Human want

“ And, then, as the man develops his nobler nature, there arises the desire higher yet—the passion of passions, the hope of hopes—the desire that he, even he, may somehow aid in making life better and brighter, in destroying want and sin, sorrow and shame. ”

“ How it would illuminate the field of action, if it were discovered that men ultimately desire but one thing, and choose all other things on account of it! Would the discovery not facilitate immensely our dealings with our fellows, suggesting new possibilities of control? A notorious instance of the attempt to conjure away the bewildering diversity in men's desires and choices lies in the selection of pleasure as the one thing eligible in itself, the unique ultimate object of human action. ”

“ Now necessity, in both these senses, has universally, tho' tacitely, in the schools, in the pulpit, and in common life, been allow'd to belong to the will of man, and no one has ever pretended to deny, that we can draw inferences concerning human actions, and that those inferences are founded on the experience'd union of like actions with like motives and circumstances. ”

“ Of the character of the human will which makes the affections of the soul right or wrong.
But the character of the human will is of moment; because, if it is wrong, these motions of the soul will be wrong, but if it is right, they will be not merely blameless, but even praiseworthy. For the will is in them all; yea, none of them is anything else than will. For what are desire and joy but a volition of consent to the things we wish? And what are fear and sadness but a volition of aversion from the things which we do not wish? ”

“ Thus we meet with a fundamental philosophy of life in which it is not the satisfaction of needs, appetites, and desires, but the opposite theory which is thought to lead to welfare. Renounce what you want; do what you do not want to do; pursue what is repugnant ”

“ In other words, this state of the will is a means to good, not intrinsically a good; and does not contradict the doctrine that nothing is a good to human beings but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable, or a means of attaining pleasure or averting pain. ”

“ But passing by the above, which we can not here expound and which we lay no stress on, we think that the reader will probably go with us so far as this, that in desire what we want, so far as we want it, is ourselves in some form, or is some state of ourselves; and that our wanting anything else would be psychologically inexplicable. ”

“ This is simply saying in another way that we act in accordance with the emotion which is at the moment strongest.
Will Is Choice. Just here we can imagine an earnest protest: "But why do you ignore the human will? Why do you try to make man the creature of feeling? ”

“ He who dwells, not so much upon pleasure, as upon the satisfaction of desire and will, must state it differently, but the problem is much the same. What degree of recognition should be given to the will of each individual, or to the separate volitions and desires in the life of the individual? Should everybody count for one? Should every desire or group of desires receive recognition? Is no distinction to be made in the intensity of desires? ”

“ Choice is a mental process that involves the presence of plans for the satisfaction of desires, a foreknowledge of relatively objective ends that constitute the conscious aims of these desires, a more or less reasonable estimate of the value of these aims, and then some process which involves the survival of some, the subordination, or perhaps the suppression, of other desires.
So much for the second element of the human will. For some writers, choice has seemed the essential element of the will. ”

“ In any intelligible sense of the word will, they are will. They form our effective desires and they furnish us with our working capacities. They rule our thoughts, determining which shall appear and be strong and which shall pass from light into obscurity. ”

“ Could any other question be asked admitting in its details of such varied answers,—answers various as the means, the character, and situation of different individuals? But there are great wants pertaining to every human being, into which all lesser ones run. ”

“ Because nothing that may be given to the Body has any effect in appeasing the want. The Beginning of Philosophy, then, must be an intellectual want—a Hunger of the Soul.
'But all wants have their objects in which they seek and find their gratification. ”

“ We know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly-formed will is character. ”

“ All this is familiar, and political philosophy hitherto has been almost entirely based upon desire as the source of human actions.
But desire governs no more than a part of human activity, and that not the most important but only the more conscious, explicit, and civilized part. ”

“ It is not the less true that will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire; including in that term the repelling influence of pain as well as the attractive one of pleasure. Let us take into consideration, no longer the person who has a confirmed will to do right, but him in whom that virtuous will is still feeble, conquerable by temptation, and not to be fully relied on; by what means can it be strengthened? How can the will to be virtuous, where it does not exist in sufficient force, be implanted or awakened? ”

“ And it is also true that all desire involves want in the sense that an end is sought because its absence is felt as undesirable. But want in this sense means merely desire, and is not necessarily combined with any real pain of deprivation. ”

“ For this special desire becomes the master-motive in the man; and, if strong, establishes a unity in his consciousness, and calls out certain passions, appetites, powers of mind and conscience, heart and soul; and, in a long life, the man creates himself anew in the image of his ideal desire. This desire, good or bad, which sways the man, is writ on his character, and thence copied into the countenance; and lust or love, frivolity or science, interest or principle, mammon or God, is writ on the man. ”

“ We believe that, in spite of the fact that certain persons desire to imbue you with such an idea, you are assured of our good will and deed in all matters affecting you, which are such as love, duty, and reason demand. ”

“ At any rate, because we choose is the reason that the concept of will has arisen in the minds of both philosopher and the man in the street, and much of our feeling of worth, individuality and power—mental factors of huge importance in character—arises from the power to choose. Choice is influenced by—or it is a net result of—the praise and blame of others, conscience, memory, knowledge of the past, plans for the future. ”

“ Wishes—just the poor, commonplace little wishes of household life—what could poor, commonplace little Unity, with her limited soul-horizon, do more for him? wishes vaguely formulated in his mind he found quickly and effectively realized, and worried, hard-working, honest man that he was, he took the practical comforts sometimes as a matter of course, now and then with a careless word of thanks, and never dreamed—how could he?—of the passionate endeavour whereby these poor, commonplace little things came to pass. ”

