome these obstacles, the subject finds it less objectionable to move the will than to tolerate the obstacles or increase the degree of action of the instinctive forces.

623. If we suppose that the intellect presents the object of animal instinct to the will from the point of view of what is good, although without any distinctive evaluation, the will requires no special activity from the subject to determine it to act by desiring this object - it is already determined as soon as it is presented with an object judged to be good. The will, which we have defined as `a power by which the human being tends to the good it knows' is such that the human being cannot know any good without the will's tending towards it as its proper, essential object. A human being will always want a good known to him unless he prefers some other good which he considers greater. In this case, it is not a question of his not wanting the first good, but rather that he wants the second good more and, in order to possess it, resigns himself to the loss of the first good.

624. As a corollary, we may conclude that the will is of its nature very mobile, or indeed infinitely mobile so that any known good, however small, is sufficient to move and determine it.

625. But we have to rely on certain presuppositions in order to grasp this. First, the will must be presented with a single good, and from one point of view. If a given thing were seen simultaneously from two points of view, one of which showed it as good, the other as evil, the will would possess two objects, which is against our hypothesis, and would be moved by two contrary forces. The thing as good would not draw the will to itself unless the good overcame the evil which would also be present to the will.

Secondly, we have to suppose that the will is in a completely pure and virginal state, as it were, without any previously determined affections, dispositions or tendencies which deprive it of its natural equilibrium and incline it in one direction or another. Granted these two conditions (that the will is in a perfectly pure state, colourless as it were, and that only one good, of which the human being has had experience, is presented to it by the intellect), it appears indubitable that this good, however small, must be altogether sufficient to draw the will to an act of volition. In such a case, the good is like a minimal weight that serves to tip a perfectly balanced scales.

626. We must also conclude that the more the human will is pure and devoid of hidden habits and affections, and consequently free of objects that have to be weighed, the greater its agility and flexibility. This is the principal explanation for the mobility shown in children's volitions. Experience shows that even the smallest thing can move them: they want, they don't want, they come and go, run, jump - here, there, up, down. All these are effects of surprisingly rapid volitions which are also seen in their constantly new games, their disconnected speech, their frequent, strange questions. All that they do shows a desire to know, to experience, to see, touch, move and test everything.

Although it is true that what attracts the instinct initiates these actions, they do not pertain to animal instinct alone; they are completed and effected by volitions which arise and vanish with great rapidity. And this gives us a perfect picture of the incredible mobility of our power of will. We can see clearly how the smallest things - even the slightest use of imagination - experienced by children are sufficient to activate their will and draw it to innumerable acts, one piled upon another, as it were, in a jumble of childish disorder. We do not find any strong, constant act of will resistant to accidental impressions, or any act strong enough to impose itself on other acts (this comes about at a more mature age); the will yields obediently to the slightest impression. All this takes place because the child's will is still completely simple, and unaware of the utility of resistance; as yet the child, is still ignorant of the good that may be gained by ordering its unconnected and dispersed activities. This is not the case with the adult in whom a dominant design, a purpose and a general interest are the object of the will, enabling it to stand firm against any number of passing impressions which, if the will were altogether simple and natural, would draw it into movement.

This also explains the great mobility of the masses, which gave rise to the expression popular acclamation as a sign of the multitude's capacity for bending its will to whatever takes its instant fancy. The masses are indeed like children in many respects, and have a much more simple will than that of sophisticated people. There are also certain so-called mob passions which take possession of the people with extreme violence and rapidity, and disappear with the same rapidity.

627. It must be dangerous, therefore, for any jury to pass judgment in religious and political matters which vehemently arouse the popular imagination and will. The multitude, which is upright and decent when calm, unexpectedly conceives prejudices and affections and then, with its will already moulded and incited, manufactures the strangest, most unjust judgments. For example, it pains one to see how many decent persons, whose immense probity and virtue cannot be doubted, were condemned to atrocious deaths in England for reasons of religion and state under Henry VIII, Edward, Elizabeth, and James. They underwent the formalities of a regular trial, and were condemned by the unanimous decisions of juries who had been fed with evidence composed only of conjectures and suppositions. Bartoli's Inghilterra would move one to tears.

628. We should now consider the natural impulse required for the spontaneity of evaluative volitions. However, the presence of the idea of good within these volitions as the measure for judging the value of a given object first prompts the following question: `What force has the idea of good for setting the will in motion?' The same question can be asked about the second kind of affective volitions. Here, too, the idea of good, that is, of good in general, presides over the volitions.

We first have to distinguish between the simple, pure idea of good, and the idea associated with the experience of good itself. By the sole, pure idea of good I mean the idea of some good which has never been experienced and consequently is unassociated with any image, memory or physical effect left in us by the enjoyment of that good. Moreover, the idea of some good presented to the will may be entirely negative. For instance, a person blind from birth may be told about a beautiful colour. In such a case, the person to whom the idea has been suggested usually composes the image of this good by referring it to some good of another kind which he has already experienced. The idea, however, is no longer pure and unique in this person. The action that it exerts on the will is accompanied by a completely false icon of good altogether different from the good that should be denoted by the idea. This fiction of the imagination, which is immediately associated with a negative idea - to give the idea a positive connotation and some efficacy over the will - has to be removed if we are to consider any pure, negative idea of good. We are not dealing with the support and force that can be associated with this idea, but with the power to move the will possessed by this idea when wholly separated from anything else.

