"Free will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the rear-rank men, whose main idea is that to desert one's post is base. A want of orderly arrangement, on the contrary, leads to confusion worse confounded at every narrow road, at every passage of a river; and when it comes to fighting, no one of his own free will assigns himself his proper post ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... Jurieu's hard Calvinistic divinity, which lay upon the table beside her. Her spectacles reposed upon the open page, where she had laid them down while she meditated, as was her custom, upon knotty points of doctrine, touching free will, necessity, and election by grace; regarding works as a garment of filthy rags, in which publicans and sinners who trusted in them were damned, while in practice the good soul was as earnest in performing them as if she believed her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... men make to describe their own dreams and fancies. Who would go about to rob any one of such a thing as that? It is a prize that only a fool would think of taking. Besides, the young man parted with it of his own free will. He bargained with me cleverly. I promised him wealth and pleasure and fame. What did he give in return? An empty name, which was ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... our own experience. For if we reflect on our past life, is it not a wonder that we thought, desired, did and said that which we were not able to foresee? How far different our course would have been, had we been left to our own free will! Now only do we understand it, and see how constantly God's present care and providence were over us, so that we could neither think nor speak nor will anything except as He gave us leave. As it is said in Wisdom vii, "In His hands are both we and our words"; ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... sometimes it is always the same man, sometimes it is one of twenty different men. And so, James is steadily losing the power of looking life in the face, and of judging for himself whether or not to take the advice of others from a rational principle, and of his own free will, and he is gradually becoming a parasite,—an animal which finally loses all its organs from lack of use, so that only its stomach remains,—and has, of course, no intelligence at all. The examples ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... democratic form, and it is a fundamental principle with it, rather to risk all the confusion of anarchy, than to destroy the independence and privileges of its individual constituents,—place, verse, characters, even single thoughts, conceits, and allusions, each turning on the pivot of its own free will. ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... the two said nothing at all, as far as he could hear. Now I want the names of both those boys. If they own up to me to-night, I shall most certainly deal very severely with one at least of them. If they do not come to me of their own free will, I may be forced to ask the officer to come down and identify the boys, in which case both will from that instant cease to ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... fearfully up and down the street. No Jew was in sight. He slipped hastily through the door. From that moment Uriel played his portly brother like a chess-piece, which should make complicated moves and think it made them of its own free will. Gradually, by secret conversations, daily renewed, Joseph, fired with enthusiasm and visions of the glory that would redound upon him in the community—for he was now a candidate for the dignity of treasurer—won ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Rose: hand in hand we will go through peril and suspense. Embrace the hope which I offer you: I will bring it to pass. Let nothing astonish you: all that is happening between us to-day is natural. You will go hence because it is right that you should go; and you will go of your own free will. It is not so much my heart which will bring you comfort; it is rather your heart which will open. I shall find in you all the good that you will ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... that they were entirely mistaken, for a few days before they had been wrangling with the Tegeans for the honour of being posted on the left wing, and had been delighted when they obtained it; but now, when the Lacedaemonians of their own free will yielded the right wing to them, and in some sort offered them the post of honour in the whole army, they were not delighted at it, and did not consider what an advantage it was to have to fight against foreign barbarians, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... attend the status of slavery, must depend upon the municipal law which creates and upholds it."[311] A comparative study of the legislation of all the slave States with regard to the Negro both as slave and free will very clearly reveal the effect of these varying conditions in the several States concerned.[312] Nothing is more necessary to a calm and unprejudiced study of the institution of slavery than the realization ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... will of the "father of the household" (-pater familias-). In relation to him all in the household were destitute of legal rights—the wife and the child no less than the bullock or the slave. As the virgin became by the free choice of her husband his wedded wife, so it rested with his own free will to rear or not to rear the child which she bore to him. This maxim was not suggested by indifference to the possession of a family; on the contrary, the conviction that the founding of a house and the begetting of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... a passage expounding the doctrine of free will: "He who doth right doth it to the advantage of his own soul; and he who doth evil, doth it against the same; for thy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... wished me for her son-in-law; but the mother got power over me, and when I refused to wed her daughter she made me take the form of a bear by day, and I was to continue so till a lady would marry me of her own free will, and endure five ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... of Birmingham, Dr. Ullathorn, went beyond his master in boasting, and uttered the following blasphemous address:—"The people of England, who for many years had been separated from the see of Rome, were about, of their own free will, to be added to the Holy Church. He did not recollect any people on earth, but those of Great Britain, who, having rejected the religion of God, were again restored to the bosom of the Church. The hierarchy was restored, the grave was opened, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Lucifer, represented by the raven, escaped from the ark through the window of free will; then God, to whom Mary had belonged from all eternity, opened the window of the Will of His Providence, and from His own bosom, from the heavenly Ark, He sent the original dove on the earth where she gathered a spray of the olive of His ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Of her own free will she laid her hand upon his. He fancied that behind her veil the tears had gathered ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... practically acknowledges his guilt," said the sheriff. "In any case, I should be compelled as an officer to arrest him, since the papers were placed in my hands. Still I think if he were to turn State's evidence—that is, to tell of his own free will all the facts connected with the affair—the court would probably deal more leniently ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... to force a man's feelings in such a matter. Get him to persuade himself. Let him return of his own free will or not at all. Now my plan, if it works ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... in front of the Samana, with a concentrated soul, he captured the old man's glance with his glances, deprived him of his power, made him mute, took away his free will, subdued him under his own will, commanded him, to do silently, whatever he demanded him to do. The old man became mute, his eyes became motionless, his will was paralysed, his arms were hanging down; without power, he had fallen victim to Siddhartha's spell. But Siddhartha's ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... for being so. He passed some scathing comments on the contumacy and narrow-mindedness of the sect who had the misfortune to be his opponents; and after that he proceeded to say a few words about Free Will and Predestination. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Dr Robson," cried the landlady sturdily. "Don't you know that the poor fellows over yonder never get good honest shillings given to them and are enlisted of their own free will like our lads at home, but they are dragged away and are obliged to fight; and it was all owing to the angry jealousy and covetousness of that dreadful man, Bony, who has been the cause of ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... used for general business about the camp was brought up, and Somers was sent forward in charge of two soldiers, who were especially ordered to shoot him if he attempted to escape; which they would probably have done of their own free will and accord, without any orders. The captive looked in vain for an opportunity to elude the vigilance of the guard; they hardly took their eyes off him during the ride. Possibly they thought the young fellow was President Lincoln in disguise, and that the salvation of the Southern Confederacy ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... of faith can no man give himself, nor yet any man to another. But though men may with preaching be ministers unto God therein; and though a man can, with his own free will, obeying freely the inward inspiration of God, be a weak worker with almighty God therein; yet is the faith indeed the gracious gift of God himself. For, as St. James saith, "Every good gift and every perfect ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... say that you have, Don John; more than that, I don't believe you have; but if you answer any question of mine, you must do it of your own free will and accord." ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... right. That is what he means when he says that we are to be led by the Spirit, instead of being under the law. It is better to be afraid of the law than to do wrong: but it is best of all to do right from the Spirit, and of our own free will. ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... fusion here of apparent antagonisms, the harmonising of apparent opposites, is the intensely practical character of the purpose for which they are adduced at all. Paul has no idea of giving his disciples a lesson in abstract theology, or laying for them a foundation of a philosophy of free will and divine sovereignty; he is not merely communicating to these Philippians truths for their creed, but precepts for their deeds. The Bible knows nothing of an unpractical theology, but, on the other ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the Cossacks, whose pretence of conquering new realms and collecting tribute for the Czar was only another excuse for the same plunder in gathering sea-otter as their predecessors had practised in hunting the sable. Landsmen among Siberian exiles were enlisted as crew of their own free will at first, but afterward, when the horrors of wreck and scurvy and massacre became known, both exiles and Indians were impressed by force as fur hunters for the Cossacks. If the voyage were successful, half the ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... that all authority resides in the Emperor is also enforced by recent history. For the constitution was not wrung from an unwilling ruler by an ambitious people, but was conferred by the Emperor of his own free will, under the advice of ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... did anything to save the people, F—— O'B——. He asked no rent for two years, and he never afterwards insisted on the rent of those two years; although I must say he was paid it by many of his tenants, of their own free will; but, for the rest, he cancelled those two years' rent and opened a new account with them, as with men owing him nothing." And what, I further asked, were the feelings of the landlords with regard to their tenants dying of starvation? He answered with solemn emphasis—"DELIGHTED ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... That candy was a bait, a trap, a lure, a—anything you choose; and I do hope the little fellers are safer'n I fear they be. If I catch 'em again, for their good——My suz! Here they're comin' back of their own free will and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... "this whole discourse seems to have grown out of the subject of Necessity and Free Will. Now, when a boy, I recollect hearing a sage say, that ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... of vital importance in this new psychology that we hardly know where to begin. As I am addressing those who are primarily interested for the moment in criminology, I may do well to begin with the subject of psychic determinism. In contrast to the common sentiment of all people in favor of free will in mental processes, the facts elicited by psychoanalysis point to a strict determinism of every psychic process. Psychoanalytic investigations have shown that in mental phenomena there is nothing little, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... symphonies, so that I shall not go to the devil after all if only my wife will keep calm. So let us leave the Grand Duchess alone; I can and will not ask her for anything even in the most indirect manner. If she made me an offer of her own free will, it would touch and delight me, all the more coming from a princess, but this possibility, even if it never should happen, I must not turn into an impossibility by asking her for a proof of her kindness. Away with all business transactions ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... every thing that may be predicated of this principle. She is persistent, obstinate, acts from no idea, but often uses a superficial reasoning, and refers to Fate, with which she upbraids Jupiter. Jupiter is the intellectual power or Free Will, and by their union, or rather from their antagonism, the course of things proceeds with perpetual vicissitude, but with ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... said, "I have offered you in marriage to Beric. He has accepted, saving only that you must come to him not in obedience to my orders but of your own free will, since it is the custom of his country that both parties should be equally free of choice. What do you ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... attacked both for his pantheism and fatalism and for having borrowed from Bolingbroke. It is curious enough that it was precisely these doctrines which he did not borrow. Bolingbroke, like most feeble reasoners, believed firmly in Free Will; and though a theist after a fashion, his religion had not emotional depth or logical coherence enough to be pantheistic. Pope, doubtless, did not here quit his master's guidance from any superiority ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... said to her: 'Thank God; now,' says I, 'you'll be a married woman again.' But says she: 'I'm not going to live with him.' 'Why, isn't he your husband?' said I. 'Is it an easy thing?... I never loved him and I married him not of my own free will. My mother made me.' 'Don't try to get out of it, silly,' said I, 'but tell me this: were you married to him in church or not?' 'I was married,' she said, 'but it's you that I love, and I will stay with you to the day of my death. Folks may jeer. I don't care....' ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... what likeness, what gifts thou shalt choose may be thine to have and to possess. The nature allotted to all other creatures, within laws appointed by ourselves, restrains them. Thou, restrained by no narrow bounds, according to thy own free will, in whose power we have placed thee, shalt define thy nature for thyself. We have set thee midmost the world, that thence thou mightest more conveniently survey whatsoever is in the world. Nor have we ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... Immanent Will, or whatever it was that governed humanity. As she spoke she looked at the man she had called Bobbie, who was Sir Robert Syng, private secretary to a prominent minister, and when she stopped speaking he said he had never been able to believe in free will, though he always behaved as if he ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... more credited in our times because of the great changes in affairs which have been seen, and may still be seen, every day, beyond all human conjecture. Sometimes pondering over this, I am in some degree inclined to their opinion. Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions,(*) but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... experience of ruined walls: and though he would draw ancient shipping (for an imitation of Vandevelde, or a vignette to the voyage of Columbus) from such data as he could get about things which he could no more see with his own eyes, yet when, of his own free will, in the subject of Ilfracombe, he, in the year 1818, introduces a shipwreck, I am perfectly certain that, before the year 1818, he had seen a shipwreck, and, moreover, one of that horrible kind—a ship dashed to pieces in deep ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... do," he said; "yet it seems most foolish, for the Mahars will most certainly condemn you to death for running away, and so you will be accomplishing nothing for your friends by returning. Never in all my life have I heard of a prisoner returning to the Mahars of his own free will. There are but few who escape them, though some do, and these would ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... passive German people: just as Napoleonic militarism was not crushed at Waterloo and revived in 1849, because Napoleon still retained the allegiance of the French people. It is inconceivable that the German reactionaries will abdicate of their own free will. It is equally inconceivable that the reaction will develop slowly and gradually into a free democratic government, as von Bethmann-Hollweg would make us believe in the historic speech of February 27. No doubt this war has hastened ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... requirements, and deal with it accordingly. Great Britain's present proposition has never thus far been regarded as admissible by Venezuela, though any adjustment of the boundary which that country may deem for her advantage and may enter into of her own free will can not of course be objected to by the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... in manly fashion with that public mind. He evinced his love of the people not so much by honeyed phrases as by good counsels and useful service, vera pro gratis. He showed how he appreciated them by submitting sound arguments to their understandings, and right motives to their free will. He came before them, less with flattery than with instruction; less with a vocabulary larded with the words humanity and philanthropy, and progress and brotherhood, than with a scheme of politics, an educational, ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... after these events, announced that "the worshipful the Commissioners of the Customs, having of their own free will retreated in June to the Castle, designed to make their re-entrance to the metropolis, so that the town would be again blessed with the fruits of the benevolence of the Board, as well as an example of true politeness and breeding"; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... you to do anything because I told you. I won't make that mistake again. Go and do what you are able to do of your own free will. You know what you ought to do as well as I do; and you know a great deal ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... other way?" persisted Musard. "He is mad. He must have been possessed. You heard his story; his hallucinations were those of an insane person. He had some justification. He would never have committed this terrible deed of his own free will." ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... on the islands; and the second quarter gave her men their chance of danger in the Crimea. They were not strangers in the Russian Chersoneus; their fathers had been in southern seas centuries before them. During the last fifty years they have made danger zones of their own free will, quarreling with coast guards, tampering with smugglers, wandering off with would-be discoverers of the North Pole, or with any ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... been prepared for me ... I will entice them that they may devour me promptly." [58:1] "Though I desire to suffer, yet I know not whether I am worthy." [58:2] "I delivered myself over to death." [58:3] "I bid all men know that of my own free will I die for God." [58:4] The Church, instructed by Polycarp, condemns this insane ambition for martyrdom. "We praise not those," say the Smyrnaeans, "who deliver themselves up, since the gospel does not so teach us." [58:5] In these letters Ignatius speaks as a vain babbler, drunken with ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... replied Raffles, in a tone like thin ice. "We are only at the point we should have reached the moment I arrived at your house last night; you have now done under compulsion what you had agreed to do of your own free will then." ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... request, then grant it or refuse it as you will; but if you refuse it, it will not bind us closer. The lad rides to-night to take ship for Spain to seek that man who murdered his mother. He goes of his own free will because after the doing of the deed it was he who unwittingly suffered the murderer to escape, and it is well ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... shoulde write to my Husband to clear myself. I said briefly, I woulde; and I mean to do soe, onlie not to-daye. Oh, sweet countrie Life! I was made for you and none other. This riding and walking at one's owne free Will, in the fresh pure Ayre, coming in to earlie, heartie, wholesome Meals, seasoned with harmlesse Jests,—seeing fresh Faces everie Daye come to the House, knowing everie Face one meets out of Doores,—supping ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... my son, hast thou done thus, and why sufferedst thou not the jewellers complete the lattice-work of the oriel, [530] so there might not remain a place in thy palace [531] defective?" "O King of the Age," answered Alaeddin, "I left it not imperfect but of my free will, nor did I lack of ableness to complete it. However, I could not brook that Thy Grace should honour me [with thy presence] in a palace [532] wherein there was somewhat lacking; wherefore, so thou mayst know that it ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... foreknowledge, will and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... evening. It was of no use thinking that there was. It was better to give it up altogether and at once. But what if he could not? What if the thought of her was bound up with his life; and that once torn out by his own free will, the very roots of ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Hungarians than were Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Wilson, and M. Clemenceau, required guaranties which could be supplied only by armed forces—Rumanian or Allied. Unless and until Hungary received a government chosen by the free will of the people and capable of offering guaranties of good conduct, the troops must remain where they were. For the line which they occupied at the moment could be defended with four divisions, whereas ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... nobody bothered about you. Why were you