_. This is simply saying in another way that we act in
accordance with the emotion which is at the moment strongest.

=Will Is Choice.= Just here we can imagine an earnest protest: "But
why do you ignore the human will? Why do you try to make man the
creature of feeling? A high-grade man does--not what he wants to do
but what he thinks he ought to do. In any person worthy of the
adjective 'civilized' it is conscience, not desire, which is the
motive power of his life."

It is true: in the better kind of man the will is of central
importance; but what is "will"? Let us imagine a raw soldier in the
trenches just before a charge into No-Man's Land. He is afraid, but
the word of command comes, and instantly he is a new creature. His
fear drops away and, energized by the lust of battle, he rushes
forward, obviously driven by the stronger emotion. He goes ahead
because he really wants to, and we say that he does not have to use
his will.

Imagine another soldier in the same situation; with him fear seems
uppermost. His knees shake and his legs want to carry him in the wrong
direction, but he still goes forward. And he goes forward, not so much
because there is no other possibility as because, in the
circumstances, he really wants to. All his life, and especially during
his military training, he has been filled with ideals of loyalty and
courage. More than he fears the guns of the enemy or of his
firing-squad does he fear the loss of his own self-respect and the
respect of his comrades. Greater than his "will to live" is his desire
to play the man. There is conflict, and the desire which seems at the
moment weaker is given the victory because it is reinforced by that
other permanent desire to be a worthy man, brave, and dependable in a
crisis. He goes forward, because in the circumstances, he really wants
to, but in this case we say that he had to use his will.

Is it not apparent that will itself is choice,--the selection by the
whole personality of the emotion and the action which best fit into
its ideals? Will is choice by the part of us which has ideals.
McDougall points out that will is the reinforcement of the weaker
desire by the master desire to be a certain kind of a character.[65]

[Footnote 65: "The essential mark of volition is that the personality
as a whole, or the central feature or nucleus of the personality, the
man himself, is thrown upon the side of the weaker
motive."--McDougall: _Introduction to Soci