31. Uneasiness determines the will.
To return, then, to the inquiry, what is it that determines the will in regard to
our actions? And that, upon second thoughts, I am apt to imagine is not, as is generally supposed, the greater good
in view; but some (and for the most part the most pressing) uneasiness a man is at present under. This is that
which successively determines the will, and sets us upon those actions we perform. This uneasiness we may call,
as it is, desire; which is an uneasiness of the mind for want of some absent good. All pain of the body, of what
sort soever, and disquiet of the mind, is uneasiness: and with this is always joined desire, equal to the pain or
uneasiness felt; and is scarce distinguishable from it. For desire being nothing but an uneasiness in the want of an
absent good, in reference to any pain felt, ease is that absent good; and till that ease be attained, we may call it
desire; nobody feeling pain that he wishes not to be eased of, with a desire equal to that pain, and inseparable
from it. Besides this desire of ease from pain, there is another of absent positive good; and here also the desire and
uneasiness are equal. As much as we desire any absent good, so much are we in pain for it. But here all absent
good does not, according to the greatness it has, or is acknowledged to have, cause pain equal to that greatness; as
all pain causes desire equal to itself: because the absence of good is not always a pain, as the presence of pain is.
And therefore absent good may be looked on and considered without desire. But so much as there is anywhere of
desire, so much there is of uneasiness.
