Appetite (philosophy)

“ For whether a man be conscious of his appetite or not, it remains one and the same appetite, and so, lest I might appear to be guilty of tautology, I have not explained desire by appetite, but have tried to give such a definition of desire as would include all the efforts of human nature to which we give the name of [218] appetite, desire, will, or impulse. ”

“ The appetite comes in eating, as the proverb says, and grows by what it feeds on. And the psychic self, torn with conflicting desires, is ever the house divided against itself, which must surely fall. ”

“ The appetitum is good, real or apparent, in so far as it can be achieved by our actions. Often we have contradictory appetites; and, in such cases, the Intellect is active generally as a force resisting the present and caring for the future. But Appetite or Desire, being an energy including both soul and body, is the real and appropriate cause that determines us to local movement, often even against strong opposition from the Intellect.193 ”

“ The appetite, being stirred up by the imaginative, effectually moves man to that which is proper and agreeable to his nature, just as when there is made a propension and inclination in the principal and reasonable part. Now those who withhold their assent and doubt of all things take not away this, but make use of the appetition or instinct naturally conducting every man to that which seems convenient for him. ”

“ Since I was a child, I may say, I had never known myself to lack good appetite, and I now found that so far from weakening my desire and enjoyment of my victuals, as would seem most fitting in a young woman of sentiment, the fatigues, emotions, and excitements of the day before had but set a keener edge to my relish of these, as of all other good things in what I could but think, despite all drawbacks, was a very engaging and gladsome world. ”

“ The appetite is the true criterion by which he may know what his body needs. If he feels a thirst for alcoholic drink, it is akin to a hunger for any special class of foods. He is not to ask his servant, the stomach, whether it is willing to do the work of transformation. ”

“ But now contrast that with the issue of all other methods of satisfying human appetites, be they lower or be they higher. They result either in satiety or in a tyrannical, diseased appetite which increases faster than the power of satisfying it increases. ”

“ For instance, appetite, in the irrational creatures, takes its rise in the passions, and their movement, which takes the form of appetite, is full of all kinds of unreasonableness. But with regard to the intelligent, we must think of the appetite in another fashion, as denoting, according to my judgment, their manly style, and their determined persistence in their Godlike and unchangeable steadfastness. ”

“ The most admirable thing about the cravings of physical appetite is that they can always be appeased, and being satisfied, bring us a torpor, a dullness, which has a certain charm, while the desires of the mind, its most splendid imaginings, only fill us with regret and bitterness. ”

“ But the appetite requires food. I mean by this that the appetite of the man—and the term is used in a generic sense and includes women—the most superficial thinker will concede without argument that there 91 must be a man to have the appetite ”

“ But as the case is, the mind does not appear to produce motion without appetite, for volition is appetite; and even when a creature may move by calculation, it still moves by volition; the appetite, on the contrary, impels to move against calculation, for desire is a kind of appetite. ”

“ But I must needs take my petulance, contrasting it with my accustomed morning hopefulness, as a sign of the ageing of appetite, of a decay in the very capacity of enjoyment. We need some imaginative stimulus, some not impossible ideal such as may shape vague hope, and transform it into effective desire, to carry us year after year, without disgust, through the routine-work which is so large a part of life. “Then, how if appetite, be it for real or ideal, should itself fail one after awhile? Ah, yes! is it of cold always that men die; and on some of us it creeps very gradually. ”

“ But if it is in nature to have an appetite—for it is always to appetite that I come back, and to the sensation that is ever present to me—then I find that it is by no means consistent with good order not to have always something to eat. ”

“ That beautiful aphorism, "The human heart is like heaven—the more angels the more room for them," is to such persons as unintelligible in its loving spirit as in its wonderful philosophic truth. Their craving is insatiable, once it has become habitual, and their appetite is increased and stimulated, instead of being appeased, by the anxiously-sought-for nourishment. ”

“ If, then, it is not going to be obedient and subject to the ruling principle, it will go to great lengths; for in an irrational being the desire for pleasure is insatiable even if it tries every source of gratification, and the exercise of appetite increases its innate force, and if appetites are strong and violent they even expel the power of calculation. ”

“ Of course, the eating must be substantial, but the adventitious appetites accomplish nothing and they may be not only intemperate and damaging to health but even unmoral. Yet it is not alone the simplicity of the daily fare that interests me here, but the necessity that it shall be as direct as possible from the ground or the sea, and that it shall be undisguised and shall have meaning beyond the satisfying of the appetite. ”

“ Perhaps it is because it has been dinned into our ears from early childhood, that an appetite, a healthy longing for something good to eat, a tickling of the palate with wholesome, appetizing food, is beneath the attention of an aesthetic, intellectual man. ”

“ Before the impulses of appetite can be converted into the regular pursuit of a given object, they must first be communicated to the understanding, and modify the will through that. Consequently as the desire of the ultimate gratification of the appetite is not the same with the appetite itself, that is mere physical uneasiness, but an indirect result of its communication to the thinking or imaginative principle, the influence of appetite over the will must depend on the extraordinary degree of force and vividness which it gives to the idea of a particular object ”

“ We sleek, well-fed folk can hardly realize what feeling hungry is like. We know what it is to have no appetite and not to care for the dainty victuals placed before us, but we do not understand what it means to sicken for food—­to die for bread while others waste it—­to gaze with famished eyes upon coarse fare steaming behind dingy windows, longing for a pen’orth of pea pudding and not having the penny to buy it—­to feel that a crust would be delicious and that a bone would be a banquet. ”

“ The Philosopher speaks of the lower sensitive appetite which can be moved by the superior intellectual appetite, because it belongs to the same nature of the soul, and because the inferior appetite is a power in a corporeal organ. But this does not apply to the angels. ”