“ When I said that the good life consists of love guided by knowledge, the desire which prompted me was the desire to live such a life as far as possible, and to see others living it; and the logical content of the statement is that, in a community where men live in this way, more desires will be satisfied than in one where there is less love or less knowledge. ”

“ And, at the end, man is reaped—the product, not of good alone, but of evil; not of joy alone, but of sorrow—perhaps mellowed and ripened, perhaps stricken and withered and sour. How, then, shall we judge any one?”
Can we not judge a man by his will? Does not such an instrument reflect his character, his nature, and his eccentricities? ”

“ Few things show the human character in a more ridiculous light than the circumstance of will-making. It is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition, and we take care to make a good use of it. ”

“ How often does it happen, in various instances, that in the blindness of human wishes, we hurry to the goal of our desires—even those which we deem innocent and praiseworthy; but which, when suffered to lead us on, without a reference to a higher power, never fail to mislead, and prove fallacious when obtained. ”

“ But suppose A. feels anxious for your warm regard for his prosperity in his lawful understandings, here the desire reaches to nothing unjust, to no disorder in society, or beyond your power, and clearly within his power to reciprocate; he is then bound by the rule to feel a warm desire for your prosperity in all your lawful undertakings. And who does not perceive that if one desires your good wishes, he must of necessity feel good wishes for you. Whether the desire imply merely a mental or physical action, similar examples will illustrate. ”

“ But it is equally important, from our idealistic point of view, to remember that, in so far as I purpose, intend, pursue, or find myself accomplishing, it is of the very essence of my will to demand its own Other, to set its fulfilment beyond its present, and so to define its own very life as now in some sense also not its own, or as in some wise now foreign. ”

“ I say ends that we desire, not ‘ends that we ought to desire. What we "ought" to desire is merely what someone else wishes us to desire. Usually it is what the authorities wish us to desire—parents, schoolmasters, policemen, and judges. If you say to me "you ought to do so-and-so," the motive power of your remark lies in my desire for your approval—together, possibly, with rewards or punishments attached to your approval or disapproval. Since all behaviour springs from desire, it is clear that ethical notions can have no importance except as they influence desire. ”

“ But the thing in which we are now most concerned is how to reach and strengthen the will through the feelings. Some of the feelings which powerfully influence the will are desire of approbation, ambition, love of knowledge, appreciation of the beautiful and the good; or, on the other side, rivalry, envy, hate, and ill-will. Now, it is clear that a cultivation of the feelings and emotions is possible which may strongly influence the purposes and decisions of the will, either in the right or wrong direction. ”

“ Whither, in fact, would you have interest lead in the train of desire? My desire is certainly to be the most fortunate possible. My interest is to seek to be so by all means, whatever they may be, under the single reserve that they be not contrary to their end. If I am born the first of men, the richest, the most beautiful, the most powerful, etc., I shall do every thing to preserve the advantages I have received. ”

“ And the shock of having to transvalue all the accepted values, of having, in a world organized on the basis of fear, to conceive of a world organized on the basis of good will, made him a thinker in his own right. ”

“ This desire, so kindly expressed, immediately awakened within me an inclination to comply with it; for, if in the early years of life our passions lead us to follow our own course, and, in order not to swerve from it, we impatiently repel the demands of others, so, in bur later days, it becomes highly advantageous to us, should any sympathy excite and determine us, cordially, to new activity. ”

“ What people need and what they want may be very different. ”

“ When we ask, therefore, whether it is our own pleasure (or good) or that of others that we ought to aim at, we are pointed to the gradual obliteration of the distinction between the interest and feelings of the individual and those of the whole. ”

“ The will itself is the capacity of being affected by objects with emotion, passion, and desire,—and with that form of passion which we call the sense of the most agreeable or choice, and which is connected with effects or consequents as their stated antecedent. ”

“ I understand now that my sole ambition is to bring life within their reach. What matter what their thoughts, their loves, their wishes, if at least they have acquired the taste and the means of thinking, loving and wishing? ”

“ But have we any motive whatever in the many cases in which we choose—sometimes after the vain endeavor to discover a ground of preference—between two equally valuable, beautiful, or appetizing objects, between two equally pleasant routes to the same terminus, or between two equally agreeable modes of passing a leisure day or hour? Yet this choice, made without motive, may be a fruitful cause of motives that shall have a large influence in the future. Thus, on the route which one chooses without any assignable reason, he may encounter persons or events that shall modify his whole plan of life. ”

“ Therefore we must sometime pass into that state wherein we do not wish to be ourselves or anything else, except for His sake and by reason of His will, not ours. Then not our need or happiness, but His will, will be fulfilled in us. ”

“ That desire, if specific and urgent, we call a wish.
All these varieties of desire include the same two factors: on the one hand a recognition of present defect in ourselves, on the other imagination of possible bettered conditions. Diminish either, and personal power is narrowed. The richer a man's imagination, and the more abundant his pictures of possible futures, the more resourceful he becomes. Pondering on desire as rooted in the sense of defect, we may feel less regret that our age is one not easily satisfied. ”

“ Upon this point there is no need, I think, to dwell at any length; for it seems clear that, if we ask ourselves what it is we should most wish for, we find some general wish which would include and imply our particular wishes. ”