Velleity: The Wish That Never Becomes a Will
Velleity names something everyone experiences but few can articulate: the faint, passive desire for something you will never actually pursue. It is wanting without willing, intention without commitment — the ghost of a decision that was never made.
The Scholastic Invention
Unlike most English words, *velleity* was not borrowed from a living language — it was manufactured by medieval philosophers who needed a precise term for a precise concept. Scholastic theologians of the 13th century, working in Latin, coined velleitas from the Latin infinitive velle ('to wish, to will'). The word was designed to occupy a specific slot in the taxonomy of the will:
- Voluntās (will, volition) — a full, committed intention that leads to action - Velleitas (velleity) — a faint wish or inclination that does *not* lead to action
The distinction mattered enormously in moral theology. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) used it in the *Summa Theologica* to analyze the relationship between divine and human will. God's will, Aquinas argued, is always efficacious — what God wills, happens. God has no velleities. Human beings, however, are constitutionally prone to them: we wish for things we are unwilling to work for, desire outcomes we refuse to pursue. Velleity, in Aquinas's framework, is a defect of the will — not sin exactly, but a kind of spiritual laziness.
The Latin Root
Latin velle is the present infinitive of the irregular verb volō ('I wish, I am willing'). It comes from PIE \*welh₁- ('to wish, to choose'), one of the most consequential roots in the Indo-European family. Its descendants include:
Via Latin: - volition — the act of willing - voluntary — done by choice - volunteer — one who chooses freely - benevolent — wishing well (*bene* + *volēns*) - malevolent — wishing ill
Via Germanic: - will — Old English *willan*, from Proto-Germanic *\*wiljaną* - well — Old English *wel* ('according to one's wish, satisfactorily') - wealth — Middle English *welthe* ('well-being, prosperity')
The PIE root thus produced both the English words for active choice (*will*, *voluntary*) and the Latin-derived word for the failure of choice (*velleity*). The entire spectrum of human wanting — from iron determination to idle daydreaming — descends from a single prehistoric syllable.
Into English
The word entered English around 1618, borrowed from French velléité, which had itself been coined from the Medieval Latin. It has always been a literary and philosophical word — never common, never fully naturalized, but never quite forgotten either.
In French, *velléité* has a slightly different flavour: it often implies fickleness or indecisiveness rather than mere passivity. A French politician accused of *velléités réformatrices* is being charged with half-hearted reform attempts, not just idle wishes. English *velleity* stays closer to the scholastic original: pure passivity, desire without the faintest motion toward action.
Literary Velleity
The concept — if not always the word — runs through Western literature. Hamlet is velleity incarnate: he wishes to avenge his father but cannot will himself to act. J. Alfred Prufrock in T.S. Eliot's poem is a study in velleity: 'Do I dare to eat a peach?' Oblomov, the hero of Goncharov's Russian novel, cannot even get out of bed — his entire existence is velleity made flesh.
The word itself appears in the writing of William James, who used it in *The Principles of Psychology* (1890) to describe the weakest form of consent the mind can give to an idea — a bare acknowledgment of desirability with zero motivational force.
Why the Word Matters
Velleity fills a genuine gap in English. We have *wish*, *want*, *desire*, *hope* — but none of these quite captures the specific quality of a desire known to be impotent. A wish might come true; a want might be satisfied; hope implies some expectation. Velleity implies none of these. It is wanting in its purest, most futile form — the human capacity to envision a better state of affairs and do absolutely nothing about it.