Voluntas

VOLUNTAS. - It is the faculty of tending toward the universal good, proper to spiritual creatures.

I. PHILOSOPHY

Known by the intellect, the universal good or happiness becomes the object and principle of the will, which sets in motion the other faculties and itself for its attainment through a series of acts whose fulcrum lies in the moment of freedom (v.).

The originality of the will, and its emergence, has been contested by materialist philosophy in its various forms, insofar as it reduces volitional aspirations to associative processes of elementary instincts, to phenomena of social pressures, etc. It is to the credit of the introspective investigations of Denkpsychologie to have demonstrated the irreducibility of volitional functions to lower tendential functions and to have considered them as the autogenous nucleus for the formation of personality (cf. A. Willwohl, Seele und Geist, in Mensch, Welt, Gott, part 4, Freiburg im Br. 1938, p. 139 ff.). Just as the intellect is the faculty of the true, that is, of judgment concerning the objective reality of things in themselves, so the will is the faculty of the universal and perfect good, or rather the tendential principle that moves the spiritual being to the conquest of values toward what is the perfection (real or supposed) of the being itself in view of its ultimate fulfillment, which is perfect happiness or the absolute good. To the will, therefore, belongs the dynamism of the spiritual being; just as instinct and sensory appetite are the propulsive principles in lower life, so the will is for the intellectual sphere insofar as it is the spiritual appetite and supreme principle of the subject's perfection (cf. Sum. Theol., I, 16, 1). The third moment of the dynamism of the will is the "communication" or diffusion outside itself of the good possessed and enjoyed, through which the spiritual being inserts itself and its own life into the world, affirming values within the limits of its own sphere and possibilities (ibid., I, 16, 2). Such dynamism of the will is prompted (in man) first by the sensory appetite and its passions and then, from above, by the intellect, which proposes the ultimate end and the proportion of means to the end that ought to be followed for the real attainment of that end, because the object of the will is the good as it is in reality (ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν: Aristotle, Metaph., VI, 4, 1027b 25).

The correspondence of intellect and will in the complete human act follows this itinerary: 1) Acts concerning the end: a) to the "simplex boni apprehensio" follows the "simplex boni volitio"; b) to the "iudicium proponens finem," the "intentio finis." 2) Acts concerning the means: a) to the "consilium proponens media," the "consensus"; b) to the "consilium discretivum mediorum," the "electio." 3) Acts concerning execution: a) to the "imperium," the "usus activus"; b) to the "usus passivus potentiarum usque ad adeptionem finis," the final "fruitio" (cf. Sum. Theol. I-II, esp. 9-17). In the structure of human action, if the intellect is the finalizing principle insofar as it conceives the good as the ultimate end and apprehends the means and disposes them for the attainment of the end, whereby "totius radix libertatis est in ratione constituta" (St. Thomas, De ver., q. XXIV, a. 2), it is to the will that the function of efficient principle belongs, "eo quod voluntas comparatur ad res secundum quod in seipsis sunt," and "agere et moveri convenit rebus secundum esse proprium quo in seipsis subsistunt"; and finally because the will is therefore, like every appetite, the principle of the movement that binds things according to the inclination proper to them in order to realize and attain the good of the subject (ibid., q. XXII, a. 12). It is through the will, finally, that the total cycle of being is accomplished, inasmuch as, while in the static-formal order the intellect embraces and comprehends the will as the faculty of the good, the will in turn, in the dynamic-effective order, can move and dominate the intellect itself along with the other powers and even itself (Sum. Theol., I, q. 82, a. 4; De ver., loc. cit.). Indeed, scrutinizing the intimate exigency of the presence of the absolute good as perfect happiness and its radical solicitation with respect to the finite spirit, one must admit a certain transcendental priority of nature of the will and of its own dynamism with respect to the intellect, even if the intellect concretely offers it the principles and the real fabric of its own tending: since, if "omnis actus voluntatis procedit ab aliquo actu intellectus, aliquis tamen actus voluntatis est prior quam aliquis actus intellectus; voluntas enim tendit in finalem actum intellectus qui est beatitudo" (Sum. Theol., I-II, q. 4, a. 4 ad 2; cf. q. 9, a. 1 ad 3). Hence one understands how, from the dynamic point of view, the most adequate and complete form of spiritual immanence is that of the will, insofar as it contains within itself the principle, the means and the term of its own action, as also of the other faculties subject to consciousness. Thus its own activity as tendency toward the good, in the real determination of the ultimate end and in the choice of means, cannot suffer any violence, constraint or imposition from anyone, even though it can be impeded in the exterior use of such means (ibid., I-II, q. 6, a. 4). In this fullness of its dominion in the tendency toward the end, the will of the finite spirit is moved directly by God as by the first cause through a "divine instinct," according to the saying of Aristotle (Eth. Eudem., VII, 14, 1248 a. 14, cited in Sum. Theol., loc. cit., q. 9, a. 4), insofar as God, who is being and good by essence, must be at one and the same time the first cause and the ultimate end of whatever has being and good by participation (ibid., a. 6). It is clear that this first motion of the will on the part of God who moves... "sicut universalis motor ad universale obiectum voluntatis quod est bonum et sine hac universali motione homo non potest aliquid velle," must be distinguished from the second motion (or "application" of the second cause to concrete action), which concerns the particular choice when "homo per rationem determinat se ad volendum hoc vel illud quod est vere bonum vel apparens bonum," and above all must be distinguished from the special motion, which belongs to the supernatural order of Grace (ibid., ad 3 and finally: q. 109, a. 6; q. 112, a. 1).

