This caution of being careful not to
be misled by expressions that do not enough keep up the difference
between the will and several acts of the mind that are quite
distinct from it, I think the more necessary, because I find the
will often confounded with several of the affections, especially
desire, and one put for the other; and that by men who would not
willingly be thought not to have had very distinct notions of
things, and not to have writ very clearly about them. This, I imagine,
has been no small occasion of obscurity and mistake in this matter;
and therefore is, as much as may be, to be avoided. For he that
shall turn his thoughts inwards upon what passes in his mind when he
wills, shall see that the will or power of volition is conversant
about nothing but our own actions; terminates there; and reaches no
further; and that volition is nothing but that particular
determination of the mind, whereby, barely by a thought the mind
endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stop, to any action which it
takes to be in its power. This, well considered, plainly shows that
the will is perfectly distinguished from desire; which, in the very
same action, may have a quite contrary tendency from that which our
will sets us upon. A man, whom I cannot deny, may oblige me to use
persuasions to another, which, at the same time I am speaking, I may
wish may not prevail on him.
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