t they are not thinkers; they are
makers. They say that choice is itself the divine thing. Thus Mr.
Bernard Shaw has attacked the old idea that men's acts are to be judged
by the standard of the desire of happiness. He says that a man does not
act for his happiness, but from his will. He does not say, "Jam will
make me happy," but "I want jam." And in all this others follow him with
yet greater enthusiasm. Mr. John Davidson, a remarkable poet, is so
passionately excited about it that he is obliged to write prose. He
publishes a short play with several long prefaces. This is natural
enough in Mr. Shaw, for all his plays are prefaces: Mr. Shaw is (I
suspect) the only man on earth who has never written any poetry. But
that Mr. Davidson (who can write excellent poetry) should write instead
laborious metaphysics in defence of this doctrine of will, does show
that the doctrine of will has taken hold of men. Even Mr. H.G. Wells has
half spoken in its language; saying that one should test acts not like a
thinker, but like an artist, saying, "I _feel_ this curve is right," or
"that line _shall_ go thus." They are all excited; and well they may be.
For by this doctrine of the divine authority of will, they think they
can break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism. They think they can
escape.

But they cannot escape. This pure praise of volition ends in the same
break up and blank as the mere pursuit of logic. Exactly as complete
free thought involves the doubting of thought itself, so the acceptation
of mere "willing" really paralyzes the will. Mr. Bernard Shaw has not
perceived the real difference between the old utilitarian test of
pleasure (clumsy, of course, and easily misstated) and that which he
propounds. The real difference between the test of happiness and the
test of will is simply that the test of happiness is a test and the
other isn't. You can discuss whether a man's act in jumping over a cliff
was directed towards happiness; you cannot discuss whether it was
derived from will. Of course it was. You can praise an action by saying
that it is calculated to bring pleasure or pain to discover truth or to
save the soul. But you cannot praise an action because it shows will;
for to say that is merely to say that it is an action. By this praise of
will you cannot really choose one course as better than another. And yet
choosing one course as better than another is the very definition of the
will you are praising.

Th