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 VOLUNTARY

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VOLUNTARY

P. L., XXXII, 1243-63; "Confess.", VII, c. 10, n. 16; P. L., XXXII, 742; "Soliloq.", I, i, n. 2; P. L., XXXII, 870; cf. "De civ. Dei", VIII, iv; P. L., XLI, 228, 229). In God Augustine places "the intelligible world" of the Platonists, and the Divine concursu-s is in a special way required by human thought. God is "the sun of the soul" ("Gen. ad Ut." XII, xxxi, n. 59; P. L., XXXIV, 479; "De pecc. mer.", I, 25, n. 38; P. L., XLIV, 130; cf. "Soliloq.", I, 8; P. L., XXXII, 877), Himself per- forming the functions which Scholastics ascribe to the intellectus agens. Faith, too, with Augustine as with Anselm, involves intelligence. For both the principle intelligo ut credam is no less true than the principle credo ut inlelligam. ("In Ps. cxviii", serm. xviii, n. 3; P. L., XXXVII, 1552; serm. xliii, c. vii, n. 9; P. L., XXXVIII, 258.)

The philosophy of Scotus is more distinctly volun- taristic. On the freedom of the will he is particularly clear and emphatic. He insists that the will itself, and nothing but the will, is the total cause of its voli- tions. It is not determined by another, but deter- mines itself conlingenter, not inevitabilUer, to one of the alternatives that are before it (II Sent., dist. xxy; see also "ult comm.", ibid). This is freedom, an attri- bute which is essential to all higher forms of will, and consequently is not suspended or annulled in the beatific vision (iV Sent., dist. xlix, Q. 4). Because the will holds sway over aU other faculties and again be- cause to it pertains that charity which is the greatest of the virtues, will is a more noble attribute of man than is intelligence. Will supposes inteUigence, is posterior generatione, and therefore more perfect (IV Sent., dist. xlix, 4 "quaestio laterahs").

Kant's "practical reason", in that it passes be- yond the phenomenal world to which "pure reason" is confined, is superior to the latter. Practical rea- son, however, is not will: rather it is an intelligence which is moved by wiU; and in any case it is a human faculty, not a faculty of the absolute. Fichte is the first to conceive will or deed-action {That- handlung) as the ultimate and incomprehensible source of all being. He is followed by Schelling, who says that will is Ursein: there is no other being than it, and of it alone are predicable the attributes usually predicated of God. Schopenhauer holds will to be prior to intclhgence both in the metaphysical and the physical order. It appears in nature first as a vague self-consciousness mingled with sympathy. Ideas come later, as differences are emphasized and organi- zation developed. But throughout the will holds sway, and in its repose Schopenhauer places his ideal. Nietzsche transforms "the will to live" into "the will to power". His philosophy breathes at once tyranny and revolt: tjTanny against the weak in body and in mind; revolt against the supremacy of the State, of the Church, and of convention.

Pragmatism (q. v.) is an extreme form of psycho- logical Voluntarism; and with it is closely connected Humanism — a wider theory, in which the function of the will in the "making of truth" is extended to the making of reahty. The Voluntarism of Absolutists, such as Fichte, Schelling, and Schopenhauer, confuses the abstract concept of being, as activity in general, with the more determinate, psychological concept of will, as rational self-determination. The Prag- matist identifies intelligence and will with action.

St. Augustine, loc. rit. supra; Caldwell, Schopenhauer^ s Sys- tem in its philosophical significance (London. 1895) ; James, Will to Believe (New York, 1897); Ladd, A TheoTn of Reality (New York. 1899); Idem in Philos. Review, VIII (1899), fi27-32; MOnster- BERQ, Philosophy and Life (Boston and .New York. 1899); Paul- sen, I/ttroilurtion to Philosophy (tr. New York, 189.'i); Schilleh, Studies in Humanism (London, 1907); Wdndt, System der Phi- losophic (2nil ed., Leipzig. 1S97).

Leslie J. W.\lker.

Voluntary, wilful, proceeding from the will. I( is requisite that the tiling be an effect of the will

consequent upon actual knowledge, either formal or virtual, in the rational agent. It is not quite the same as free; for a free act supposes self-determina- tion proceeding from an agent capable, at the time, of determining himself or not at his choice. However, as every specific voluntary act in this life is also free (except those rare will-impulses, when a man is swept to sudden action without time to perceive in non- action the element of good requisite for determination not to act) the moralist commonly uses the terms voluntary and free interchangeably. A thing may be voluntary in itself, as when in its own proper concept it falls under the efficacious determination of the agent, or voluntary in something else, as in its cause. Voluntary in cause requires foreknowledge of the effect, at least virtual, viz. under a general concept of effects to follow; and production thereof by virtue of the will's efficiency exercised in the wilhng of its cause. For the verification of the latter requisite the morahst distinguishes two classes of effects which commonly follow from the same cause, those namely to produce which the cause is destined by its nature, and those to which it is not so destined. Of the former the cause is sole and adequate cause, the effect natural and primary. The human will cannot without self-contradiction put a cause into existence without efficaciously willing this natural effect also. In the case of the other class of effects the cause placed by the will is not the sole and ade- quate cause, but the effect results from the coincident efficiency of other causes, whether contingent, as upon the exercise of other free wiUs or upon the acci- dental coincidence of necessary causes beyond the knowledge and control of the agent, or whether necessarily resulting from the coincident efficiency of natural causes ready to act when occasion is thus given. An effect of this class does not come into existence by the efficiency of the will placing the occasioning cause. The utmost result of the will's efficiency, when it places a cause and wills its natural effect, is to make that secondary class of effects possible. Sometimes the agent is so bound to prevent the existence of a secondary effect as to be beholden not to make it possible, and so is bound to withhold the occasioning cause. In case of failure in this duty his fault is specified by the character of the effect to be prevented, and so this effect is then said to be morally involved in his voluntary act, whereas in strict analysis the will only caused its possi- bility.

Vincible ignorance as a reason of an effect does not rob it of its voluntariness, as the ignorance is volun- tary and its effect immediate and natural. Invin- cible ignorance, however, removes its effect from the domain of the voluntary, in itself because unknown, in its cause, for the ignorance is involuntary. Passion pursuant of its sensible object, when voluntarily induced, does not deprive its act of voluntariness, as the passion is the natural cause and is voluntary. Passion spontaneously arising does not ordinarily mean the loss of voluntariness, as in ordinary course it leaves a man both the necessarj' knowledge and power of self-determination, as we know by experience. In the extraordinary case of such an excess of passion as paralyzes the use of reason obviously the act cannot be voluntary. Even fear and the cognate passions that turn a man from sensible harm do not destroy the simple voluntariness of their act, as this (excepting again such excess as holds up the reasoning faculty) iiroceeds with such knowledge and efficacious self-del crminal ion conse(iuent thereon as fulfil the recjuisiti's for voluntary action. Of course there will commonly leniain an inefficacious reluctance of the will to such action. Physical force can coerce only the external act: our experience shows that the inter- nal act of the will is still our own.

Charles Macksey.