41. The most pressing uneasiness naturally determines the will.
But we being in this world beset with sundry
uneasinesses, distracted with different desires, the next inquiry naturally will be,--Which of them has the
precedency in determining the will to the next action? and to that the answer is,--That ordinarily which is the
most pressing of those that are judged capable of being then removed. For, the will being the power of directing
our operative faculties to some action, for some end, cannot at any time be moved towards what is judged at that
time unattainable: that would be to suppose an intelligent being designedly to act for an end, only to lose its
labour; for so it is to act for what is judged not attainable; and therefore very great uneasinesses move not the will,
when they are judged not capable of a cure: they in that case put us not upon endeavours. But, these set apart, the
most important and urgent uneasiness we at that time feel, is that which ordinarily determines the will,
successively, in that train of voluntary actions which makes up our lives. The greatest present uneasiness is the
spur to action, that is constantly most felt, and for the most part determines the will in its choice of the next action.
For this we must carry along with us, that the proper and only object of the will is some action of ours, and
nothing else. For we producing nothing by our willing it, but some action in our power, it is there the will
terminates, and reaches no further.
