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At the end of the 19th century, psychophysiology served to apply the laws of energy to the study of the body. It stated that effort – by orienting energy towards a given goal – determined the efficiency of human work. Volition therefore appeared as an economic variable through which to manage activity, according to the ratio between the worth of a goal and the effort required to achieve it. At the same period, Sorel, a fervent reader of the scientific literature of his time, spoke of the worth producing potential of effort as evidence of the proletariat’s revolutionary destiny. By identifying the references to psychophysiology in Sorel’s work, this article aims at showing that the central value that he gives to the concept of effort in his philosophy of work does not equate to his reducing economics to a moral voluntarism, but rather that it speaks of his pragmatic conception of action.