there with that little chap? You would have died as well as he! My word, how she entreated me for her little chap! But I told her that, as she had turned the scorpion, she had, through that very fact, and of her own free will, become engaged to me and that she did not need to have two men engaged to ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... insolent Gaul threw his sword into the scale, exclaiming, "Woe to the conquered!" and that just then Camillus appeared, and drove the Gauls out of the city. This is certain, that the Gauls retired of their own free will from their occupation of the city. The destruction of the temples involved the loss of early chronicles, which would have given us better information as to the times preceding. The city ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... bring with them from their mothers' body what they will carry with them as long as they live; the higher spirits are from the beginning, or soon after, what they will be for ever. To thee alone is given a growth and a development depending on thine own free will. Thou bearest in thee the germs of ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... Egede; "I did not say that nothing can be wrong. What I do say is that whatever God does is and must be right. But God has given to man a free will, and with his free will man does wrong. It is just to save man from this wrong-doing ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... these presents, Requires you not to live for him alone, And for his sake to shut out all mankind: Nor does he tell his battles, show his wounds, Or shackle your free will, as ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... German Nation, with one voice and correctly, diagnosed the political situation without respect to party or creed and unanimously and of its own free will acted. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... GRANTED TO GOD, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired. That we wish this so to be observed, appears from the fact that of our own free will, before the outbreak of the present dispute between us and our barons, we granted and confirmed by charter the freedom of the Church's elections - a right reckoned to be of the greatest necessity and importance to ...
— The Magna Carta
... Predestination and free will are both taught. "Everything is in the hands of heaven, except the fear of heaven." "All things are ordained of God, but men's actions are their own." When men wish to sin they are enjoined to go to a place where they are unknown, and to clothe themselves in black so as not to dishonor God ...
— Hebrew Literature
... been going on in the East, in the West the rude border-folk, the backwoodsmen of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, without generals, without commands, without help or pay, or reward of any kind, but fighting of their own free will and dyeing every step of their advance with their blood, had entered and conquered the great neutral game-park of the Northern and the Southern Indians, and were holding it against all plots: in the teeth of all comers and against the frantic Indians themselves; ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... to delay the meeting of the husband and wife, so long parted. Neither would have forgiven him if he had coolly kept them apart for his own convenience; but so grateful, so adoring to her hero was Mrs. James, that if "the doctor" had not been ill and needing her, I think of her own free will she would have offered to stop in Edinburgh for a few days to "see what happened." As it was, there was no question of her staying. She and Somerled arranged that she should leave for Carlisle by the first train possible in the morning. At home she was to settle her few affairs temporarily, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the Catholic faith, and on attaining manhood we—by an act of our own free will—accepted its most arduous mysteries; we have laboured in the faith, both in the administrative and social field; but now another mystery rises in our way, and our faith falters before it. The Catholic Church, calling herself the fountain ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... her of the discovery, and recapitulating the contents of the enclosed document, added that the king desired to know whether she had consented to it of her own free will, why it was done, whether she herself sent the copy, or if not who did send it, and with ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... organic life fall into the same category. Man himself with all his differentiated faculties is but a function of matter and motion in extraordinary complex and involved relations. Man's imputation to himself of free will and unending consciousness apart from his machine is an idle tale built on his desires, not on his experiences nor his knowledge of nature. This imputation of a will or soul to nature, independent of it or in any sense above it, is a ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... said, "but I've got to." Slowly and deliberately he went on: "Last summer, in Denver, I told John Madison that if this time ever came—when you would return to me of your own free will—I'd have you write him the truth. Before we go any further, I'd like you to ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... could a volume of how seamen were then cared for. It was the days of the press and of the advance-note system, which prevailed well into the present century, and those seamen who went with Dampier of their own free will on a voyage where nothing but the poorest pay and no prize money was to be got were probably the lowest and most ill-disciplined rascals, drawn from a class upon whose characters, save for their bulldog courage and reckless prodigality, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... discuss the partition of the spoils when we have secured them. They are thoroughly solvent; I know that, for I have made inquiries; and they are well worth powder and shot. Until the case is heard, or until they themselves come to heel of their own free will, I cannot in honesty receive anything ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... of the day, and, though it has no permanent value, is nevertheless a most unusual production for a boy of nineteen. He accepts the belief in a God and an all-powerful Providence, and argues thence the complete absence of free will in man; pleasure and pain are necessary correlatives, and cannot exist apart; the soul is perhaps immortal, but loses ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... What is the use of claims? If he is not mine of his own free will, he is not mine at all. And have him I must! I must have my boy's heart, whole ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... his colleagues of the Duma that he had not resigned of his own free will, but under pressure: "I had to resign, yielding not to force, but to the wish of a considerable majority of my colleagues. With a clear conscience I can say that I did not leave on my own account, but was compelled to leave." Nevertheless, he said, the foreign policy he had pursued ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... science, so this idea of destiny seems to me an instinctive anticipation of the formulas of modern science. What we want to-day is a dramatist who shall show us the great natural silent forces, working the weal and woe of human life through the illusions of consciousness and free will." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... applauded crimes they only wanted opportunity to commit—it is not possible to conceive, that any people in the world could make a similar choice. Yet if the French were absolutely unbiassed, and of their own free will made this collection, who would, after such an example, be the advocates of general suffrage and popular representation?