It is clear, therefore, that the "voluntary" (ἐκούσιον) is not reducible to simple biological spontaneity (naturalistic determinism), nor even to the mere execution of the judgment of the intelligence (rationalist determinism), as Socrates asserted when he reduced sin to ignorance (cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic., VII, 3, 1145 b. 25), but springs from the active dominion that the will exercises, as a faculty of the integral human person, over being with a view to the attainment of the end: therefore the will is actualized in an original form in "choice" (ἡ προαίρεσις ἢ ἐκούσιον μὲν φαίνεται: Eth. Nic., III, 4, 1111 b. 6), while nevertheless holding firm the principle: ἐν τῷ λογιστικῷ γὰρ ἡ βούλεσις γίνεται (De an., III, 9, 432 b. 5). But in the Aristotelian position, in this detachment from Socratic intellectualism, there remains the uncertainty of recognizing to the full the originality of the will, inasmuch as in it there remained uncertain whether to attribute the decision (imperium) to the intellect or to the will (διό ἡ ὀρεκτικὸς νοῦς ἡ προαίρεσις ἢ ὄρεξις διανοητική [Eth. Nic., VI, 2, 1139 b. 4)). A notable progress in terminology and in doctrine itself was achieved in the theology of the incarnate Word, first with the distinction of βούλησις and ζήτησις set forth by Nemesius (De natura hominis, attributed by the medievals and by St. Thomas to St. Gregory of Nyssa: cf. B. Domaski, Die Psychologie des Nemesius [Beiträge zur Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mittel., III, 1], Münster in W, 1900, p. 142 ff.) and then with the distinction introduced by Damascene of τέλησις and βούλησις (cf. De fide orthodoxa, I, II, chap. 22: PG 94, 944), which is the "voluntas ut natura" and the "voluntas ut ratio" of St. Thomas (cf. Sum Theol. 3ᵃ, q. 18, a. 3). If, therefore, the constitutive moment of the will (voluntas ut natura) is that of the tendency toward the universal good as apprehended by the intellect, and the moment of freedom (v.) is given by the indifference of the will with respect to the particular finite good (voluntas ut ratio), in reality the will involves a real emergence over both moments. First of all in the tendency toward the end, inasmuch as it is precisely to it that there belongs the aspiration to "happiness" or the supreme good, which is the first reason for desiring (...τάγαθόν, οὐ παντ' ἐγείτεται: Eth. Nic., I, 1, 1094 a. 3) as also for acting (ὡς οὐ ἕνεκα: Aristotle, Metaph., V, 2, 1013 a. 33); then, in the very act of "choice," insofar as the indeterminacy of the intellect's final judgment concerning a particular good is overcome or conquered only by the initiative of the free will as personal commitment and responsibility with respect to those goods whose attainment depends "on us," whence there is precisely a choice (τὰ ἐφ' ἡμῖν. Cf. Eth. Nic., III, 4, 1111 b. 30; 6, 1113 a. 9), in the alternative of the contrasting attraction of good and evil (cf. Eth. Nic. III, 7, 1113 b. 15). It seems then that for Aristotle, unlike the later Aristotelian tradition and certain interpretations of Thomism itself, the will claims with respect to the intellect the complete originality of its own initiative, insofar as in the tendential sphere it has the (proximate) principle of action in itself as a faculty of the tendency toward the end (cf. M. Wittmann, Die Ethik des Aristoteles, Regensburg 1920, p. 97 ff.).

