Progress and Achievements of the Colored People / Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success

by Kelly Miller; Joseph R. Gay

WILL DISTINGUISHED FROM CONSCIENCE

We have within us that controlling element or power known as the will which should be distinguished from mere impulse, and which gives us the ability of passing upon and determining suggestions made to our mind and of allowing or disapproving the thought or possible impulse which gives them use. Will is distinguished from conscience in that it marks the determination and lends the force which makes conscience potent, drawing us nearer to the perfection which self-denial and self-control create and, let us hope, to the end—

“That God which ever lives and loves,

One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves.”

“The great end of training,” says a great writer, “is liberty; and the sooner you can get a child to be a law unto himself, the sooner you will make a man of him. I will respect human liberty in the smallest child even more scrupulously than in a grown man; for the latter can defend it against me, while the child cannot. Never will I insult the child so far as to regard him as material to be cast into a mold, to emerge with the stamp given by my will.”