In other cases, this quiet, hidden, but controlling purpose seems to be formed by unconscious and imperceptible influences, so that the mind can not revert to the specific time or manner when it originated. For example, a child who is trained from early life to speak the truth, can never revert to any particular moment when this generic purpose originated.
It is sometimes the case, also, that a person will contemplate some generic volition before it occurs, while the process of its final formation seems almost beyond the power of scrutiny. For example, a man may be urged to relinquish one employment and engage in another. He reflects, consults, and is entirely uncertain how he shall decide. As time passes, he gradually inclines toward the proposed change, until, finally, he finds his determination fixed, he scarcely knows when or how.
Thus it appears that generic volitions commence sometimes so instantaneously and obviously that the time and influences connected with them can be recognized. In other cases, the decision seems to be a gradual one, while in some instances the process can be traced, and in others it is entirely unnoticed or forgotten.
It is in reference to such generic purposes that the _moral character_ of men is estimated. An honest man is one who has a fixed purpose to act honestly in all circumstances. A truthful man is one who has such a purpose to speak the truth at all times.
In such cases, the degree in which such a purpose controls all others is the measure of a man's moral character in the estimate of society.
The history of mankind shows a great diversity of moral character dependent on such generic volitions. Some men possess firm and reliable moral principles in certain directions, while they are very destitute of them in others.
Thus it will be seen that some have formed a very decided purpose in regard to honesty in business affairs, who yet are miserable victims to intemperance. Others have cultivated a principle called _honor_, that restrains them from certain actions regarded as mean, and yet they may be frequenters of gambling saloons and other haunts of vice.
In the religious world, too, it is the case that some who are very firm and decided on all points of religious observances and in the cultivation of devotional emotions, are guilty of very mean actions, such as some worldly men of honor would not practice at the sacrifice of a right hand.