In this sense Socratic intellectualism reappears in Stoic ethics, which identifies being with the existent, while Epicurus, taking up Aristotle's προαίρεσις, introduces the "declination" of the atoms in order to save the will from the necessity of fate: as for Aristotle, so too for Epicurus, contingency exists, so that of two contrary propositions relating to the future it is not true that one must be considered true and the other false (De interpr., 9, 18 a. 28 ff.; cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic., III, 3, 1111), because both remain in themselves contingent. Hence the open spur for Epicurus of "declination," thanks to the initiative of the will as celebrated by Lucretius: "...fatis avulas voluntas. Declinamus item motus nec tempore certo Nec regione loci certa, sed ubi ipsa tulit mens" (II, 261 ff.; cf. C. Diano, La psicologia di Epicuro e la teoria delle passioni, Florence n.d., p. 87 ff.).

The controversies over the will in medieval and modern thought sharpen the dispute over the essence of freedom and depend, with greater awareness than in Greek thought, on the conception of the spiritual being considered in its relationship to God and committed to resolving the problem of its origin as well as of the final exodus of its being.

BIBLI: A. Michel, s. v. in DThC., XV, coll. 3322-87; R. Eister, s. v. in Wörterb. a. philos. Begr., III, 4ᵃ ed., Berlino 1930, p. 551 sgg.; L. Schütz, s. v. in Thomas-Lexikon, 2ᵃ ed., rist., Nuova York 1947, p. 880 sgg.; J. Deferrari-M. I. Barry-J. Mc Guinness, s. v. in A Lex. of st. Thomas A., Baltimore 1949, p. 1179 b. sgg. Per il problema psicologico: H. Münsterberg, Die Willenshandlung, Friburgo in Br. 1888; W. Wundt, Grundzüge d. physiol. Psychol., 4ᵃ ed., Lipsia 1911, parte 3ᵃ, p. 221 sgg.; J. Lindworsky, Der Wille, 2ᵃ ed., ivi 1923 (con ricca bibl.). Per la scuola gestaltista: W. D. Ellis, A source book of gestalt. psychol., Londra 1938, p. 283 sgg. (studi di K. Lewin e B. Zeigarnik. Cf. C. Fabro, La fenomenologia della percen., Milano 1941, p. 302 sgg.); W. Metzger, Psychologie, Dresda e Lipsia 1941, pp. 186 sgg., 226 sgg., 279 sgg.; M. Pradines, Traité de psychol. générale, II, II, Parigi 1948, p. 342 sgg. Esposiz. della dottrina tomista: A. Sertillanges, St. Thomas d'A., II, 4ᵃ ed., Parigi 1925, p. 206 sgg.; J. Rehmke, Das Wollen, Greifswald 1926; M. Wittmann, Die Ethik des Hl. Thomas v. A., Monaco 1933, pp. 73-162; M. Reding, Philosoph. Grundlegung der kath. Moraltheol., in Handb. d. Moraltheol., I, Monaco 1953, p. 26 sgg. Storia: J. Nep. Espenberger, Grund u. Gewissheit des übern. Glaubens in d. Hoch-u. Spätscholastik, in Forsch. z. christl. Liter. u. Dogmengesch., XIII, 1, Paderborn 1913, spec. pp. 6-71; O. Dietrich, Gesch. der Ethik, 3 voll., Lipsia 1926, cf. s. v. nei rispettivi indici di ciascun vol.; E. Gilson, L'esprit de la philosophie médiévale, II, Parigi 1932, p. 65 sgg.; trad. it., Brescia 1947, p. 186 sgg.; O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale au XIIᵉ et XIIIᵉ siècle, I, Lovanio 1942 e III, ivi 1949, passim; Th. Steinbüchel, Existentialismus u. christliches Ethos, Heidelberg 1948; Th. Haecker, Metaphysik des Fühlen, Monaco 1950; E. Schwartz, Ethik der Griechen, ed. W. Richter, Stoccarda 1951.

