6. Desire.
The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries
the idea of delight with it, is that we call desire; which is greater or less, as that uneasiness is more or less
vehement. Where, by the by, it may perhaps be of some use to remark, that the chief, if not only spur to human
industry and action is uneasiness. For whatsoever good is proposed, if its absence carries no displeasure or pain
with it, if a man be easy and content without it, there is no desire of it, nor endeavour after it; there is no more but
a bare velleity, the term used to signify the lowest degree of desire, and that which is next to none at all, when
there is so little uneasiness in the absence of anything, that it carries a man no further than some faint wishes for
it, without any more effectual or vigorous use of the means to attain it. Desire also is stopped or abated by the
opinion of the impossibility or unattainableness of the good proposed, as far as the uneasiness is cured or allayed
by that consideration. This might carry our thoughts further, were it seasonable in this place.
