e worship of will is the negation of will. To admire mere choice is to
refuse to choose. If Mr. Bernard Shaw comes up to me and says, "Will
something," that is tantamount to saying, "I do not mind what you
will," and that is tantamount to saying, "I have no will in the matter."
You cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is that
it is particular. A brilliant anarchist like Mr. John Davidson feels an
irritation against ordinary morality, and therefore he invokes
will--will to anything. He only wants humanity to want something. But
humanity does want something. It wants ordinary morality. He rebels
against the law and tells us to will something or anything. But we have
willed something. We have willed the law against which he rebels.

All the will-worshippers, from Nietzsche to Mr. Davidson, are really
quite empty of volition. They cannot will, they can hardly wish. And if
any one wants a proof of this, it can be found quite easily. It can be
found in this fact: that they always talk of will as something that
expands and breaks out. But it is quite the opposite. Every act of will
is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation.
In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose
anything, you reject everything else. That objection, which men of this
school used to make to the act of marriage, is really an objection to
every act. Every act is an irrevocable selection and exclusion. Just as
when you marry one woman you give up all the others, so when you take
one course of action you give up all the other courses. If you become
King of England, you give up the post of Beadle in Brompton. If you go
to Rome, you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in Wimbledon. It is the
existence of this negative or limiting side of will that makes most of
the talk of the anarchic will-worshippers little better than nonsense.
For instance, Mr. John Davidson tells us to have nothing to do with
"Thou shalt not"; but it is surely obvious that "Thou shalt not" is only
one of the necessary corollaries of "I will." "I will go to the Lord
Mayor's Show, and thou shalt not stop me." Anarchism adjures us to be
bold creative artists, and care for no laws or limits. But it is
impossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits. Art is
limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a
giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative
way, you hold yours