II. PATHOLOGY OF THE WILL

With regard to the will, more than a true psychological process, what is involved is the dynamic potential that translates thoughts and feelings into acts, following deliberation and decision by the intellect; it is not possible to conceive and describe the will as an isolated function without correlation and integration with the other psychic activities. The will intervenes in the totality of human conscious life, as a free and determined spiritual choice; on it depends the accepting or rejecting of the influence of certain tendencies, representations or feelings upon our activity. The dignity, responsibility and freedom of man must be sought exclusively in the fact that he can take a different position before the phenomena of the endotimic sphere, before experiences of a pathic character (Ewald's biotone), checking or inhibiting some of them, while allowing others to reach full development: this is possible because man is endowed with thought and will. Herein lies the whole anthropological significance of willing, where it is understood as a faculty granted exclusively to man, by virtue of which he is distinguished from animals, which are endowed only with instincts and devoid of responsibility.

In the exercise of the will one can distinguish, schematically and only in certain respects, quantitative and qualitative disturbances.

1. Quantitative disturbances: a) Diminution of the will (hypobulia, abulia): these may affect all or some of its qualities and processes. In common language the word "abulia" (v.) means something very generic and imprecise: laziness, doubt and indecision in the execution of acts; slowness, insecurity and ideational apraxia; lack of inhibition before automatic reactions. In other words, every downward oscillation of the individual characteristics of the will can be signified by this term, which thus comes to lose its precise psychopathological value. One can distinguish with sufficient approximation a constitutional abulia (v. PSICOPATICHE PERSONALITÀ) and an acquired one: the latter is often consequent upon states of organic weakness (exhaustion), as happens in convalescents, or upon lesions of certain cerebral centers, as is frequently observed in post-encephalitics and in cranial trauma patients. Constitutional abulia, on the other hand, is observed in those psychopathic personalities described as "weak of will" and "devoid of will" (the abulics properly so called [K. Schneider]): these are subjects who, while preserving their intelligence and ideation intact, show a more or less marked deficiency of the various volitional processes: the individual knows what he ought to will and desires what he ought to desire, yet he cannot will and does not decide to do anything, generally dominated by feelings of timidity and inferiority. Compulsion, anancasm and obsession might seem to a superficial glance to be disturbances of the will: in reality what is involved is a typical disturbance of thought, recognized as parasitic and absurd, but from which the subject cannot free himself however many efforts he makes (v. PSICOSI OSSESSIVA). Of very complex genesis but already closer to a disturbance, sensu lato, of the will is the impulsive act (impulse to move, to act, to speak) which, experienced by many even in completely normal psychic conditions, can become the principal characteristic of certain abnormal personalities, called precisely impulsive. The well-known schizophrenic abulia consists rather in an apathy, of special character, arising from the absence of interests in the external world, from the blunting of affectivity (athymia), from autism (v. SCHIZOFRENIA). Various classifications of abulias have been attempted; but this specific symptom complex can hardly be reduced to a unitary vision; evident, for example, is the insufficiency of the best known of such classifications, that of P. Janet (v.), who distinguishes systematized, localized and generalized forms. Systematized abulia would be the impotence of the will referred to a particular determinate act, for example, getting up, writing; localized abulia would indicate the impotence to execute certain particular movements, for example, raising the head or an arm; generalized abulia would refer to any execution of volitions, whether motor or of thought (laziness of execution, insufficiency of discipline of thought, superficiality of judgment).

b) Increase of the will; it is called hyperbulia and refers to the increment of tendencies and impulses, rather than to the energy of the will for the execution of acts. In certain cases the increase of tendencies and inclinations drags the subject's will to the execution of rash acts, without there being any increase of rational volition. An increase in the energy of the will properly so called, although it is constitutional in certain personalities, is generally wont to be a result of education and not a pathological characteristic. Some understand by hyperbulia the result of the excitation of all cerebral functions, as is observed in psychomotor excitation, in oneiroid deliria and in other analogous morbid states; episodic increases of volitional impulses, leading to explosive acts or to violent, disordered activity, are sometimes observed in certain acute psychoses, owing to the pathological increase of the feeling of power.

