46. Why not being desired, it moves not the will.
The ordinary necessities of our lives fill a great part of them
with the uneasinesses of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, weariness, with labour, and sleepiness, in their constant returns,
etc. To which, if, besides accidental harms, we add the fantastical uneasiness (as itch after honour, power, or
riches, etc.) which acquired habits, by fashion, example, and education, have settled in us, and a thousand other
irregular desires, which custom has made natural to us, we shall find that a very little part of our life is so vacant
from these uneasinesses, as to leave us free to the attraction of remoter absent good. We are seldom at ease, and
free enough from the solicitation of our natural or adopted desires, but a constant succession of uneasinesses out
of that stock which natural wants or acquired habits have heaped up, take the will in their turns; and no sooner is
one action dispatched, which by such a determination of the will we are set upon, but another uneasiness is ready
to set us on work. For, the removing of the pains we feel, and are at present pressed with, being the getting out of
misery, and consequently the first thing to be done in order to happiness,--absent good, though thought on,
confessed, and appearing to be good, not making any part of this unhappiness in its absence, is justled out, to
make way for the removal of those uneasinesses we feel; till due and repeated contemplation has brought it nearer
to our mind, given some relish of it, and raised in us some desire: which then beginning to make a part of our
present uneasiness, stands upon fair terms with the rest to be satisfied, and so, according to its greatness and
pressure, comes in its turn to determine the will.
