6. FREEDOM OF THE WILL, OR THE EXTENT OF ITS CONTROL
We have seen in this discussion that will is a mode of control—control of our thoughts and, through our thoughts, of our actions. Will may be looked upon, then, as the culmination of the mental life, the highest form of directive agent within us. Beginning with the direction of the simplest movements, it goes on until it governs the current of our life in the pursuit of some distant ideal.
Limitations of the Will.—Just how far the will can go in its control, just how far man is a free moral agent, has long been one of the mooted questions among the philosophers. But some few facts are clear. If the will can exercise full control over all our acts, it by this very fact determines our character; and character spells destiny. There is not the least doubt, however, that the will in thus directing us in the achievement of a destiny works under two limitations: First, every individual enters upon life with a large stock of inherited tendencies, which go far to shape his interests and aspirations. And these are important factors in the work of volition. Second, we all have our setting in the midst of a great material and social environment, which is largely beyond our power to modify, and whose influences are constantly playing upon us and molding us according to their type.
These Limitations the Conditions of Freedom.—Yet there is nothing in this thought to discourage us. For these very limitations have in them our hope of a larger freedom. Man's heredity, coming to him through ages of conflict with the forces of nature, with his brother man, and with himself, has deeply instilled in him the spirit of independence and self-control. It has trained him to deliberate, to choose, to achieve. It has developed in him the power to will. Likewise man's environment, in which he must live and work, furnishes the problems which his life work is to solve, and out of whose solution will receives its only true development.
It is through the action and interaction of these two factors, then, that man is to work out his destiny. What he is, coupled with what he may do, leads him to what he may become. Every man possesses in some degree a spark of divinity, a sovereign individuality, a power of independent initiative. This is all he needs to make him free—free to do his best in whatever walk of life he finds himself. If he will but do this, the doing of it will lead him into a constantly growing freedom, and he can voice the cry of every earnest heart:
