necessarily also have “will.” The definition of the “will,” given commonly by the schools, that it is a “rational appetite,” is not good. For if it were, then could there be no voluntary act against reason. For a “voluntary act” is that which proceedeth from the “will,” and no other. But if instead of a rational appetite, we shall say an appetite resulting from a precedent deliberation, then the definition is the same that I have given here. Will, therefore, is the last appetite in deliberating. And though we say in common discourse, a man had a will once to do a thing, that nevertheless he forbore to do; yet that is properly but an inclination, which makes no action voluntary; because the action depends not of it, but of the last inclination or appetite. For if the intervenient appetites, make any action voluntary; then by the same reason, all intervenient aversions should make the same action involuntary; and so one and the same action should be both voluntary and involuntary.
By this it is manifest, that not only actions that have their beginning from covetousness, ambition, lust, or other appetites to the thing propounded; but also those that have their beginning from aversion, or fear of those consequences that follow the omission, are “voluntary actions.”
The forms of speech by which the passions are expressed, are partly the same, and partly different from those, by which we express our thoughts. And first, generally all passions may be expressed “indicatively”; as “I love,” “I fear,” “I joy,” “I deliberate,” “I will,” “I command”: but some of them have particular expressions by themselves, which nevertheless are not affirmations, unless it be when they serve to make other inferences, besides that of the passion they proceed from. Deliberation is expressed “subjunctively”; which is a speech proper to signify suppositions, with their consequences: as, “if this be done, then this will follow”; and differs not from the language of reasoning, save that reasoning is in general words; but deliberation for the most part is of particulars. The language of desire, and aversion, is “imperative”; as “do this,” “forbear that”;