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Analysis.

CHAPTER VIII.

VOLITION.

Volition deals with the will. Paraphrasing, objective, stating reasons; subjective, intensifying feeling. Volitional intent is made to appear by translating into grammatical imperative. Abrupt volition expresses arrest, didactic purpose, the decisive, impulsive, surprised, impatient. Quick impulse in gesture and in voice. Insistent volition expresses domination, settled determination, authority. Cumulative force in gesture and in tone. Uplifting volition gives stimulus; types, encouragement, adoration, admiration, exultation. Stretch or swell in gesture and in tone. Mixed types of volition: Establishment, giving dignity and weight, especially suitable in religious. oratory, evenly sustained power in action and in voice; Violence, perturbation, expressed by double impulse or shock in gesture, and by compound stress in voice. Spirit and method in the study of Volitionality.

The will of the speaker, in volitional utterance, bears upon the will of the listener, the object being to secure a certain attitude or action of will in the person addressed.

Subjectively, then, volition as a mood of utterance is the speaker's purpose to demand attention, to enforce his ideas, and to produce conviction. Objectively, it is the property in the utterance which expresses this purpose.

The Volitional Paraphrase. As in Emotion, we may here employ both the objective and the subjective method:

1. Stating circumstances, facts, and considerations which shall show the reasons for the particular form of energy employed, and which will be chiefly objective; and,

2. Interlining and interwording such amplifying phrases, clauses, or sentences as shall serve to express more fully the degree of intensity and the particular form which the energy takes, as abruptness, insistence, uplift, establishment, or violence. This latter will be more subjective in its nature.

As a rule, it will be better to make the objective first; or at least to allow the objective element to lead in the paraphrase. This method, which presents prominently the reasons for the action of the will before stimulating the passional element, will tend to rationalize the volition.

In any case, it is understood that the expansion is, ultimately, only mental. Energy requires conciseness in verbal expression more than do the other moods; but in proportion to the condensation in the phraseology must be the expansion in the thinking and feeling which prompt the expression of energy:

Many strongly energetic passages are in declarative or interrogative form.

Translate them into formal imperatives in order to test their volitionality. If the real intent of the speaker is to move the will, the imperative form will more fully reveal that inner purpose.

Observe this in the following self-contained but pregnantly energetic expressions of Cæsar:

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Any one of these brief expressions might be so expanded as to show many thoughts back in the mind of Cæsar, and many movements of his volition, which the brief words powerfully imply. To expand his short, terse expressions so as to reveal the thoughts that prompt them, the feelings that color them, and the volitional state which intensifies them this would be to make an objective energetic paraphrase upon them. Let us attempt it. Take the first expression: "What touches us ourself shall be last served:"

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Shall the great Cæsar, who has sought the interests of Rome more than his own; shall he who has carried its arms and conquests into Britain and the East, regardless ever of his personal convenience, comfort, or safety, shall he now, while public business waits him at the Senate, stop to consider matters of merely personal character? Know that Cæsar is not such a man. Do not impose such hindrances between me and the business waiting for me. Do not annoy me! leave!

Observe the second utterance: "Cæsar did never wrong," etc. We might naturally interline some such

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Search my record. You will find that no been ill-treated by me. Understand, I fear not to meet all my public acts. I am confident in the sense of justice. You can neither intimidate nor soften me by any implications of injustice or of tyranny. Know, then, that nothing shall content me but sufficient evidence. The evidence is not at hand. Then cease to press me; you can never move me; I bid you withdraw.

Look a moment at the third: "Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?"

If there be any man in Rome who could move me by supplication, it were the noble Brutus; but see, he kneels, and I spurn even him as I would an impudent child. Think not, then, that any other need approach me.

I. ABRUPT VOLITION.

Arrest is here the generic idea. It applies to any kind of utterance that is designed to startle, rouse, or incite by giving something of shock, of unexpected impact of will upon will. It is either the lightest or the most impulsive form of volitional action. Some varieties are:

1. Didactic Impulse.

This is the mere promptness or animation that accompanies forcible explanation, arousing the mind to attend to facts or truths presented. In this form we have the weakest perceptible action of the will, and that which is nearest to mere deliberation. The abruptness of mere animation or of didactic utterance is naturally associated with normal feeling in the type of cheer, or pleasure of communication, and employs, therefore, a simple pure tone. In order to be energetic, in this technical sense, there must be traceable a purpose to move the will. For example:

"Stand you directly in Antonius' way

When he doth run his course."

Such purpose is not always clearly indicated in the phraseology; as,

"This is the way, walk ye in it.”

This sentence may have for its prevailing purpose an explanation of the way, or it may express a discrimination between this way and some other, or it might even hint at emotion; but even though one of these should be the prevailing purpose, there may be mingled with that the design to move upon the will. This constitutes volition in the utterance.

2. Prompt Decision.

This may be accompanied by normal feeling, or by some degree of sternness or harshness.

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"I'll watch to-night: perchance 'twill walk again.”

3. Arbitrary or Impulsive Command; prompted almost necessarily by some degree of harshness or severity.

Examples.

"Down, slave, upon your knees and beg for mercy!"
"Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call."

"Off with my boots, you rogues! You villains, when ?"

4. Volition prompted by Surprise.

The energy accompanying surprise may have an emotional background of gladness, of suppression, of intensity, or of harshness; and the quality of the voice will be decided accordingly.

Examples.

"Yet here, Laertes, aboard! aboard! for shame!"

Could anything be a subject of more just alarm to America, than to see you go out of the plain high-road of finance, and give up your most certain revenues and your clearest interests, merely for the sake of insulting your Colonies? — BURke.

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