the preponderant passion or idea, or group of passions and ideas; and
the contest lies between one passion or group and another. Hence, in
right character there is no struggle at all, for the virtuous
inclinations naturally and easily direct our will and actions; virtue is
then independent of struggle; and the circumstance of our finding
pleasure in this or that practice, is no reason why both the practice
and the pleasure should not be unimpeachably virtuous.

It is easy to see the connection between this theory of the dependence
of the will, and the prominence which Vauvenargues is ever giving to the
passions. These are the key to the movements of the will. To direct and
shape the latter, you must educate the former. It was for his perception
of this truth, we may notice in passing, that Comte awarded to
Vauvenargues a place in the Positivist Calendar; 'for his direct effort,
in spite of the universal desuetude into which it had fallen, to
reorganise the culture of the heart according to a better knowledge of
human nature, of which this noble thinker discerned the centre to be
affective.'[44]

This theory of the will, however, was not allowed to rest here; the
activity of man was connected with the universal order. 'What prevents
the mind from perceiving the motive of its actions, is only their
infinite quickness. Our thoughts perish at the moment in which their
effects make themselves known; when the action commences, the principle
has vanished; the will appears, the feeling is gone; we cannot find it
ourselves, and so doubt if we ever had it. But it would be an enormous
defect to have a will without a principle; our actions would be all
haphazard; the world would be nothing but caprice; all order would be
overturned. It is not enough, then, to admit it to be true that it is
reflection or sentiment that leads us: we must add further that it would