2. Qualitative disturbances: a) One speaks of volitional ambivalence when the normal oscillations of deliberation are pathologically increased, constantly supervening for futile reasons and manifesting themselves in an absolute indecision.

b) One speaks, albeit improperly, of executive abulia when the subject is perfectly aware of his desire, but it costs him an enormous effort to set the executive voluntary mechanisms in action.

c) Bradybulia: it is observed typically in post-encephalitic states; it consists in an evident slowness of the will, which goes hand in hand with general bradypsychism: the volitional impulses are much attenuated and are slow to unfold, but once the initial resistance is overcome the patient can execute the act, especially if there is no muscular rigidity. Continuous stimulation is necessary.

d) Negativism, a symptom proper to catatonic syndromes, is considered by many as a disturbance of the will, dependent on the fact that a much more powerful pathological counter-order is associated with the motor impulse; in reality what is involved is a disturbance of the psychophysical transformation of "erleben" (Bormann), an alteration of psychomotor integrations. One distinguishes an active negativism, in which the patient does the opposite of what he is ordered, and a passive negativism, in which the blocking of the will manifests itself with immobility, mutacism, sitophobia, immobility, absence of spontaneity, lack of obedience to commands. Clearly distinct from negativism must be so-called opposition, which is a symptom proper to anxious states and is referred to images and affects that are influenceable by persuasion; according to some (Nàgera) opposition would have its origin in pantophobia; it is evident, however, that what is involved is not a primary disturbance of the will. A typical opposition is that of certain hallucinated melancholics who do not wish to free themselves from their sadness owing to hallucinatory commands.

e) Schizophrenic dissociation has been traced by some, questionably, to so-called volitional ataxia: the patient acts in a manner different from or contrary to what he wills; such a disturbance, in relation to Stranski's intrapsychic ataxia, seems rather to be traced back to those complex disturbances of psychophysical transformations recently studied by Bormann.

f) Classic is the influencing of voluntary action, that sense of "artificiality", of the unnatural, that accompanies the diminution or disappearance of the feeling of the I, the phenomenological expression of the schizophrenic disturbance of depersonalization.

g) Automatic obedience can be partially connected to it: the subject immediately carries out the acts ordered, out of exaggerated suggestibility, without the intervention of the free spontaneity of volitions. According to some, it would be a disorder more affective than volitional; in any case there is an index of suggestive influencability that varies individually and according to many external factors (v. HYPNOTISM; SUGGESTION).

Among the disturbances of the will, in the broad sense, one may also include the so-called double will of hysterics: one will, clearly conscious, wants to be cured, and is worthy of belief; the other will, with no relation to the first, resists with all its might (Kretschmer). There is also talk of a will toward la malattia, come di una tendenza epitimica allo sviluppo dei sintomi, per raggiungere uno scopo più o meno cosciente (v. PSICONZUSOSI [da indennizzo]).

A problem of great importance because of its moral and juridical consequences is the one concerning the free determination of the will of the criminal; in reality it is a question of empirical fact, which cannot be judged and resolved according to conventional fixed rules. A diagnosis of psychopathy, as such, can never exclude the free determination of the will, which can be established only through the individual analysis of the fact (Rauch), an analysis that must be conducted with "esprit de finesse" and not with "esprit de géométrie," both by the judge and by the confessor.

Bruno Callieri

III. EDUCATION OF THE WILL

The subject and the good choice of means suited to the education of the will take on a quite particular importance from the fact that today people are not accustomed to speak so much of "duties," which would nonetheless constitute a constant and vigorous stimulus to the strengthening of volitional energies, as rather of "rights," of independence, of autonomy, which then generally ripen into a letting oneself be carried along by the current, a feverish search for the minimum of effort, with the fatal consequence of a more or less total passivity in enduring the clash against the unfortunately real difficulties of life and of creating persons too weak to renounce even a single one of their desires.

And the danger receives a disastrous push from the flaunting of high-sounding principles: enthusiasm for the intense life, ardor for a life lived in fullness and recklessly; when, in reality, these principles are nothing but a subtle veneer covering the lack of will, its yielding in the face of external excitements and even more so in the face of internal ones, more lively and pulsating, especially in the period of the age of development.

