Читать книгу An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible - Catharine Esther Beecher - Страница 54

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The power of choosing, or willing, is called the will. It is also called the power of volition.

When several desires coexist, some of which must necessarily be denied in order to gratify others, we ordinarily choose that object which excites the strongest desire, as measured by our consciousness.

But it is often the case that we feel the strongest desire for that which is not best for us. Thus, when sick we have tempting fruit and nauseous medicine before us, with power to choose either. Our intellect decides that the medicine is best for us, but our strongest desire is for the fruit.

In such a case we have power to choose either that which excites the strongest desire or that which the intellect decides to be best, even when it does not excite the strongest desire.

This power is the chief feature of a rational mind in distinction from an irrational mind.

And the belief that we have this power is to be [pg 057] placed as one of the principles of common sense, because all men talk and act as if they believe they possess this power. And if any person were to talk and act as if he did not believe that he had power to choose in either of these two ways, he would be regarded as having lost his reason.