a. [f. prec. + -AL.]
1. Of or belonging to volition; pertaining or relating to the action of willing.
1816. Bentham, Chrestom., 197. Whatsoever influence … the prospects of them may have upon the will or volitional faculty.
1853. R. Dunn, in Jrnl. Ethnol. Soc. (1856), IV. 43. The exercise of perception, memory, and volitional power.
1857. Grindon, Life, xviii. (ed. 2), 215. The conscious, volitional exercise of our noblest capabilities.
1897. Hutchinson’s Arch. Surg., VIII. 223. It was conceivable that the absolute volitional rest imposed by the severe pain might have acted on the muscle.
b. Affecting or impairing the will-power.
1854. Bucknill, Unsoundness of Mind, 28. Insanity may thus be Intellectual, Emotional, or Volitional.
2. Possessed of, endowed with, the faculty of volition; exercising or capable of exercising this.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), V. 229. Besides the argument you present to the intellectual part of their frame, you present to its neighbour the volitional part another sort of argument.
1864. Alger, Hist. Doctrine Fut. Life, V. viii. 627. The essence of mind must be the common ground and element of all different states of consciousness. What is that common ground and element but the presence of a percipient volitional force, whether manifested or unmanifested, still there?
1887. M. Roberts, Western Avernus, 5. I began to feel alive, volitional, not dead and most basely mechanical as at home in England.
3. Of the nature of a volition.
1831. Fraser’s Mag., IV. 361. It cannot move of itself, but a volitional thought is sufficient to raise it.
4. Of forces: Leading or impelling to action.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1877), I. Pref. p. xiii. The volitional forces which acted upon Russia in 1853.
1874. Sidgwick, Meth. Ethics, I. iii. 22. There seem to be two grounds of objection,… one relating to the cognitive function, and the other to the motive or volitional influence, of the Practical Reason.
5. Of actions, etc.: Arising from, due to, characterized by, the exercise of volition.
Freq. from c. 1875.
1859. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., V. 675/1. The case of the respiratory muscles constitutes an example of mixed movements wherein volitional can be superadded to unconscious rythmic motion.
1875. Poste, Gaius, I. Introd. Such actions are both Volitional (for the motor organs are set in motion by Volition) and Intentional.
1878. Smithsonian Rep., 419. The impulse causing the animal to make volitional movements comes from the peripheral centres.
1889. Buck’s Handbk. Med. Sci., VII. 689/2. There is probably one portion of the cerebrum in which volitional work is especially performed, viz., the frontal lobes.
b. Depending on volition or free choice.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 119. A mode of life more irregular, more volitional, than the daily mechanical regularity … at Garrandilla proper.
Hence Volitionality, the quality or state of being volitional.
1895. Funk’s Stand. Dict.
