[See FREE a. 19.]
1. (Best written as two words.) Spontaneous will, unconstrained choice (to do or act). Often in phr. of one’s own free will, and the like. † In one’s free will: left to or depending upon one’s choice or election.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 8. Þeos & swuche oþre beoð alle ine freo wille to donne oþer to leten hwon me euer wule, bute heo beon bihoten.
13[?]. Myrour of lewed Men, 3, in Min. P. Vernon MS., 407.
| God send vs thoght to his plesyng, | |
| In whos fre wil hynges all thyng. |
c. 1510. More, Picus, Wks. 11/2. Very happy is a christen man, sith that the victorie is both put in his owne frewill, and the reward of yr victorie shalbe farre greatter then we can either hope or wishhe. Ibid., 346/1. The article against the lybertie of mans frewill.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. viii. 5.
| The same before the Geants gate he blew, | |
| That all the castle quaked from the ground, | |
| And euery dore of freewill open flew. |
1611. Bible, Ezra, vii. 13. I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and of his Priests, and Leuites in my Realme, which are minded of their owne free-will to goe vp to Ierusalem, goe with thee.
1694. Acc. Sev. Late Voy., II. (1711), 42. Every Ship’s master is left to his free will, whether he will sail into the Ice, because in the Spring the Whales are in great numbers seen there.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 308, 22 Feb., ¶ 1. Whether she has not been frightened or sweetned by her Spouse into the Act she is going to do, or whether it is of her own free Will.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, vii. 190. Antigone, the best of daughters and most loving of sisters, dies miserably, not dogged by fate, but having of her own freewill exposed her life in obedience to the pure laws of the heart. It is impossible to suppose that a Greek would have been satisfied with the bald fate-theory of Schlegel.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 133, Protagoras. They were allowed to wander at their own free will in a sort of hope that they would light upon virtue of their own accord.
2. ‘The power of directing our own actions without constraint by necessity or fate’ (J.).
a. 1300. Cursor M., 9407 (Cott.).
| Wijt and skill he gaf þam till, | |
| Might, and fairhid, and frewill. |
1340. Ayenb., 86. Þe uerste is uri-wyl huer-by he may chyese and do uryliche oþer þet guod oþer þet kuead.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., IV. pr. vi. 104 (Camb. MS.). Of the knowynge and predestinacion diuine and of the lyberte of fre wille.
1508. Fisher, 7 Penit. Ps. cxlii. Wks. (1876), 259. He made vs & endued vs with reason & frewyll bycause we sholde gyue hede & kepe his commaundementes.
1538. Starkey, England, I. ii. 28. Frewyl can not be wythout knolege, both of the gud and of the yl.
1654. Hobbes, Liberty, Necess., etc. (1841), 1. The third way of bringing things to pass, distinct from necessity and chance, namely, freewill, is a thing that never was mentioned amongst them, nor by the Christians in the beginning of Christianity.
1700. Astry, trans. Saavedra-Faxardo, I. 205 According to these Aspects of Times, your Highness’s Prudence ought to judge of things to come, not by those of the Planets, which being few in number, and having their Motions stated and regular, cannot possibly (though there were some Virtue in them) foretel such variety of Events, as fortune produces, or free-will prepares.
1849. Robertson, Serm., Ser. I. ii. (1866), 22. Without free-will there could be no human goodness.
b. In a bad sense: Arbitrary or licentious will.
1514. Barclay, Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (Percy Soc.), 34.
| The worste remayneth, gon ben the meke and just. | |
| In stede of vertue, ruleth frewyll and lust! |
1547. Salesbury, Welsh Dict., Mympwy, Frewyll.
3. attrib. (in free-will offering) = given readily or spontaneously.
1535. Coverdale, Ps. liii[i]. 6. A frewil offeringe wil I geue the.
1611. Bible, Ps. cxix. 108. Accept, I beseech thee, the freewil offrings of my mouth.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 44. The free-will contributions of their golden ornaments by the Libyan women, who hated their oppressors as perhaps women only can.
b. attrib. and Comb. (sense 2).
c. 1575. Fulke, Confut. Doctr. Purgatory (1577), 13. Such are many of his scholers the free will men of our time, whose opinion, if it were not manifestly repugnant to the authoritie of the holy Scriptures, there manners are vnreprouable in the iudgement of mortall men.
1627. S. Ward, Christ All in All, 13. To all Hee Saints and Shee Saints, Merit and Freewill-mongers, shall hee not in his Iealousie breake out and say, What haue I to doe with you?
Hence Free-willed a., having the faculty of free-will; Free-willer, a contemptuous term for one who believes in the doctrine of free-will, an Arminian; Free-willist rare, a believer in free-will, a ‘libertarian’; † Free-willing a. (in Coverdale), spontaneous, giving (or given) freely.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 889. Peccability, arises from the Necessity of Imperfect *Freewilled Beings, left to themselves.
1709. Prior, Ode to Col. Villiers, 16.
| In vain we know that free-will’d Man has pow’r, | |
| To hasten or protract th’ appointed Hour. |
1685. Bunyan, Pharisee & Publ., Wks. 1737, II. 681. So again, the *Free-willer, he will ascribe all to God.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., I. iii. 562. Using therein the new coined Phraise of Free-Willers.
1732–38. Neal, Hist. Purit. (1822), I. 90–1. Besides these free-willers, it seems there were some few in prison for the gospel that were Arians, and disbelieved the divinity of Jesus Christ.
1814. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 534/1. Freewillers were persecuted as heretics.
1535. Coverdale, Exod. xxxv. 29. Thus the children of Israel brought *fre wyllynge offerynges, both man and wemen, for all maner of worke, that the Lorde had commaunded by Moses, to be made. Ibid., 1 Chron. xxx. 9. And ye people were glad that they were fre wyllinge: for they gaue it with a good wyll (euen with all their hert) vnto the Lorde.
1867. Bagehot, Physics and Politics, in Fortn. Rev., VIII. Nov., 522. Every *Freewillist holds that the special force of free volition is applied to the pre-existing forces of our corporeal structure.
