The vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical : with quotations and references for the use of students / by William Fleming ; edited by Henry Calderwood.
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical : with quotations and references for the use of students / by William Fleming ; edited by Henry Calderwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![VIRTUE— As virtue implies trial or difficulty, it cannot be predicated of God. He is holy. Kant frequently insists upon the distinction between virtue and holiness. In a holy being, the will is uniformly and without struggle in accordance with the moral law. In a virtuous being, the will is liable to the solicitations of the sensibility, in opposition or resistance to the dictates of reason. This is the only state of which man is capable in this life. But he ought to aim and aspire to the attainment of the higher or holy state, in which the will without struggle is always in accordance with reason. The Stoics thought the beau ideal of virtue, or the complete subjection of sense and appetite to reason, attainable in this life. VOLITION (volo, to will), [anexercise of will].—Volition “is an act of the mind knowingly exerting that dominion it takes itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, or withholding it from, any particular action.”—Locke, Essay, bk. ii. ch. 21, sec. 15. “ There is an error which lies under the word volition. Under that word you include both the final perception of the understanding which is passive, and also the first operation or exertion of the active faculty of self-motive power. These two you think to be necessarily connected. I think there is no connection at all between them ; and that in their not being connected lies the difference between action and passion ; which difference is the essence of liberty.”—Dr. Sam. Clarke, Second Letter to a Gentleman, p. 410. Things are sought as ends or as means. The schoolmen distinguished three acts of will, circa finem, Velleity, Intention, and Fruition. Gen. iii. 6 :—When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one vase (this is velleity) she took thereof (this is intention) and did eat (this is fruition). There are also three acts, circa media, viz., consent, approving of means—election, or choosing the most fit, and application, use, or employing of them.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2199531x_0531.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
