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.
Reason, or Common Sense.
Of the thoughts which continually pass through the mind, we find that some are attended with a feeling of the real existence of the objects of our thoughts, and others are not so attended. For example, we may think of a man with a certain form carrying a dagger and going to commit murder, and with this, a feeling that no such thing is really existing. Again, we may have this same idea attended with the conviction that it is a reality.
This feeling of the reality of the objects of our thoughts is called belief, or faith.
Our minds are so made, that we necessarily believe not only that things are really existing at the present time, but that things will occur that are not now in existence. For example, we believe the sun will rise to-morrow morning in another place nearer toward the north or south than it did the present morning. We believe the tide will rise higher or lower on a coming day than it did the present day. And thus multitudes of events are believed to be in the future.