No human power can restore suppleness
to the arm which a convulsive paroxysm has stiffened, yet it does not
follow that this arm is stronger than when it was in a healthy
condition. The stiffness, far from increasing its strength, decidedly
weakens it. In like manner the will's strength does not lie in
stubborn obstinacy, but rather in that pliancy which enables it to
dispose itself as circumstances may require.
A stubborn character has nothing in common with this noble and
precious faculty of the soul. And, like all the others, this faculty
possesses two degrees of elevation; in the one it comes in direct
contact with the senses and, the external world; and in the other,
raised above all sensibility, it receives its light and movement from
on high.
The will, taken in its inferior part, is nothing else than that
appetite or blind instinct which we hold in common with the brute
creation; and by which animals are governed in their choice of some
things and their rejection of others. If the will, properly so
called, consisted in this blind instinct, man would be inferior to
the ass and the mule, whose attractions and repugnances are more
imperious than those of other animals.
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