—But, I repeat, the people were not free. They were not, indeed, influenced by bribes—they were intimidated by the horrors of the moment; and along with ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... idea what the point was which was under discussion. After a time the baronet opened his door and called for me. "Barrymore considers that he has a grievance," he said. "He thinks that it was unfair on our part to hunt his brother-in-law down when he, of his own free will, had ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... Foma, alarmed and confused, touching her head with his hand. "Don't be angry. You came of your own free will." ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... All becomes calm, and the horizon is cleared. Thus after a revolution, the constitution, if it be good, rallies all its citizens. There should not be one man in the kingdom who incurs danger of his life in expressing his free views of the constitution. Without this security there is no free will, no expression of opinion, no liberty; there will be only a predominant power, a tyranny popular or otherwise, until you have separated the constitution from the workings of the revolution. Behold all these principles of justice, morality, and liberty ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... spring injured, so that I was compelled to leave it; which I then did most cheerfully, as it is always easier to man to yield to necessity, than to adopt an apparently inconvenient measure by his own free will. The load was removed to pack-horses, and we proceeded with comparative ease to Mr. Campbell's station, enjoying the hospitality of the settlers as we passed on, and carrying with us their ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... lived; my body enriches the earth of which they will consume the fruits; and so I do, by the order of nature and for all men, what Codrus, Curtius, the Decii, and a thousand others, did of their own free will for a small part ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... want!" went on Carew. "It is you, Ruth. I want you of your own free will. Look at me, Ruth! Am I hideous, or a weakling? By Heaven! Women in plenty have come to me ere now, and without my pleading! I am the mate for you. This pup, this runaway clerk, has no right to you. I could kill him for his presumption! ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... basis of punishment, however? The notion of a free will, the idea that man is at all times a free agent for good or evil; if he chooses the latter, he must be made to pay the price. Although this theory has long been exploded, and thrown upon the dustheap, it continues to be applied daily by the entire ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... lord, To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony, Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted My grieved ear withal: whereon I begg'd His ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... his sleeve at the ease with which he had "stung" this young tenderfoot, who was unsuspectingly going up against a proposition which Hank, with all his love for the wild, would never attempt of his own free will. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... comfortable in that house, and every individual of the family had all kind of complaisance for me. It is singular enough, that though I have been turned out of so many families, I was never turned out of that; and though I left it thrice, it was of my own free will. I became dissatisfied with the other servants or with the dog or the cat. The last time I left was on account of the quail which was hung out of the window of madame, and which waked me in the morning with its call. Eh bien, mon maitre, things went on in this way during ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... follow me of your own free will to the prison of Buen Retiro. I cannot use force here, for this house is the king's, but I warn you that in less than an hour the Chevalier Mengs will have orders to turn you out, and then you will be dragged ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... about a candle. In such a life of passion and pleasure quarrels were inevitable. If the Lesbia of Catullus be Clodia, as we may believe, she had thrown the poet over with a light heart. It was apparently of his own free will that Caelius deserted her: in revenge she turned upon him with an accusation of theft and attempt to poison. What truth there was in the charges we do not really know, but Cicero defended him successfully, and in this way we come to know the ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... himself involved in calamity from which there was no apparent escape. He himself could not expiate the wrong he had done, nor could he avert the impending doom, the "twilight" of the gods, which was slowly and surely approaching. Only a free will, independent of the gods, and able to take upon itself the fault, could make reparation for the deed. At last he yields to despair. His will is broken, and instead of fearing the inevitable doom ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... indeed, was a strong inducement to me to proceed, for it was impossible to believe that a young lady, a kinswoman of the gay and vivacious Turenne, and already introduced to the pleasures of the Court, would elect of her own free will to spend the winter in so dreary ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... raised, no request preferred. If the section of moderate conservatives above mentioned has furnished a few ambassadors like Prince Hohenlohe, Count Muenster, Baron Keudell, and Count Stolberg, that was by the chief's free will. Why, then, it has been asked, a change so absolute as the one the world has witnessed, from the saying of the chancellor in 1877, that his ideal was to have high financial duties on half a dozen objects and free trade on all others, to one of the most comprehensive tariffs ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... but the cow never come of her own free will, 'n' it strikes me 't Jathrop's the one to blame. I never was so done up in my life 's I was when I hear this about you. You kin believe me or not jus' 's you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I was so nigh to struck dead 't I stopped short with one leg ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... lips thoughtfully. "He showed up himself? Then he must have left of his own free will. At least he wasn't kidnapped. But why would he ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... have no husband, and how three lives are all ruined,—all ruined for ever. And we will tell them that love is not like that; that it is faithful and true: and that women should never be like that—that women should be—oh, I do not believe it, I do not believe it! Of her own free will no woman could ever be like that!" Chatty cried, like Desdemona, suddenly clenching her soft hands in a passion of indignation and pity. "We will ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... willingness to assist. He knew the channel very well, he continued, and would do his part. And then the most surprising thing happened. Of his own free will the captive told how he and his two companions aboard the U-boat had been pressed into the submarine service against their will. They had not desired to embark with one of the undersea fleet, but had been compelled to enlist ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... afterwards vexed himself with free will, necessity, and the like. He knew such matters were not for him. Many problems may appear to be of great consequence, but it is our duty to avoid them if our ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... befallen, and to whom I am promised. She can not help the misfortune; and as she had my word when she was prosperous, I shall not withdraw it now she is poor. I will not take Clavering's seat, unless afterward it should be given of his free will. I will not have a shilling more ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... recognized number and celebration of the sacraments, impeached the regulations in regard to marriage, scorned and vilified the