is often confounded with talent.  “A bold woman always gets the name of clever”—­among fools—­“though her intellect may be of a humble order, and her knowledge contemptible.”  Among the vulgar, especially those of greedy, griping race and blood, the children of the thief, a robber of the widow and orphan, the scamp of the syndicate, and soulless “promoter” in South or North America, bold robbery, or Selfishness without scruple or timidity always appears as Will.  But it is not the whole of the real thing, or real will in itself.  When MUTIUS CAIUS SCAEVOLA thrust his hand into the flames no one would have greatly admired his endurance if it had been found that the hand was naturally insensible and felt no pain.  Nor would there have been any plaudits for MARCUS CURTIUS when he leapt into the gulf, had he been so drunk as not to know what he was about.  The will which depends on unscrupulousness is like the benumbed hand or intoxicated soul.  Quench conscience, as a sense of right and obligation, and you can, of course, do a great deal from which another would shrink—­and therefore be called “weak-minded” by the fools.

There is another type of person who imposes on the world and on self as being strong-minded and gifted with Will.  It is the imperturbable cool being, always self-possessed, with little sympathy for emotion.  In most cases such minds result from artificial training, and they break down in real trials.  I do not say that they cannot weather a storm or a duel, or stand fire, or get through what novelists regard as superlative stage trials; but, in a moral crisis, the gentleman or lady whose face is all Corinthian brass is apt like that brass in a fire to turn pale.  These folk get an immense amount of undeserved admiration as having Will or self-command, when they owe what staying quality they have (like the preceding class) rather to a lack of good qualities than their inspiration.

There are, alas! not a few who regard Will as simply identical with mere obstinacy, or stubbornness, the immovability of the Ass, or Bull, or Bear—­that is, they reduce it to an animal power.  But, as this often or generally amounts in animal or man to mere insensible sulkiness—­as far remote as possible from enlightened mental action, it is surely unjust to couple it with the Voluntary or pure intelligent Will, by which all must understand the very acme of active Intellect.

Therefore it follows, that the errors, mistakes, and perversions which have grown about Will in popular opinion, like those which have accumulated round Christianity, are too often mistaken for the truth.  Pure Will is, and must be by its very nature, perfectly free, for the more it is hindered, or hampered, or controlled in any way, the less is it independent volition.  Therefore, pare Will, free from all restraint can only act in, or as, Moral Law.  Acting in accordance with very mean, immoral, obstinate motives is, so to speak, obeying as a slave the devil.  The purer