Instead of surrendering to one's own ego, one must acquire and preserve mastery over it in order to follow it when it tends toward the good, and to disown it when it yearns for the bad or the harmful. This is not easy, as is generally thought, but peremptorily demands effort and courage to the point of saying with V. Alfieri: "I willed, I always willed, I most strongly willed," without however following him in having himself tied to the chair so as not to yield and to escape a difficult and tedious study.

To educate the will fruitfully one must start from two observations: as a power of choice, free will carries with it the concept of indivisibility: one chooses or one does not choose; however, if one considers the circumstances that accompany the negative or positive choice, and the effort that this presupposes both because of the intrinsic difficulty of the action to be performed and because of the innate or acquired tendencies of the free agent, one observes how the choice can be more or less facilitated or made difficult, and therefore one can find an infinity of degrees both in the field of facility and in that of difficulty.

On these considerations is founded the method of the education of the will, profoundly studied and instilled in the ascetics of Christianity as well as by pedagogical psychologists.

2. Will and intelligence

Since the will always presupposes the work of the intelligence, which presents to it the motives favorable and contrary to action and weighs them and clothes them with attractiveness or repulsion, it is clear that the intelligence can strongly influence the use of free will, widening or narrowing its field. In fact one chooses only what one knows and to the extent (whether exact or erroneous) that one knows it. The child is less responsible than the adult, precisely because he has only rudimentary knowledge; besides, how many times do we ourselves make the reproach: if I had known, I would not have acted thus!

One will therefore be able to educate the will, if one accustoms the intelligence to collect itself, to consider things well and intimately, to give them their just value. This meditative reflection leads the intelligence to a gradual victory over suggestions and tendencies, to formulating and strengthening the guiding principles of conduct, forming the man who knows what he wants and is in every act conscious of the end and of the means. Nor does this favor that habitual indecision that is part of abulia; because meditative reflection must be rapid and ready. When, in fact, one says: "reflect, before acting," one does not mean that the mind should linger in doubt and postpone action, but that the mind must acquire the habit of reflection, in such a way that this rapidly concludes the synthesis of the motives that form the antecedent of the action.

2. Will, sentiments and tendencies

Whoever wishes to opt with decision and constancy for duty, it is not enough that he know it and that he see its impelling favorable motives, but he must also love it, to make converge upon it all the force of his sentiments, all the propulsive force of his tendencies and inclinations; the greater the flame thus kindled, the more energetic will the decision be. Light and heat are therefore needed; the first illuminates, the second kindles and gives wings; for this very reason one also speaks of the sentiment of duty and not only of the idea of duty. If duty is understood coldly as the imperative of an absolute and categorical maxim, one embraces it with difficulty and more easily seeks every occasion to avoid it, or at least a will already firmly constituted and exercised is required for it, and consequently an intellectual development such that it makes one feel, always and in any circumstance, even when one could get away with it, self-mastery and obedience to the universal law as human dignity; in short, a mental maturity is required. And yet duty must be practiced even before having reached such maturity or even when it is lacking; whence the necessity of resorting to the various sentiments and of leaning on the various tendencies, capable of transforming themselves into propulsive forces (e.g.: the sentiment of a healthy self-love, of a right emulation, of honor, of love toward the family, the homeland, of reward, above all of eternal reward and of supernatural happiness; the tendency to excel, the ambition to succeed, etc.).

3. Will and habit

The great law of habit has an extraordinary influence on the education of the will. One learns to will by willing; one increases the tendency to duty and the facility of fulfilling it by observing it. "Learn to will" is the most effective maxim to inculcate. One believes in the efficacy of exercise in all other fields: in school teaching, in physical education, in the study of music and of languages; but in the field of volitional energy one is unwilling to admit it, against the very positive results of experience; which is a grave error with consequences sometimes irreparable and leads to an abulic life, empty, unbearable to the subject himself, and often also to crime through the more or less total lack of control over the passions.

