Chapter VII
Truth, Freedom, and Evil live forever? For this reason you need not hesitate to assert that the powerlessness to keep uprightness (which you say is present in our will when we yield to temptations ) is not the consequence of impossible, but only of difficult circumstances.
It is customary to say that we cannot do something because to do it is difficult, not impossible, for us. And no difficulty destroys the freedom of the will; for although an alien force can attack the will without the will's consent, it cannot overcome the will without its consent. In this way, then, I think you are able to see how the power of the will (which our rational argument ascribes to it) and the powerlessness of the will (which our human nature feels) are consistent with each other. For just as no difficult circumstance ever destroys the freedom of the will, so the powerlessness, which we say is in the will only because it is difficult for the will to keep its own uprightness, does not remove from the will its ability to persevere.
Chapter VII Ho\y the will is stronger than temptation, even when it is overcome by temptation.
S. Although I can't deny what you assert, I still can't agree that the will is stronger than temptation when it is overcome by it. For if the will for keeping uprightness were stronger than the force of temptation, then whenever temptation urged the will to desert its own uprightness, the will would resist the insistence of temptation by willing its uprightness still more strongly. For how can I know that I have a stronger or weaker will except that I will more or less strongly? Therefore, when
I will what I ought to do less strongly than a temptation urges me to do what I should not, I don't see why the temptation is not stronger than my will.
T. As I see it, an equivocal sense of the word "will** is deceiving you.
Tell me what it is.
T. There is the same equivocal sense in the word "will" as there is in the word "sight." In one sense, "sight" means the instrument for seeing, i.e., the ray which passes through the eyes
On Freedom of Choice
by means of which we sense light and the objects in the hght.'^ In another sense, "sight" means the actual using of this instrument, i.e., actually seeing.
In the same way, "will" means the instrument for willing which is in the soul, and which we direct towards willing this or that particular thing (just as we direct our sight in order to see various objects). And another sense of the word "will" signifies the actual using of the instrument for willing, just as "sight" is called the using of "sight," or the using of the instrument for seeing. Therefore, we can have sight in the sense of "the instrument for seeing" even when we are not seeing anything; but we cannot have sight in the sense of "the actual using of the instrument" unless we are seeing something. In the same way, the will as "the instrument for willing" is always in the soul, even when it is not willing anything (for example, we have it when we are sleeping). But we only have will in the sense of "the actual using of the instrument" when we are willing something.
The will which we call "the instrument for willing" is always one and the same regardless of what we are willing; but the will which is "the actual using of the instrument" is as multiple as the number of objects that we will and the number of occasions on which we will. We can make the same distinction in the case of sight: for the sight which we have when our eyes are closed, or when we are in the dark, is always the same whether we are actually seeing anything or not; but the sight which is the using of the instrument of sight, and which we call "seeing," is as numerous as the objects we see and the occasions on which we see them.
I see this clearly, and such a distinction with respect to the word "will" appeals to me. Now I seem to see the error which I suffered because of my ignorance. But let's continue with your argument.
All right. Since you now see that there are two wills—the instrument for willing and its activity of willing—in which of these do you think the strength of the will resides?
In the will which is the instrument for willing.
T. Good. Now suppose you know a man so strong that when he is holding a wild bull, the bull cannot get away. What if you 5 Compare the discussion on the two truths of signification, DV, Ch.