Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/267

 most general of our desires and aversions are factitious, i.e. generated by association; and therefore admit of intervals, augmentations, and diminutions. And, whoever will be sufficiently attentive to the workings of his own mind, and the actions resulting therefrom, or to the actions of others, and the affections which may be supposed to occasion them, will find such differences and singularities in different persons, and in the same person at different times, as no way agree to the notion of an essential, original, perpetual desire of happiness, and endeavour to attain it; but much rather to the factitious associated desires and endeavours here asserted. And a due regard to this, will, as it seems to me, solve many difficulties and perplexities found in treatises upon the passions. The writers upon this subject have begun in the synthetical method prematurely, and without having premised the analytical one. For it is very true that, after general desires and endeavours are generated, they give rise in their turn to a variety of particular ones. But the original source is in the particular ones, and the general ones never alter and new-model the particular ones so much, as that there are not many traces and vestiges of their original mechanical nature and proportions remaining.

Sixthly, The will appears to be nothing but a desire or aversion sufficiently strong to produce an action that is not automatic primarily or secondarily. At least it appears to me, that the substitution of these words for the word will may be justified by the common usage of language. The will is therefore that desire or aversion, which is strongest for the then present time. For if any other desire was stronger, the muscular motion connected with it by association would take place, and not that which proceeds from the will, or the voluntary one, which is contrary to the supposition. Since therefore all love and hatred, all desire and aversion, are factitious, and generated by association, i.e. mechanically, it follows that the will is mechanical also.

Seventhly, Since the things which we pursue do, when obtained, generally afford pleasure, and those which we fly from affect us with pain, if they overtake us, it follows that the gratification of the will is generally attended or associated with pleasure, the disappointment of it with pain. Hence a mere associated pleasure is transferred upon the gratification of the will; a mere associated pain upon the disappointment of it. And if the will was always gratified, this mere associated pleasure would, according to the present frame of our natures, absorb, as it were, all our other pleasures; and thus by drying up the source from whence it sprung, be itself dried up at last: and the first disappointments, after a long course of gratification, would be intolerable. Both which things are sufficiently observable, in an inferior degree, in children that are much indulged, and in adults, after a series of successful events. Gratifications of the