Note 386 — Chapter IX · SOUL-IMAGE AND LIFE-FEELING

ἐθέλω and βούλομαι imply, to have the intention, or wish, or inclination (βουλή means counsel, council, plan, and ἐθέλω has no equivalent noun). Voluntas is not a psychological concept but, like potestas and virtus, a thoroughly Roman and matter-of-fact designation for a practical, visible and outward asset—substantially, the mass of an individual’s being. In like case, we use the word energy. The “will” of Napoleon is something very different from the energy of Napoleon, being, as it were, lift in contrast to weight. We must not confuse the outward-directed intelligence, which distinguishes the Romans as civilized men from the Greeks as cultured men, with “will” as understood here. Cæsar is not a man of will in the Napoleonic sense. The idioms of Roman law, which represent the root-feeling of the Roman soul far better than those of poetry, are significant in this regard. Intention in the legal sense is animus (animus occidendi); the wish, directed to some criminal end, is dolus as distinct from the unintended wrongdoing (culpa). Voluntas is nowhere used as a technical term.