Free Men Free MindsOn Volitional Efficiency
“The man of highest volitional efficiency is a man in whom great ideas, great purposes, and steady loyalties combine. The very kind of steellike persistence which would be obstinacy if devoted to something petty becomes heroic when devoted to something great. The will is an instrument which must be kept at worthy tasks, and the man of large and steady moral and mental perception has the ability to discriminate between that which must be secured at any cost and that for which it would be unworthy to enter a conflict. The will is an engine with steel couplers, and the man must see that it is united to the right car. The interplay of forces of the mind and the forces of the will is of strategic importance. The fanatic is a man of heroic will but inadequate mental life. The man of adequate leadership unites a steel structure of will to a mental appraisal sure and effective. The mind is the captain of the will.”
Lynn Harold Hough, The Man of Power, The Abingdon Press, New York – Cincinnati, 1916, pgs. 68 – 69
