NOTE.—The freedom with which we quote extensively from Lange is an acknowledgement of the importance of his treatise. We are indebted to it throughout for many of the ideas treated.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WILL.
We have now completed the discussion of the concept-bearing or inductive process in learning and apperception, and find that they both tend to the unifying of knowledge and to the awakening of interest.
It remains to be seen how the will may be brought into activity and placed in command of the resources of the mind.
The will is that power of the mind which chooses, decides, and controls action.
According to psychology there are three distinct activities of the mind, knowing, feeling, and willing. These three powers are related to one another on a basis of equality, and yet the will should become the monarch of the mind. It is expected that all the other activities of the mind will be brought into subjection to the will. For strong character resides in the will. Strength of character depends entirely upon the mastery which the will has acquired over the life; and the formation of character, as shown in a strong moral will, is the highest aim of education.
The great problem for us to solve is: 1. How far can teaching stimulate and develop such a will?
There is an apparent contradiction in saying that the will is the monarch of the mind, the power which must control and subject all the other powers; and yet that it can be trained, educated, moulded, and chiefly too by a proper cultivation of the other powers, feeling and knowing. Knowledge and feeling, while they are subject to the will, still constitute its strength, just as the soldiers and officers of an army are subject to a commander and yet make him powerful.
We shall first notice the dependence of the will upon the knowing faculty. It is an old saying "that knowledge is power." But it is power only as a strong will is able to convert knowledge into action. Before the will can decide to do any given act it must see its way clearly. It must at least believe in the possibility. In trying to get across a stream, for example, if one can not swim and there is no bridge nor boat nor means of making one, the will can not act. It is helpless. The will must be shown the way to its aims or they are impossible. The more clear and distinct our knowledge, the better we can lay our plans and will to carry them out. It would be impossible for one of us to will to run a steam engine from Chicago to St. Paul to-day. We don't know how, and we should not be permitted to try. In every field of action we must have knowledge, and clear knowledge, before the will can act to good advantage. It is only knowledge, or at least faith in the possibility of accomplishing an undertaking, that opens the way to will. Much successful experience in any line of work brings increasing confidence and the will is greatly strengthened, because one knows that certain actions are possible. The simple acquisition of facts therefore, the increase of knowledge so long as it is well digested, makes it possible for the will to act with greater energy in various directions. The more clear this knowledge is, the more thoroughly it is cemented, together in its parts and subject to control, the greater and more effective can be the will action. All the knowledge we may acquire can be used by the will in planning and carrying out its purposes. Knowledge, therefore, derived from all sources, is a means used by the will, and increases the possibilities of its action.