I hold the paper near the fire and you say it will burn, and you say truly, for it has a will, or what is the same, an inherent tendency to burn.  It is made of combustible matter, like paper which we have seen burn, and hence we argue this has the same tendency to be consumed.  But how does your mind arrive at that fact?  If you had never seen a substance like it burn, why should you conclude this will?  Does the child know it will burn?  No; for it has not yet learned the quality of the paper.  It is not till the child has been burned that it dreads the fire.  Suppose I take some asbestus, of the kind called amianthus, which is a mineral, and is formed of slender flexible fibres like flax; and in eastern countries, especially in Savoy and Corsica, is manufactured into cloth, paper, and lamp wicks.  It was used in making winding sheets for the dead, in which the bodies were burned, and the ashes, retained in the incombustible sheet, were gathered into an urn, and revered as the manes of the dead.  Suppose I take some of this incombustible paper or cloth, and present to you.  You say it will burn.  Why do you say thus?  Because you have seen other materials which appear like this, consume to ashes.  Let us put it into the fire.  It will not burn.  It has no tendency to burn; no quality which will consume.  But this is a new idea to you and hence your mistake.  You did not know it would burn, nor could you indicate such a fact.  You only told your opinion derived from the present appearance of things, and hence you made an assertion in the indicative mood, present tense, and added to it an infinitive mood, in order to deduce the consequence of this future action—­it wills, or has a tendency to burn.  But you were mistaken, because ignorant of the nature of things.  This amianthus looks like flax, and to a person unacquainted with it, appears to be as truly combustible; but the mineralogist, and all who know its properties, know very well that it will not—­wills nothing, has no inclination, or tendency, to burn.

Take another example.  Here is a steel needle.  I hold it before you.  You say, “if I let go of it, it will fall,” and you say correctly, for it has such a tendency.  But suppose a magnet, as great as that which is said to have drawn the iron coffin of Mohammed to the roof of the temple at Mecca, should be placed in the room above us.  The needle, instead of falling to the floor, would be drawn in the nearest direction to that magnet.  The will or tendency of the needle, as generally understood, would be overcome, the natural law of gravitation would lose its influence, by the counteracting power of the loadstone.

I say, “I will go home in an hour.”  But does that expression indicate the act of going?  It is placed in the indicative mood in our grammars; and go is the principal, and will the auxiliary verb.  May be I shall fall and die before I reach my home.  But the expression is correct; will is present, go future.  I will, I now resolve, am now inclined to go home.