Essays On the Formation And Publication of Opinions And On Other Subjects

dered as voluntary, and the discernment of other qualities as involuntary. We cannot alter at pleasure the appearances of objects, nor the sentiments which they occasion. If we open our eyes we must see things as they are, and receive the impressions which they are fitted to produce. Fields will appear barren or fertile, hills low or lofty, rivers wide or narrow, men and women handsome or ugly,pleasant or disagreeable. If we take up a book its language will appear to us refined or vulgar, its figures apt or inappropriate, its images beautiful or inelegant, its matter well or ill arranged, its narrative pathetic, or lively, or uninteresting; and we think not of ascribing these impressions to the will; why then, when we go a step farther, and find its arguments convincing, or doubtful, or inconclusive, should that be considered as a voluntary act ? The common error, of regarding belief as dependant on volition, may perhaps be mainly ascribed to the intimate connection subsisting between belief and the expression or declaration of it, the latter of which is at all times an act of the will. So close is this connection, and so frequently do they coincide, that the same language is often applicable to both. It is not, therefore, surprising, that they have been confounded together, and even received one common appellation, for the term assent is used to express the intimation of our concurrence with an opinion as well as the concurrence itself, our ostensible as well ...