This treatment of the will can be direct or indirect, both of them absolutely necessary. For direct treatment the maxim, so much inculcated by Christian asceticism, holds good, that the offensive is the best defense. Whoever supinely awaits the assault of natural impulses and of evil tendencies cannot help but succumb to their impetuous and virulent force. Borders are defended with weapons at the ready: likewise the lowest self within us, that is, the self of instincts and passions, must be prepared to obey the higher and spiritual self through decisive interventions and by performing voluntary exercises that stimulate self-mastery, even in the realms of the lawful and the honorable. For example: the instinct of thirst, of food, of sweets offers many occasions for self-mastery through abstinence, and it is easy to enthuse even children for this kind of emancipation and overcoming, showing them that this victory is transformed into a higher life and greater energy, prepares them to endure worthily afterward the various vicissitudes of life, and above all increases their strength even to the point of heroism. Why not, then, parents, teachers, educators, introduce your own children and pupils into the secrets of this holy war of emancipation, and stimulate them as occasion arises to renounce a favorite food, to overcome laziness generously, to endure pain, cold and discomfort; to break off bad habits so that they may become accustomed to regard as a noble tradition of their own organism, to be kept always alive and intact, the demand that the spirit must compel the body and its desires to obedience? Likewise, the energies of the will are effectively strengthened by practicing the maintenance of order in one's own affairs, in keeping silence, in rising early, in sincerity of words, in consistency of actions, in absolute respect for the property of others, in the exact performance of ungrateful tasks or duties that others seek to avoid. Furthermore: gymnastics, sport, and games in common train one for readiness of movement, for decision and vigilance; the very rules of etiquette, if one observes them always and with amiable ease, represent a constant exercise of the most effective self-mastery.

Foerster calls attention to the fact that even among primitive peoples similar exercises of the will are considered an essential part of the preparation of adolescents for the passage into adult warrior status, after the period of puberty. Since the laws regulating relations between the two sexes are severe and complicated and therefore require great self-mastery, the young are exercised for several months in serious renunciations of every kind and in the mastery of their own desires: for example, they must content themselves with scanty and ordinary fare, keep their knife, bow and arrows with them, but not use them even if the prey is within reach; endure without showing pain various sufferings, even atrocious ones. A sign that nature itself teaches them the unimaginable tendency not to abandon the natural impulse to itself, but to prepare it in time for the observance of the moral law (cf. La educazione della v., in Pedagogia e vita, 14 [1953], pp. 337-343).

Therefore the best practice is that suggested by W. James: "Keep alive in yourselves the faculty of effort by a small harmless exercise every day; that is, be systematically heroic every day in small unnecessary things; every two or three days do something for the sole and simple reason that it is difficult and you would prefer not to do it, so that when the grim hour of danger and need strikes, it may not find you enervated and unprepared" (op. cit. in bibl., p. 180).

Naturally, in order for these exercises to produce their full effect, they must be founded on value judgments that take hold of the subject, according to age, environment, and character. And this precisely is the task of the indirect treatment of the will, which, as already mentioned, acts upon the intelligence and the feelings: to furnish the mind with clear and exact ideas, to drive from the heart every turbid and base sentiment, to cultivate healthy affections and generous and disinterested tendencies, and finally to form a high conception of our responsibility toward family, country and neighbor, reflecting that our acts follow us and leave grave traces of consequences in ourselves and in others.

In this field the Christian religion reaches the highest peaks, because it not only teaches that every act of renunciation strengthens the power of the will for the moment of trial; but those individual acts of asceticism have a quite particular value: indeed, in the supernatural order they acquire an infinite value, which is resolved into merit, into mercy and into good for those who perform them and for all humanity. From this derives the pedagogical importance of the so-called "little sacrifices."

But what of "the intense life," the "life in fullness"? Modern literature continually proclaims, under the pretext of a strengthening of personal life, an exaggerated cult of pure and simple natural individuality and the abhorrence of every renunciation, as of a diminution and an impediment to full flowering. But this is contrary to any sound pedagogy, as well as to daily experience, because it neglects the true element of personal life, which is the overcoming of natural individuality through the struggle against instincts and evil tendencies. Which is, at bottom, the warning of Jesus Christ to his disciples: "If the grain of wheat, placed in the earth, does not die, the ear does not germinate, which will gladden the table." One cannot develop what in man is truly worthy, unless one dominates and subjugates what he carries in himself that is unworthy. The two exercises: that of the centers of movement and that of the centers of inhibition, are equally necessary and of the highest importance, because only in this way does man, from the center of his nature, react to the stimulus of temptation and succeed in being master and not mastered by peripheral excitements. For this reason, when speaking of the education of the will, one cannot pass over in silence the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which, in the final analysis, do nothing but put to the test the real strength of will that has been acquired through exercise.

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