pope, despised the priesthood and stirred up the laity to dip their hands in the blood of the clergy, denied free will, taught licentiousness, despised authority, advocated a brutish existence, and was a menace to Church and State alike. Every one was forbidden to give the heretic food, drink, or shelter, and required to seize him and deliver him to ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... man. He had neither wife nor children, all for the hoard's sake; but while the hoard was there, to be handled any hour, he regretted nothing. Besides, there was the peasant's rooted distrust of offices, and paper transactions, of any routine that checks his free will and frightens his inexperience. He was still eagerly thinking when the light began to flood into his room, and before he could compose himself to sleep the ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... having and receiving a part of the rights and benefits of this worshipful Lodge, dedicated (some say erected) to God, and held forth to the holy order of St. John, as all true fellows and brothers have done, who have gone this way before him." The Junior Deacon then asks, "Is it of his own free will and accord he makes this request? Is he duly and truly prepared? Worthy and well qualified? And properly avouched for?" All of which being answered in the affirmative, the Junior Deacon says to the Senior Deacon, "By what further right does he expect to obtain ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... be a pirate, though? I would; and roam over the ocean at my own free will; and through the storm and spray, and lightning-glances of the wild midnight, dash on my fleeing victim like the eagle on his prey! All hands on deck to get on more sail! Stand by to unfurl the main-sail to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... the other half to evade its duty. But the time has again come when the demand for more men is imperative. Voluntarism is making its last efforts. Its devotees in their desperate endeavours to prevent its formal abandonment are eliminating from it every element of free will, and are introducing every device of veiled compulsion. Canvassers and recruiting-sergeants have brought immense pressure to bear upon every eligible man, under threats that unless he "volunteers" he will shortly be fetched, and fetched on ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... of national prosperity and happiness, and we are blind to the facts of history if we cannot discern the profound effect of political institutions upon human character. Self-government in the community corresponds to free will in the individual. I am far from saying that self-government is everything. But I do say that it is the master-key. It is fundamental. Give responsibility and you will create responsibility. Through political responsibility only can a society brace itself to organized ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... impediments and consequences, of the origin of error, of the state of doubt, hesitation, conviction, etc., and to it is related pure general logic in the same way that pure morality, which contains only the necessary moral laws of a free will, is related to practical ethics, which considers these laws under all the impediments of feelings, inclinations, and passions to which men are more or less subjected, and which never can furnish us with a true and demonstrated science, because it, ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... does not become one so generous as you, to let her eldest son wait for an inheritance, when she might make him a handsome present of her own free will. Be generous, then, and give me something, too. I wish to be on an ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... trivial and scientifically useless form. We found that a system with one set of determinants may very likely have other sets of a quite different kind, that, for example, a mechanically determined system may also be teleologically or volitionally determined. Finally we considered the problem of free will: here we found that the reasons for supposing volitions to be determined are strong but not conclusive, and we decided that even if volitions are mechanically determined, that is no reason for denying freedom in the sense revealed by introspection, or for supposing ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... it would be a thing almost incredible if we had not seen it ourselves. And so with universal rejoicing we have returned here, by the grace of God, and already we hear that Lodi, Piacenza, Pavia, Tortona, and Alessandria have driven out the French, and returned of their own free will to our allegiance. The castle of Trezzo has surrendered, and that of Cassano has been fortified in our name by the Marchesino, and all the towns on the Venetian frontier have declared for us, and before long we hope to have recovered the whole state. ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... been contemporary with all the apostles—a ruler of the Church who is understood to have occupied a far more prominent and influential position than the pastor of Smyrna—is exhibited in the legend of his martyrdom as appearing "of his own free will" [424:3] at the judgment-seat of the Emperor, and as manifesting the utmost anxiety to be delivered into the mouth of the lion. In the commencement of the second century the Churches of Rome and Ephesus doubtless possessed as much spiritual enlightenment as any other Churches in the world, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... something nearer—something so real and deadly that the old spectres became almost comic, like ghosts made up of dust-sheets and broom-handles. Supposing Christine went still further from him—supposing she left him altogether alone? She wouldn't do it of her free will, but there were things people couldn't help. People died. The thought was a cruel hand twining itself into the strings of his heart. He tried to see her face. Was she young? He didn't know. He had never thought about it. She had been grown-up. That covered everything. Now in the pale, unreal ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... pons asinorum. The parts of logic which he treated with most minuteness are modal propositions and modal syllogisms. In commenting on Aristotle's Ethics he dealt in a very independent manner with the question of free will, his conclusions being remarkably similar to those of John Locke. The only liberty which he admits is a certain power of suspending the deliberative process and determining the direction of the intellect. Otherwise the will is entirely dependent on the view of the mind, the last ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... am an odd person; I presume I am, and so is every one else taken singly. I can prove that by Cocker. One and one make two—two is even, one is odd, I am but one. There's logic for you. I am also a rambler by temperament. I ramble my person at my own free will, and my mind rambles quite indifferent as to its intimate connexion with the former. I look at the stars, and my thoughts are of women—I look at the earth, and my thoughts run upon heaven—I frequent the opera, and moralize upon the world and its vanities—I sit in my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... is still carried on as Brander and Jackson, and Brander still goes down there for an hour or two every day. Yes, I left on pleasant terms enough, that is to say, I left of my own free will. I had for some time wished to come up to London, and hearing through a friend in this office of a vacancy at Barrington and Smiles, I applied and was fortunate enough ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... am loved at home, and how I love home. You can hardly think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great agitation, 'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... liberty misled Rousseau. Children have not our abstract ideas of the pleasures of liberty; they do not, until they have suffered from ill judged