The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-02-11

made up of number of faculties" Of these the
will was one. It was supposed that this will fac
rlty was thing completed at birth and that any
one human being was free to use his will as
any other human being Acting on this assump-
ton, it was supposed that any person found in
crime or degradation had freely and consciously
chosen that lot. Old writer's compared the will
with the rudder of ship and taught that by de-
claring himself free, man could make himself
free and that any could cut loose from his
weakness merely by deciding to do
This old theory of faculties has now been cast
into the scientific limbo We no longer think of
the will as thing perfectly adjusted and COM
pleted at birth but as merely that name which we
give to the activities of the self as they move
| forward. Each person is filled with desires, i'm
aginations, feelings, wants, resolves, dreams,
hunger etc., etc.; these always pulling ahead,
struggling on and it is just this struggling for
ward of all these movements within us that
makes up the will; perhaps we should say the
law material of which will can be fashioned.
When all these conflicting impulses are brought
under central control and direction and are
made to obey orders like team of trained horses,
the will is said to be educated.
1t will be clearly seen from this that twill
power is no magic faculty in us which, by kind
of presto change" we are able to exert and to
throw our life into heaven or into hell by single
act. On the contrary, the will develops gradual
lily by process of growth When mans inter-
or world is an orderly and civilized world, he is
said to have will power but when it is an anarch-
list kind of Mexican world and the man is the vic
tim of his impulses and caprices, he has no will
in the proper sense but only the raw materials
thereof.
The science of psychology which deals with
such things has message of cheer for the man
who finds his inner self in so demoraized con-
dition because psychology teaches how we
may educate our will.
One means of this is to cultivate the habit OF
attention. When a give attention to any
important thing for definite time, he has built
into his mind solid foundation about which all
his impulses can centralize.
1t is a second law in the education of the will
that man must carry his thoughts into action.
Will power, and without will power man is only
| a shadow, can never be achieved through mental
resolutions only. Many men are heroes to their
own imagination because they make many great
resolves. Deceiving ones self by these shadows
of heroic resolution is a form of dissipation Of
which many very amiable persons guilty.
| Another essential to the education of the
will is the development OF a sound body. The
greatest authority this phase of the question
is G. Stanley Hall. Note his vigorous language.
Few realize how impossible healthful energy of
will is without strong muscles which are it's Or
gan or how endurance or self-control, no less
than great achievement, depend on muscle
habits Sickness is next door to sin and those
areas in society in which most illness is develop
ed are always found to be the breeding places of
crime.
| All ambitions toward a virtuous and right
eous life are impossible unless the will is de-
veloped It is just the organization and discip-
| lining of ones impulses and volitions and the
bringing of them under the governance of our
ideals that makes virtue; and, as Professor H.
Churchill King writes, "Will weakening indul-
gences therefore, cheaper the worth of life at all
points,"
| There is higher vocation in life than the
complete fashoning and education of the will.
When one has developed that power which is, as
Lecky describes it, "The power Of breastng the
current of the desires and doing for long periods
what is distastefu and painful" and which is al
so the organization and disciplining of our i'm
pulses and the bringing of all our activities un-
der central CONTROL he is able to walk among
men as man.
II A TURKISH LEGEND