will

will n Will, volition, conation can all refer to the power or act of making or effecting a choice or decision.

Will applies not only to this power or act but also to the complex of rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious forces within a person that is the agent of this power and to the process by which one makes his choice, resolves it into an intention, and puts that intention into effect. In all of these senses will may vary greatly in its specific meaning; it may denote a dominant desire or inclination which determines one's choice

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when he was confronted by accidental extinction, he had felt no will to resist— Cather

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or it may denote a power that derives from one's conception of what is good or right and that tests and accepts or rejects one's desires or inclinations

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appetite is the will's solicitor, and the will is appetite's controller; what we covet according to the one, by the other, we often reject— Hooker

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Will often denotes mainly the determination that is inseparable from action or the effecting of one's decisions

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in the government of self, Bismarck's will broke down from time to time, as Richelieu's never did; and, after all, the government of self is the supreme test of will— Belloc

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but it may be used when frustration or impossibility of action is suggested

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spirits disillusioned, who still pathetically preserve the will to conquer, even when life no longer presents them with anything worth winning— Binyon

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Further will may designate a subjective power, act, or process

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luxurious feeling and pathetic imagination, which make no severe call upon . . . the will— Inge

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or an objective force which must be encountered, challenged, or obeyed

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submit oneself to the will of God

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this method of consulting the popular will— [i][i]Bryce

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Volition, in contrast to will, is a comparatively simple term. In its ordinary and most sharply distinguished sense, it designates merely the act of making a choice or decision; it usually carries an implication of deliberation, but it rarely suggests struggle or determination to put one's decision or choice into effect. Therefore it may be preferred when no other implications are desirable or important

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Surrendered his authority of his own volition

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our children do not seek school of their own volition— Grandgent

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the primal necessity for the faithful is that by an act of the will,—not necessarily an emotional act, but an act of pure and definite volition,—they should associate themselves with the true and perfect sacrifice— Benson

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Conation usually implies a striving to get or achieve what is desired or willed. The term need not imply a conscious goal; it may suggest clearly directed striving or it may connote the restless aimless strivings which the mind cannot interpret or explain, but it stresses effort rather than choice

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Religion or the desire for the salvation of our souls, Art or the desire for beautification, Science or the search for the reasons of things—these conations of the mind . . . are really three aspects of the same profound impulse— Ellis

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Analogous words: *intention, intent, purpose, design: *choice, election, preference: character, *disposition, temper, temperament

will vb Will, bequeath, devise, leave, legate all mean to give a part or the whole of one's possessions to another by one's last will and testament.

Will implies the provision or the existence of a legal instrument (a will) disposing of one's property after one's death

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he has willed that his property be divided among his wife and children

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he willed his money to various charities

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Bequeath is much used in wills by the testator

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I bequeath all my property to my wife

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and is frequent in legal, historical, and literary use; it may imply nothing more than a proved intention (as by a will or a definite oral or written statement)

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William had bequeathed Normandy to his eldest son, Robert— J. R. Green

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In legal use bequeath is commonly distinguished from devise, the one implying a gift of personalty, the other a gift of realty

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every article she possessed . . . , every pot and pan, every garment, is separately bequeathed as an affectionate remembrance— Ellis

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I had never imagined rings as things one bought for oneself .... They were things given, or bequeathed by grandaunts— Repplier

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was the son of a white man by one of his slaves, and his father executed certain instruments to manumit him, and devised to him some landed property— Taney

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Leave is the common and ordinary unspecific term for any of the preceding terms

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he left a legacy to his nephew

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he left his land, money, books, pictures to Harvard University

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Legate is not manifestly different from bequeath except that it invariably implies a formal will

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the oval inlaid table I legate to . . . .— Law Reports, House of Lords

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