restraints, feel any strong desire to exercise what we call free will; liberty is, with them, the liberty of doing certain specific things which they have found to be agreeable; liberty is not the general idea of pleasure, in doing whatever they WILL to do. Rousseau desires, that we should not let our pupil know, that in doing ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... says that governments are made to preserve liberty, and that they get their only authority from the free will of the people who are ruled by ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... points of view under which this system of men's free will shows us the Deity. This free will becomes a present the most dangerous, since it puts man in the condition of doing evil that is truly frightful. We may thence conclude that this system, far from justifying God, makes him capable of malice, imprudence, and ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... flamed anew as he thought of those cutting sentences he had overheard, taunting her own sister about the clothes she wore. Boasting that he still belonged to her! She, a married woman! A woman who had of her own free will left him at the last moment and gone away with another! His whole nature recoiled against her. She had sinned against her womanhood, and might no longer demand from man the homage that a true woman had a right ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... again," he broke in impatiently. "Haven't I said that I'll think about it? You run back to your mother now. I may come later—or I may not. But if you bother me much more I certainly won't. If I come, I come of my own free will; there's no woman living who has ever persuaded me to do anything ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... save yourself from the results of your own misdoing! If you voluntarily choose evil, not all the forces in the world can lift you into good,—if you voluntarily choose danger, not all the gods can bring you into safety! FREE WILL is the divine condition attached to human life, and each man by thought, word, and deed, determines his own fate, and decides ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... not hurt either of you men if you keep clear of him. And don't let me hear any more of such talk as you have been indulging in during the last few minutes. You forget yourself, my man; and you seem to forget also that you came to this island of your own free will. I did not invite you. I did not even want you; I was doing quite well without your assistance, as I can again, if necessary. So let me have no more threats of any sort, or I shall be compelled, for ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... there are two opposing views upon this subject—held by opposite schools—the theory of Determinism, on the one hand, and of Free Will on the other. The Libertarians assert that our wills are free—we having power of choice in all our actions. The Determinists, on the other hand, contend that our thoughts and actions are determined ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... Helen, after they went away; "if another exists, different from the first——well—I see no reason why a whim should wreck my happiness." Then, tempted and scheming, she sat motionless for hours. Alas! for the soul which of its own free will, unmoors itself from the Rock of Ages, to drift away on dark and uncertain seas; who, lured away by the sun-gilt mirage, throws down the cross, scorns the thorny crown, and despises Calvary, to perish at last miserably in the arid desert! Although ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... approach to the Temple of Literary Fame is almost always through double gates—couplets. And yet I have known youthful poets, apparently bound for Paternoster Row, bolt off the course in a year or two, to the delight of their friends, and become, of their own free will, drysalters. ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... pair our live stock, and give ear to the teaching of an enlightened zooenomy, we might soon drive many of our fellest diseases out of our breed; but the law of personality, of ultroneousness, of free will, that which in a great measure makes us what we are, steps in and forbids anything but the convincement and force of reason. Much in the same way, though it be a more trivial matter, pleasure, in order to please, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the whole is, that man having been endowed with free will, his happiness consists in making due elections, or in the right exercise of that free will. Five causes are then given of undue elections, in which of course his misery consists as far as that depends on himself; these ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... shingle up which they had hauled the gig, and one wild lightning-flash saw them with their hands on the gunwale, ready to drag her down to the water. There was a surf raging there that would have swamped twenty gigs: these five men were going of their own free will and choice to certain death—so much had they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... them has the good, for the one which had would certainly have been sufficient and perfect and eligible for every living creature or thing that was able to live such a life; and if any of us had chosen any other, he would have chosen contrary to the nature of the truly eligible, and not of his own free will, but either through ignorance ...
— Philebus • Plato
... when men speak to him of great achievements wrought by other hands, then thou wilt see the life die out of his eyes, and his heart will become cold as stone, and thou wilt lose his love. A great thing will it be for thee if he come not to hate thee in the end. But if, of thy own free will, thou send him from thee, then shalt thou ever keep his love. Thy image will ride before his eyes in the van of battles; for very lack of thee he will move from endeavour to endeavour; and so thy life will be enshrined in ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... back, but the next instant had wheeled again, his face drawn with pain and alarm. "I didn't mean to do that! Oh, good Lord! it wa'n't I! Forgive me, Barb. Oh, Barb, my child, as God's my witness, I didn't do it of my own free will. He let the devil use me. All my troubles are coming ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... that, therefore, the old woman, at seven o'clock to-morrow, would be there alone. It needed but a few steps to reach his room. He went along like one sentenced to death, with his reason clogged and numbed. He felt that now all liberty of action and free will were gone, and everything was irrevocably decided. A more convenient occasion than was thus unexpectedly offered to him now would never arise, and he might never learn again, beforehand, that, at a certain time on ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... are not a question of free will and individual responsibility?" asked the doctor soberly. "I must say that I have wondered sometimes if the women do not draw lots for them. But what shall I do about the little girl? I am afraid I do her great injustice ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... irregularities on his part in the means by which he had accomplished it, short of absolute disobedience of a known command. Whatever might be the commands that these messengers were bringing him, he supposed that they doubtless originated, not in Ptolemy's own free will, but that they were dictated by the authority of Caesar. Still, they would be commands coming in Ptolemy's name, and the universal experience of officers serving under the military despots of those ancient days showed that, rather than to take the responsibility ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... name the money I have earned or give a valid receipt for it when it is drawn or make any contract, but am rated with fools, minors and madmen, and can not sign a legal document without being examined separately to see if it is by my own free will, and even the right to my own name questioned, do you think that, in the grip of such pincers, I am likely to grow remiss?... I am not at all sanguine of the success of the convention. However much I hope, or try to hope, the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... what we are all doing, your honor; and every one of us would rather go than have his wages doubled. If any dumper here has a free will to go to the mainmast, he'd better put his head ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... Were rifest, richest there my soul that bound, Waken to life her tongue, and on the breeze Let her light silken hair, Loosen'd by Love's own fingers, float at ease; Do this, and I thy willing yoke will bear, Else thy hope faileth my free will to snare. