qualities than their inspiration.

There are, alas! not a few who regard _Will_ as simply identical with
mere obstinacy, or stubbornness, the immovability of the Ass, or Bull,
or Bear--that is, they reduce it to an animal power. But, as this
often or generally amounts in animal or man to mere insensible
sulkiness--as far remote as possible from enlightened mental action,
it is surely unjust to couple it with the _Voluntary_ or pure
intelligent _Will_, by which all must understand the very acme of
active Intellect.

Therefore it follows, that the errors, mistakes, and perversions which
have grown about Will in popular opinion, like those which have
accumulated round Christianity, are too often mistaken for the truth.
Pure Will is, and must be by its very nature, perfectly _free_, for
the more it is hindered, or hampered, or controlled in any way, the
less is it independent volition. Therefore, pare Will, free from all
restraint can only act in, or as, Moral Law. Acting in accordance with
very mean, immoral, obstinate motives is, so to speak, obeying as a
slave the devil. The purer the motive the purer the Will, and in very
truth the purer the stronger, or firmer. Every man has his own idea of
Will according to his morality--even as it is said that every man's
conception of God is himself infinitely magnified--or, as SYDNEY SMITH
declared, that a certain small clergyman believed that Saint Paul was
five feet two inches in height, and wore a shovel-hat. And here we may
note that if the fundamental definition of a gentleman be "a man of
perfect integrity," or one who always does simply _what is right_, he
is also one who possesses Will in its integrity.

Therefore it follows that if the pure will, which is the basis of all