But it is not sufficient to strip the idea of good of elements differing from it in order to arrive at this idea in its unique purity. It is possible that the subject may not add to this idea any icon of positive good fabricated in the imagination with elements of good he has experienced. Nevertheless, the simple consideration of what is held in common by the idea and by the good he has experienced (the simple consideration of their being good) must add to the idea some kind of efficacy relative to the subject's experience of various kinds of good. We have to prescind, therefore, even from the impulse that could be given to the will by the influence of any image or by analogy between the good proposed by the idea and the good experienced by us; we are as it were in a state in which we have never experienced good of any kind, or at least known it as good. It is true that a specific or generic idea cannot remain in our mind without some relationship with a feeling, and from this point of view our question seems unreal. But in supposing the idea to be devoid of all feeling, we intend to ask: `Can the will be moved by the pure idea without reference to any movement which may come from the feeling we have mentioned?'

629. We have to distinguish. If we are dealing with an idea of subjective good, such an idea cannot impart any motion or impulse to the will. Of itself, the idea is totally cold because it pertains to an order of things completely different from the good to which the will tends, that is, it pertains to the order of ideas. Subjective good as object of the will always belongs to the order of real things. If, on the other hand, we are dealing with an idea of objective good, which depends on the absolute order of being, such an idea can indeed move and incline the human will in its higher part, that is, in so far as the human being is an intelligence and as such adheres to being (to the absolute order of being) - in other words, in so far as the absolute order of being is good for him. This explains why a natural inclination to morality is revealed as soon as the human person is enlightened by the absolute order of being (which takes place when he first becomes aware the existence of other intelligent beings different from himself, whose good contrasts with that of his own). Human beings could not be other than naturally virtuous if the impulse received by their will from absolute, objective good were not opposed by impulses imparted to their will by experiences of subjective good.

630. We shall deal later with the struggle between the idea of absolute, objective good and the seductive attractions of experienced subjective good (the struggle, properly speaking, is the domain of freedom). For the moment we want to restrict our argument to the idea of subjective good and ask how this idea, associated with the experience of such good, can move the will?

It is clear that relative to subjective good nothing pertaining to the ideal order directly and of itself moves the will. Nevertheless, it can move the will indirectly. The intelligent subject can easily fabricate for himself some opinion about unlimited good by drawing together the various kinds of good he has experienced, his images of this good, the physical effects persevering in him as reminders of this good, and his animal and human instincts, especially those which, concerned with his own aggrandisement and happiness, generate exaggerated hopes in his heart and arouse the total activity of his powers.

This fictitious and often exaggerated opinion about good (and the corresponding expectation of evil) is an idea appertaining to the order of intelligence, but at the same time the product of the instincts, images, memories and passions we have mentioned. It is not a mere idea; it is not a pure idea. It is an opinion or persuasion rather than an idea; the subject has acted upon it with his creative force and added to it the result of what we have called the power of persuasion.(268)

631. This combination of idea and opinion acts by moving the will in two ways. As idea it acts indirectly by drawing together and uniting many elements with the intention of increasing the value of this multifaceted, unified good. In other words, the subject's forces are given a single direction without the creation of new forces. As opinion or persuasion, it acts directly because the power of persuasion springs from the activity of the subject, of which it is a function. The subject, now persuaded of this great good, moves the will directly in order to obtain it, while the will calls in aid all the other powers, increasing the forces of instinct, imagination, hope and any other passions suitable for contributing to the end in view.

It is clear, therefore, that ideas help the human being to form opinions about subjective good by uniting its elements and presenting them to his judgment for evaluation and enhancement; opinions about good or evil act upon the will which asserts itself in so far as it finds help from the other powers according to their own state and condition.

632. The will, therefore, is an extremely mobile power (cf. 624-626). As a rational tendency to good, it must be stimulated by any good whatsoever, provided it is suitably presented, that is, known and thought of as good. And because every being is good in so far as it is,(269) the will is born of its nature to love all things. Such universal love is, we may say, the basis of the will and of the human nature which possesses it.

633. Nevertheless, the will, although naturally inclined to the love of all things, cannot be said to love them all. The inclination to love is one thing; love, the consummation and conclusion of that inclination (from which the outward act follows), is another.

634. In fact, the different kinds of good capable of moving the will sometimes come into collision in such a way that one good can be loved only if another is rejected. The primary explanation for this fact is the limitation of created, contingent beings in each of which some part of being and good is lacking. Hence, the natural inclinations of the will must also be limited and come into collision in the way that different kinds of good conflict.

Secondly, although beings are good in so far as they are, they often lack some part of the good which is naturally theirs. This renders them defective, and the cause of defects in other beings. If we consider these beings from the point of view of the defects they possess or cause, they fall under the concept of evil, and provoke the will's natural hatred rather than its love. The deeper the defect or evil discovered in the being, the greater the hatred. This is especially true of evil deep in the internal constitution of the being (as in the case of moral evil) where the author of evil is the subject himself.

Thirdly, the lesser good which impedes the attainment of greater good is itself regarded as evil and as such is naturally hated by the will.

635. As long as the will obeys these natural laws, which determine the degrees of its love and hate according to the comparison made between what is good and evil, the order of nature rules and determines the will's spontaneity. In this state the will is passive in so far as it cedes without opposition to the natural invitation causing its movement.

We have already seen that the will, when presented with a single object thought to be good, moves to desire that object however insignificant it may be. In the same way, when there is a collision between what is thought to be good and what is thought to be evil, the will comes down in favour of the weightier side, even if this is only fractionally more attractive. Everything else that is good, but deficient by comparison, attracts a mere wish and inclination of the will, but not the perfect act of volition.

We must remember that this argument is valid only for the case in which the human will is still enclosed in the field of merely subjective good.

Notes

(266) See the theory of species and genera we have developed in OT, 646-659.

(267) In this case, one appreciates, but does not evaluate. There are, therefore, three levels of volition rather than two: affective, appreciative and evaluative.

(268) Cf. Certainty, 1335-1361.

(269) Cf. PE, 16-31.