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... but the Cyclops told us that we were fools to believe in the gods. 'The Cyclops,' he said, 'care nothing for the gods. We are better than they are. If I spare thee it will be of my own free will, and not for fear of the gods. But where are thy ships? Are they near here or far off?' This he said hoping to deceive us, but I saw through his trick, and replied: 'The storm has thrown our ships upon the ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... hazard and tremendous fears,—nay, did I not offer to resign to thee the heart that was mighty enough, while mine, Glyndon, to content me? Was it not thine own daring and resolute choice to brave the initiation! Of thine own free will didst thou make Mejnour thy master, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... as a timely reminder to Darnay that this disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... that excellent old book. But overpowering proof of intelligence and benevolent design lie all around us, and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend upon one ever-acting ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... to even a child that what is earned by works as a reward is not identical with what is promised or bestowed gratis, out of grace and pure free will. There is a distinction between them. God has stopped the mouth of all the world and deprived it of all occasion for boasting that it has received God's grace by reason of the Law. For he promised and bestowed that as a gift, before the Law or merit through the Law had any existence. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... with grave politeness, "after what my daughter has said, I must treat you as a man of honor, or I must insult her. Well, then, I expect you to show me you are what she thinks you, and are not what a court of justice has proclaimed you. Sir, this young lady is engaged with her own free will to a gentleman who is universally esteemed, and has never been accused to his face of any unworthy act. Relying on her plighted word, the Wardlaws have fitted out a steamer and searched the Pacific, and found ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... near we are together," said Cecilia, opening a door into her own dressing-room. "You may shut this up whenever you please, but I hope you will never please to do so. You see how I leave you your own free will, as friends usually do, with a proviso, a hope at least, that you are never to use it on any account—like the child's half guinea pocket-money, never to be changed." Her playful tone relieved, as she intended it should, Helen's too keen emotion; and this ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... cried the young lady, striving to repress a shudder, occasioned, as it seemed, even by this slight allusion to Arthur Gride. 'This evil, if evil it be, has been of my own seeking. I am impelled to this course by no one, but follow it of my own free will. You see I am not constrained or forced. Report this,' said Madeline, 'to my dear friend and benefactor, and, taking with you my prayers and thanks for him and for yourself, leave ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... some of the date words, as "free will," only give three figures of the date, 845; but it is to be supposed that if the student knows that many figures in the date of Polk's inauguration he can guess the ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... of atavism were stretched so far, it would soon do away with free will altogether. That heredity has something to do with our moral character, no one would deny who knows the influence of our national, nay even of racial character. We are Aryan by heredity; we might be Negroes or Chinese, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... and power in virtue of which he held his own high position. But we now find that thou hast constituted thyself a law higher than the law which made thee what thou art, and thou now wouldst have us, of our own free will, bend our necks so low that thou mayest with the more ease set thy foot on them and keep us down. We have served thee in all good faith up to the present time; we have readily met thy demands for men, ships, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... Courtenay had spent itself. There remained only the deep anger of the man who has lost in the game of love. And yet, what right had he to cherish even this wholesome anger against his rival when the maid had chosen of her own free will? As well hold grudge to the great Power whose wisdom had given the man such marvellous beauty. As he lay in the darkness listening to the unearthly noises he worked it all ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... vnderstood of his said determination, and that it should not stand with his Maiesties honour to doe mee any harme or displeasure, but rather to giue mee good entertainment, seeing I was come into his land of my free will, and not by constraint, and that if hee vsed me euill, there would few strangers resort into his country, which would bee greatly vnto his hinderance, with many other perswasions: which after that the saide Sophie had well and throughly pondered and digested (much esteeming ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... foreign language. "I tell you, we can't choose what we want to do, you and I. If you wait for Cassim to be here, it will come to the same thing, but it will be fifty times worse, because then you'll have the humiliation of being forced to do what you might seem to do now of your own free will." ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... its existence is at least in part explained. In the event of this surmise being substantiated, moral phantasms, with their mediaeval trappings, would for ever disappear; individual responsibility would be reduced within reasonable limits; the difficulty of the question respecting free will would shrink to comparatively narrow proportions; but it does not seem likely that the love of virtue and the hatred of vice would be diminished; on the contrary, it seems likely that they would be practically intensified, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... acted in such a manner as to produce a particularly unwanted crisis in the Yugoslav political world. Neither Roumanian nor Yugoslav need, in the opinion of Take Jonescu, have considered that their dignity was being slighted, for the tendency of the League of Nations is to limit the free will of each of them. The cardinal doctrine of the League, as Lord Robert Cecil has pointed out, is that its members are not masters in their own house, but must obey the decision of the majority. However, the Opposition in the Belgrade Skup[vs]tina could ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... or seven sermons of Spurgeon in the hotel, and read them. I like him; he is very earnest; he says: 'I believe that not a worm is picked up by a bird without direct intervention of God, yet I believe entirely in man's free will; but I cannot and do not pretend to reconcile the two.' He says he reads the paper to see what God is doing and what are His designs. I confess I have now much the same feeling; nothing ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill |
