as Aristotle said, wonder may rise, step by step, to the highest; and, as difficulties increase, curiosity, however eager and indefatigable, finds itself again and again repressed. With each such repression wonder is renewed; until at length we reach the highest things which overtax the greatest minds. How great and wonderful those objects are only those know who have given all the powers of their minds to master them; not those who rest in that other and indolent wonder, in which all sorts of superstitions and delusions develop, little worthy of wonder, because they have not trusted their understanding. We have now finished this inadequate study of the chief emotional systems organised in the sentiments, of which wonder, if not a primary system, is one of the most important, being the source of the sentiment for truth, and exalting the worth of every beloved object. We have now to consider another system, which, though no longer regarded as an emotion, is more important than any emotion in the organisation of the sentiments. This system is Desire. CHAPTER I THE SYSTEM OF DESIRE 1. Of the Differences of Impulse, Appetite and Emotion IN this chapter we have to introduce a new feature into the conception of character outlined in the First Book; and in so doing we shall be acting in accordance with our method. By the study of Desire we shall carry further that conception; we shall discern fresh problems of the science, and be directed in the search for other laws than those we have hitherto recognised. And here, too, we shall not attempt to establish the final truth of our conception of desire, but shall be content to take it "for its value in use," in the conviction that the defects in it will be gradually disclosed by the application of the method and the progress of the science. The systems of character which, for want of a better term, we named the 'sentiments,' organise certain of the primary emotional systems, and are partly constituted by such organisation. In this unfinished state we left the conception of the sentiments, because we were not then in a position to understand desire, which, also, wherever intellectual development permits of it, is contained in their systems. An essential feature of the primary emotions, as we conceived them, was the possession of impulses; and these impulses we found to be connected with particular instincts or innate tendencies, and to be the immediate condition or correlate in consciousness of their activity. The emotion, with its impulses, instincts, acquired tendencies and behaviour, constituted, in our view, a single system innately determined to the pursuit of a particular end. While the presence of the impulse in consciousness involves the excitement of the instinct connected with it, the excitement of the instinct also generally involves the presence in consciousness of the impulse. This sufficiently distinguishes instinct from merely reflex action. The system of a reflex act does not include the intervention of an impulse; the system of an instinct normally does, though perhaps this impulse may not be elicited on all occasions nor when the action is most sudden, rapid, and unimpeded. Like the emotions, the Appetites also include impulses, and these are in fact their most prominent constituents. Hunger urges the animal to pursue, to select, and to appropriate its food; and various instincts, according to the nature of the animal, are involved in these actions. Hunger, then, is like the primary emotions, in respect of the variety of instincts that may be contained in its system-hunting instincts, appropriative and destructive instincts. For every one of these there must be a particular impulse which, apparently, is connected with the excitement of the instinct. Each impulse is connected with its particular instinct, and only indirectly with others. What then is hunger? Has it a major impulse connected with these minor impulses, each in its place; or is this central factor, though called an appetite, substantially the same thing as emotion? If we could not regard the primary emotions merely as feeling, neither can we regard the appetites merely as conation, though feeling is in general more prominent in the one, and impulse in the other. Such an abstract point of view is contrary to our method. We have to take the whole fact as it is, and not employ the term 'appetite' to denote some abstracted portion of it. The appetites have their own feeling, and when their satisfaction is delayed, are capable of a considerable degree of excitement. This excitement is the emotional side of the appetite. Appetites, we may say, even if they resemble emotions, have distinctive features of their own. Appetites are centrally initiated within the body; emotions from without; and appetites have a regularity of recurrence which is foreign to the emotions; when they are not satisfied at the proper time, |