“ He is simply enjoying the free air and warm sunshine without a thought of food for all his months of fasting. Perhaps he has forgotten that miserable necessity of existence. When at last he remembers that he has an appetite, you can scarcely imagine that he can have any pleasure in satisfying it with one huge mouthful of twice or thrice the ordinary diameter of his gullet. ”

“ Secondly, in so far as one and the same appetitive power tends to diverse objects of appetite, which it cannot obtain all at the same time: so that there must needs be a clashing of the movements of the appetite. ”

“ It may be affirmed that the appetite cannot be the positive cause of this motion; for the temperate, even while desiring and yearning after something, do not act in order to secure that for which they feel appetite, but follow their understanding. ”

“ A careful observation and just views would be able, as a general thing without detriment, to wrest many an hour from vain, vulgar, useless, or harmful pursuits, to bestow it upon adornments and amenities that do not perish with the using. And if a man or a woman is so deteriorated as to prefer the indulgence of a coarse or frivolous appetite, or the inordinate indulgence of a merely natural appetite, to the gratification and cultivation of refined and elevated tastes,—the more’s the pity! ”

“ Application of Principles.—What is needed for the mental treatment of patients with defective appetite, is that they should be made to realize that appetite is a function of habit, rather than of absolute natural craving in the conditions in which men and women live at the present time. ”

“ The eagerness of appetite that one can fairly see in the watery and sensual eyes of men to whom eating has become the aim and joy of their existence—the absorption of every faculty in the gluttonous pursuit—the animal indulgence and delight—these are sickening ”

“ Yet numbers of people attempt to justify the gratification of their gluttonous proclivities by the statement that they are "blessed with a good appetite," while the truth of the matter is, they are cursed with an inordinate lust for food. ”

“ Want of appetite is not always a morbid symptom, nor even a sign of imperfect digestion. Nature may have found it necessary to muster all the energies of our system for some special purpose, momentarily of paramount importance. ”

“ Wherefore love differs according to the difference of appetites. For there is an appetite which arises from an apprehension existing, not in the subject of the appetite, but in some other: and this is called the "natural appetite." ”

“ But the appetite has no deliberative will, as appetite sometimes overcomes and impels the will, and sometimes the will overcomes and impels the appetite, as a ball is bandied to and fro; or appetite rules and impels appetite, when intemperance has the ascendancy. But that which is superior is ever naturally more dominant, and productive of motion in three different directions; but the intelligent faculty has no motion—it remains at rest. ”

“ This is why we should describe as self-indulgent rather the man who without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the excesses of pleasure and avoids moderate pains, than the man who does so because of his strong appetites; for what would the former do, if he had in addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain at the lack of the 'necessary' objects? ”

“ They looked to it to keep a man clean and sound and sane. In this matter, as in all matters of natural desire, they held no appetite must be glutted, no appetite must have artificial whets, and also and equally that no appetite should be starved. ”

“ If it is your desire that your circulatory, respiratory, and digestive functions, should be discharged properly, normally, if you want your appetite to be good, your sleep sound, your humor equable, avoid all emotions that are over-strong, all pleasures that are too intense, and meet the inevitable sorrows and the cruel agonies of life with a resigned and firm soul. Ever have some occupation to employ and divert your mind, and to make it proof against the temptations of want or of desire. ”

“ The bold appetite, said they, is that which is felt when fasting. It reflects but very little; is not squeamish about viands, and loses all reserve at the sight of a very indifferent ragoût.
The indolent appetite requires to be encouraged. It must be enticed, pressed, irritated. At first, nothing moves it—but after having tasted a succulent dish, it rouses, is astonished, its ardour becomes animated, and is capable of performing prodigies. It is this appetite which has consecrated the trivial but true proverb: “L’appétit vient en mangeant.”
The eclectic appetite owes nothing to nature ”

“ This is not a lecture directed against the fancy drink habit, or a temperance sermon, but just an illustration of the difference between a natural instinct and an acquired habit, or appetite. Appetite is an acquired habit of eating or drinking, and has but little to do with real hunger or thirst. ”

“ Our appetite is only excessive because we try to impose on it rules other than those of nature, opposing, controlling, prescribing, adding, or substracting; the scales are always in our hands, but the scales are the measure of our caprices not of our stomachs. ”

“ If appetite will not obey, let the moving faculty overrule her, let her resist and compel her to do otherwise. In an ague the appetite would drink; sore eyes that itch would be rubbed; but reason saith no, and therefore the moving faculty will not do it. Our fantasy would intrude a thousand fears, suspicions, chimeras upon us, but we have reason to resist, yet we let it be overborne by our appetite; [3416] “imagination enforceth spirits, which, by an admirable league of nature, compel the nerves to obey, and they our several limbs:” we give too much way to our passions. ”

“ We know all this very well, and yet we are prone to think of appetite as something regulated by instinct, and representing the real needs of the organism in its cravings and the limitations of the necessity of food by its satisfaction. In our sophisticated modern life instinct will often fail entirely to fulfill these purposes. Appetite for those who live much indoors is a question of {265} habit and regulation rather than of instinct. ”

“ This desire of being filled is called the appetite, which arises from a sense of want, when the veins of the stomach absorb, and, as it were, suck from it, whereby a painful feeling is excited, the proper cure of which is a supply of food. ”

“ Be a little more diplomatic. A good appetite is not a sin. An appetite over-stimulated by condiments or endless varieties of courses is. He should eat to satisfy his hunger, not to gratify his palate. ”

“ If, when walking along, there flashes on you an idea that creates great surprise, hope, or alarm, you stop; or if sitting cross-legged, swinging your pendent foot, the movement 200 is at once arrested. From the viscera, too, intense mental action abstracts energy. Joy, disappointment, anxiety, or any moral perturbation rising to a great height, will destroy appetite ”