VOLITION • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Volition

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/voʊlˈɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Volition n.

The act of willing or choosing; the act of forming a purpose; the exercise of the will. "Volition is the actual exercise of the power the mind has to order the consideration of any idea, or the forbearing to consider it." "Volition is an act of the mind, knowingly exerting that dominion it takes itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, or withholding it from, any particular action."

The result of an act or exercise of choosing or willing; a state of choice.

The power of willing or determining; will.

Synonyms: Will; choice; preference; determination; purpose. Volition, Choice. Choice is the familiar, and volition the scientific, term for the same state of the will; viz., an "elective preference." When we have "made up our minds" (as we say) to a thing, i. e., have a settled state of choice respecting it, that state is called an immanent volition; when we put forth any particular act of choice, that act is called an emanent, or executive, or imperative, volition. When an immanent, or settled state of, choice, is one which controls or governs a series of actions, we call that state a predominant volition; while we give the name of subordinate volitions to those particular acts of choice which carry into effect the object sought for by the governing or "predominant volition." See Will.

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Etymology of 'Volition'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Volition" Quotes from Famous Books

... dependents is attached to the household of the rich Filipino. The master has his special body servant to be present at all times to do his master's bidding, in short, to be the visible mechanism of his master's volition. So, too, the lady of the house has her servant woman to do the slightest bidding of her ladyship. Then there is the cook who is almost invariably a man, a house boy or two, and the coachman. These functionaries, with their ...

— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley

... meaning, are blue, or gray, or black, as her feeling varies and the soul informing them is in a state of joy, or trouble. Her most bewitching feature is her mouth, which has two dangerous dimples near it that go and come, sometimes without her volition and sometimes, I fear, with her full accord and desire. Her hair is brown and falls in such a mass of ringlets that no cap has ever yet been found which can confine it and keep it from weaving a golden ...

— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... my love for her in words. My love for Dicky terrifies me sometimes, it is so strong, but I cannot go up to him and offer him an unsolicited kiss or caress. Respond to his caresses, yes! but offer them of my own volition, never! There is something inside me that ...

— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... women as Emilia in Cinna and Rodogune, must surely be unsusceptible of love. But if in his principal characters, Corneille, by exaggerating the energetic and underrating the passive part of our nature, has departed from truth; if his heroes display too much volition and too little feeling, he is still much more unnatural in his situations. He has, in defiance of all probability, pointed them in such a way that we might with great propriety give them the name of tragical antitheses, and it becomes almost natural if the personages express ...

— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... the occult student observes coming over himself—that there is no longer a connection between a thought and a feeling or a feeling and a volition, except when he creates the connection himself. No impulse drives him from thought to action if he does not voluntarily harbour it. He can now stand completely without feeling before an object which, ...

— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

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