30. Will and desire must not be confounded.
But, in the way to it, it will be necessary to premise, that, though I
have above endeavoured to express the act of volition, by choosing, preferring, and the like terms, that signify
desire as well as volition, for want of other words to mark that act of the mind whose proper name is willing or
volition; yet, it being a very simple act, whosoever desires to understand what it is, will better find it by reflecting
on his own mind, and observing what it does when it wills, than by any variety of articulate sounds whatsoever.
This caution of being careful not to be misled by expressions that do not enough keep up the difference between
the will and several acts of the mind that are quite distinct from it, I think the more necessary, because I find the
will often confounded with several of the affections, especially desire, and one put for the other; and that by men
who would not willingly be thought not to have had very distinct notions of things, and not to have writ very
clearly about them. This, I imagine, has been no small occasion of obscurity and mistake in this matter; and
therefore is, as much as may be, to be avoided. For he that shall turn his thoughts inwards upon what passes in his
mind when he wills, shall see that the will or power of volition is conversant about nothing but our own actions;
terminates there; and reaches no further; and that volition is nothing but that particular determination of the mind,
whereby, barely by a thought the mind endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stop, to any action which it takes
to be in its power. This, well considered, plainly shows that the will is perfectly distinguished from desire; which,
in the very same action, may have a quite contrary tendency from that which our will sets us upon. A man, whom
I cannot deny, may oblige me to use persuasions to another, which, at the same time I am speaking, I may wish
may not prevail on him. In this case, it is plain the will and desire run counter. I will the action; that tends one
way, whilst my desire tends another, and that the direct contrary way. A man who, by a violent fit of the gout in
his limbs, finds a doziness in his head, or a want of appetite in his stomach removed, desires to be eased too of the
pain of his feet or hands, (for wherever there is pain, there is a desire to be rid of it), though yet, whilst he
apprehends that the removal of the pain may translate the noxious humour to a more vital part, his will is never
determined to any one action that may serve to remove this pain. Whence it is evident that desiring and willing are
two distinct acts of the mind; and consequently, that the will, which is but the power of volition, is much more
distinct from desire.
