Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 01.djvu/336

260 the greatest allowed, even everlasting unspeakable good, which has sometimes moved and affected the mind, does not stedfastly hold the will, yet we see any very great and prevailing uneasiness, having once laid hold on the will, lets it not go; by which we may be convinced what it is that determines the will. Thus any vehement pain of the body, the ungovernable passion of a man violently in love, or the impatient desire of revenge, keeps the will steady and intent; and the will, thus determined, never lets the understanding lay by the object, but all the thoughts of the mind and powers of the body are uninterruptedly employed that way, by the determination of the will, influenced by that topping uneasiness as long as it lasts; whereby it seems to me evident, that the will or power of setting us upon one action in preference to all other, is determined in us by uneasiness. And whether this be not so, I desire every one to observe in himself.

§ 39. I have hitherto chiefly instanced in the uneasiness of desire, as that which determines the will, because that is the chief and most sensible, and the will seldom orders any action, nor is there any voluntary action performed, without some desire accompanying it; which I think is the reason why the will and desire are so often confounded. But yet we are not to look upon the uneasiness which makes up, or at least accompanies most of the other passions, as wholly excluded in the case. Aversion, fear, anger, envy, shame, &c. have each their uneasiness too, and thereby influence the will. These passions are scarce any of them in life and practice simple and alone, and wholly unmixed with others; though usually in discourse and contemplation, that carries the name which operates strongest, and appears most in the present state of the mind: nay there is, I think, scarce any of the passions to be found without desire joined with it. I am sure, wherever there is uneasiness, there is desire: