is the child--or the grown person--who apparently without any effort
balances the reasons that may be given on the opposite sides of a
problem, and makes his choice solely on the strength of the reasoned
argument. Herbert Spencer tells in his Autobiography how, when a
young man, he wrote down, as in a ledger, all the advantages and all
the disadvantages he could think of in regard to the married state.
After checking off the items on the two sides of the account, he
found a balance in favor of remaining single. Later in life he had
his doubts as to whether the decision was a wise one, but it was the
best he could make under the circumstances, for he made use of all
the knowledge at his command and stood by his reasoned decision.

At the opposite extreme is the person who resolves to do what is
right (although he may have no systematic means of discovering what
is right), and carries out his resolution at the cost of frequently
painful effort. To such persons there is a kind of association
between what is easy and what is wrong on the one hand, and between
what is difficult and what is right on the other. Our early Puritans
were men of this type, and there is much to admire in the sturdiness
with which they crushed their impulses in the resolve to carry out
their ideals of the right.

Almost complete lack of will is shown by those who reach their
decisions--by not reaching them. That is, there are those doubting,
hesitating souls who postpone making a decision until action is
forced upon them by some accidental event. These let other persons
or the course of events make their decisions for them. There is such
a delicate balancing of the desires--usually because all desires are
equally weak--that none stands out to dominate the choice of a line
of action. George wanted to go to the circus, and had saved enough