Nature and Operation of the Will

Chapter IV — The Will

Article 1. Nature and Operation of the Will

This Chapter discusses the nature and existence of the rational appetency or human will, indicates the mutual influence exercised by intellect and will, and proves that the will is endowed with freedom of choice. These points are studied in the following Articles:

Article 1. The Nature and Operation of the Will
Article 2. The Interaction of Intellect and Will
Article 3. The Freedom of the Will

c) Acts of the Will

a) Meaning of Will

St. Thomas Aquinas calls the will a rational appetency. Now, an appetency or appetite is a tendency to follow and possess and enjoy what is good. All things have a connatural tendency towards what is good for their perfection or being, and this is natural appetency. Sentient beings (i. e., animal organisms) have a tendency to follow and achieve what sense-knowledge presents to them as desirable or good, and this is sentient appetition or sentient appetite. Hu-

man beings, who are not only sentient but rational, have, in addition to sentient appetition, a tendency to follow, love, desire, and enjoy what the intellect apprehends as good; this is the intellectual or rational appetency which we call the will.

The will may therefore be described as a spiritual or supra-organic faculty for tending to possess and enjoy what the intellect knows as good or desirable. As the intellect tends to possess truth about understandable reality, so the will tends to possess understood good. The intellect seeks the true; the will seeks the good. Now, the intellect is never “filled up” in this life; a man never understands so perfectly that he cannot understand further, cannot learn anything else, Nothing but infinite truth, boundless truth, will bring to the intellect its full perfection and fulfill the quest for which it was made. Nor is the will ever, in this life, in perfect, and perfectly understood, possession of good. Only infinite good can fill up the desires of will, and leave nothing further that can possibly be desired. In boundless or infinite good the will finds its perfection, the thing it was made to achieve; perfect quiescence, perfect love and enjoyment, unchanging and unending, must come to the will with the attainment of that object. Intellect is not only made for the true or werum; it is made for the Infinite Truth or Summum Verum. Will is not made for good alone, or bonum; it is made for Infinite Good or Summum Bonum. The attainment of the Summum Verum and the Sum-mum Bonum is what intellect and will are for. This is the purpose of their being. This gives them meaning. In a word, man’s finest faculties, the intellect and the will, are made for the purpose of bringing man to the contemplation and enjoyment of the Infinite God. Thus do man’s highest faculties indicate the meaning and purpose of human existence.

When we say that the will is an appetite for understood _good_we do not mean that it always appetizes what really is good in itself. We know, for example, that sin can be a fact; and sin is a wilful choice of moral evil. We take the term good in its essential meaning as something desirable, something appetizable, something apprehended as gpod-to-have, whether this is something pleasing and excellent in itself, or something that offers itself as a means to achieving this excellence. Thus health, for example, is a good thing in itself. Now, medicine, or a painful surgical operation, may be far from desirable or pleasing on its own account; but medicine, however bitter, or an operation, however fraught with pain and danger, becomes good and desirable and appetizable in view of the fact that it may serve as the means for attaining health. In so far as it lacks attractiveness, bitter medicine or a painful operation is undesirable, not-good, evil; but it is clothed, so to speak, with goodness (it wears the species boni or aspect of good) inasmuch as it is a means to good. Evil is never chosen, never appetized, on its own account; there is no appetitive tendency towards evil as such; when evil is appetized, it is appetized sub specie boni, under the aspect of good.

When moral evil (i. e., sin) is actually appetized, when it is chosen by the will, this evil is clothed by a perverse and blameful judgment of intellect in the garments of good; it is chosen sub specie boni. Notice that the wilful judgment is perverse and blameful; it is not a mere mistake. Sin is the wilful and perverse quest of good in an object in which good cannot be found. As we once said, a man seeking diamonds may perversely insist upon digging for them in a heap of filth. He will not find diamonds there. If he were not wilfully and culpably determined to dig there, he would know that no diamonds could be found in that place. Nay, in spite of his perverseness and precipitateness, he does know, in some measure, that no diamonds can be found there. But it is diamonds that he is after. So with rational appetency (will) and moral evil. It is not evil as such that the moral culprit desires or appetizes; it is good. But the sinner perversely and blame fully (not merely mistakenly) looks for good in the wrong place. But it is good that he is after. He seeks good, and real good, and lasting good, even though long experience has taught him that he can attain only a fleeting satisfaction, an apparent good, in the object of his evil choice, just as the digger for diamonds may turn up a bright bit of glass or a paste-jewel that has been cast into the heap of refuse. Yet the quest of will is not for fleeting or apparent good; it is for real good, unfading good, ceaseless satisfaction. Thus we discern that evil is never chosen for its own sake, but sub specie boni, under the aspect of good.

Will is the supra-organic or spiritual faculty by which a man tends to lay hold of and enjoy what the understanding or intellect presents to knowledge as good. Now, the intellect has, as part of its indirect object, the essence of individual material things. Hence, such things may fall under the appetency of the will. Therefore, although the will is spiritual, it can appetite (in its own way, rationally) the material things which awaken sentient appetency in a man. The will can “go along” with bodily appetites, can approve them and further them, can, through intellect, be aroused by them to “back them up.” Thus a hungry man not only experiences the sentient appetite for food, but he wills to eat his dinner. Yet the will is not subjected to the sway of sentient appetency. To appetize supra-sensuous good and achieve it, the will may go flatly against all bodily appetites. Thus, for example, a man may fast (for a supra-sensuous motive, an intellectually appetized good) even when he is very hungry and food is set before him.

b) Existence of the Will

The existence of will is manifested to every normal person by inevitable and indubitable testimony,—the testimony of consciousness. That we have desires, longings, appetites for things that are beyond the reach of sense, is a matter of universal human experience. That all sentient objects, taken together or singly, are inadequate to fill out the measure of human desires, ambitions, hopes, is proof positive that man has a supra-organic faculty for appetizing supra-sentient objects, that is, for tending to lay hold of and enjoy what the intellect knows as good.

To deny will is to deny intellect, and to reduce all human knowledge to the plane of sensation. For wherever knowledge exists, there exists a tendency to follow and act upon it. Knowledge is often, and inevitably, a knowledge of what is desirable to have or to avoid. Now, the tendency which is consequent upon knowledge must lie in the same plane with the knowledge. Sense-knowledge arouses sentient appetency. Intellectual knowledge arouses intellectual (or rational) appetency. It is manifest, therefore, that where there is intellectual knowledge, there will be intellectual or rational appetency, not indeed in all cases,—for intellect can know objects which stir no appetency,—but in many. In other words, where intellect exists, will must exist. But the intellect exists, as we have amply proved. Therefore, the will exists.

c) Acts of the Will

The acts of the will, following upon intellectual knowledge, may be grouped into two classes, namely. those that the will begins and finishes, and those that the will orders done by faculties other than itself. We call the acts of the first class elicited acts of the will; we call those of the second class commanded acts, or acts commanded by the will.

The elicited acts of the will are six:

1. Wish. This is the simple fixing of the will upon an object as desired. It is the simple love of an object, the simple desire or tendency for it, whether, in fact, this tendency is objectively realizable or not. Examples of the wish: I wish it were cooler; I wish John would come; I’d like to go with you; I wish I were more diligent. Notice that the wish as such (not its realization) is an act that is elicited by the will, drawn out, so to speak, of the will as a finished thing.

2. Intention. This is the purposive tendency of the will towards an end to be achieved, and conceived as achievable, whether in fact that end is actually achieved or not. Examples: I intend to vote for Roosevelt; I will not receive him if he calls; I firmly purpose to amend my life. Notice that it is the intention as such (not its realization) that is an elicited will act.

5. Enjoyment or fruition. This is the quiet pleasure of will in a good achieved. It is the satisfaction of will in an intention carried out. Examples of fruition may be found in the student who has just passed an examination; in a candidate who has just learned that he has been elected; in a good father or mother who, at certain times in the course of dutiful life, realizes with the approval of will the joy of burdens nobly borne; in a decent man who tastes, as we say, the happiness of upright living. The glow, the satisfaction, that comes with achieved purpose is fruition; and fruition as such is an activity elicited by the will.

4. Consent. This is the agreement of the will to employ the means which intellect presents as requisite for realizing an intention. A man who makes a contract intends to achieve some end, some good, thereby, and he consents to the terms of the contract in order to achieve that end.

5. Election. This is the selection or choice, made by the will, of the precise actual means to be employed in carrying out an intention. If I intend to amend my life, I must consent to means of amendment, and I must choose (or elect} certain precise means. Consent may be general; election is more special and precise.

6. Use. This is the actual employment of the means consented to, and elected, for the attainment of an end or good.

It will be noticed that the first three of the elicited acts here listed are concerned with an end to be achieved, a good to be possessed. The last three are concerned with the means requisite for the attainment of the end or the good.

The acts which originate in the will as commands to be carried out by other faculties (we call them simply commanded acts) are almost numberless. Yet we can classify them under three heads:

1. Internal acts. These are acts commanded by the will and executed by the intellect or the interior senses. Such acts are, for example: a deliberate effort to reason out a problem; mental prayer; a conscious effort to imagine or envision a scene; a stirring of oneself to contrition; steeling oneself to meet a disagreeable situation.

2. External acts. These are acts commanded by the will and executed by the external bodily powers. Such acts are, for example: deliberate walking; striking an enemy in the face; speaking; singing; dancing; deliberately looking at an object; listening to what is said to one.

3. Mixed acts. These are acts commanded by the will and executed by internal and external powers working concurrently. Examples of such acts are: action of eyes and mind in reading and understanding a lesson; action of hearing and comprehending an order; imagining and verbally describing a scene; thinking, imagining, remembering, as we move the hand in writing a letter to an old friend.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have learned that the will is a rational appetency which is to be defined as a supra-organic faculty for tending to possess and enjoy what the intellect apprehends as good. We have used the term good in our definition as good in general, namely, that which is appetizable. We have learned that the object of will is the good and have seen that, in last analysis, the object of will is the Summum Bonum or the supreme and infinite Good. We have explained how moral evil is chosen under the aspect of good by a perverse and blameworthy will. We have made a short proof of the existence of the will in man. Finally, we have listed the elicited and the commanded acts which proceed from the will.