Desire

Desire is the name the tradition gives to wanting in all its forms: the hunger of the belly and the longing of lovers, the ambition of conquerors and the avarice of merchants, the curiosity that opens forbidden doors and the yearning of the soul for God. It is a great idea for these books because nearly every one of them must reckon with it. The philosophers ask what desire is and whether it is the spring of all action. The moralists and saints ask whether it should be governed, purged or extinguished. The poets and storytellers show, again and again, what happens when it is indulged. Pascal can say that lust is the source of all our voluntary actions¹, and Dante that desire is a spiritual motion, like fire rising, which never rests until it enjoys what it loves². Between these two judgments, one suspicious and one hopeful, much of the conversation unfolds.

The most austere definition belongs to Hobbes. Appetite and aversion are motions toward and away from an object. Desire is love in the object’s absence³, and whatever a man desires he calls good, whatever he shuns evil⁴. On this account desire does more than move the body. It directs regulated thought itself, which hunts for means to an end⁵. All voluntary acts aim at the agent’s own good^6,7. Pope makes self-love the spring of motion, with pleasure and pain as its desire and aversion⁸. Smith grounds the whole commerce of society in self-interest rather than benevolence⁹. He distinguishes the momentary passion for present enjoyment from the calm, lifelong “desire of bettering our condition” that prompts men to save¹⁰. Rousseau’s vicar grants that all actions aim at our good. He adds, however, that virtue cannot be explained unless moral good is counted among the goods we seek¹¹.

An older line puts the same universality differently. Augustine holds that all men will to be happy, and that so certain a will implies some knowledge of the thing willed^12,13. Pascal agrees that the desire of happiness underlies every action¹⁴. He argues that a good so universally desired must be one that all can possess without diminution or envy¹⁵. Berkeley says we desire or shun nothing except as it bears on happiness or misery¹⁶. Mill, in his crisis, adds a modern warning: enjoyments taken in passing suffice, but enjoyments made the principal object of life turn out insufficient¹⁷.

The distinction between natural and artificial wants runs through economists and moralists alike. Smith observes that the desire for food is limited by the stomach, whereas the desire for conveniences and ornaments has no boundary¹⁸. The rich, he notes, prize what nobody else can afford¹⁹. Harrison had already noticed that men covet the far-fetched and the costly, so that Venice glass is preferred to plentiful metal²⁰. Rousseau’s savage desires nothing beyond physical wants²¹, and in his account conveniences later degenerate into real needs²². Woolman traces imaginary wants to an evil spirit that leads men to exact more from others²³. Emerson places elegance in having few wants and serving them oneself²⁴.

That artificial wants are boundless leads to the broader theme of insatiability. He who loves abundance is never satisfied, says the Preacher²⁵. Dante’s she-wolf is hungrier after feeding than before²⁶. The fisherman’s wife in Grimm passes from cottage to castle, to kingship, to empire and papacy, and at last demands to be like God, sleepless with wanting^27,28,29. In the end she loses everything³⁰. Hobbes turns the fable into anthropology: all men have a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, ceasing only in death³¹. Pascal adds the psychology of anticipation. We picture a happy state by adding to our own the pleasures of a state we are not in, and attainment breeds new desires³². We love the chase better than the quarry, and the struggle rather than the victory^33,34. Montaigne’s lover, like the hunter, loses interest once the hare is caught³⁵. Cervantes’s Fernando hastens from the place where his desire was accomplished³⁶. Dana finds that years of longing for home end in flatness once the longing is fulfilled³⁷. Faust’s wager rests on the same premise, that the devil’s gifts will never let him rest content³⁸. Schiller traces this endlessness to reason’s impulse toward the absolute, which, misapplied to passion, yields unlimited want³⁹.

When the object is genuinely beyond reach, desire becomes longing. There is Tantalus with the water slipping away⁴⁰, Andersen’s little mermaid yearning for the world above⁴¹, and Whittier’s Maud Muller with her nameless wish for something better⁴². Granted wishes fare no better. The Psalmist’s Israelites received their request with leanness of soul⁴³. Aesop’s moral is that wishes gratified would often be regretted⁴⁴. Lady Macbeth finds that desire attained without content is nothing gained⁴⁵. Browning alone makes a virtue of the gap: a man’s reach should exceed his grasp⁴⁶.

The ancients generally hold that reason must govern appetite. In the Phaedo the soul holds back bodily hunger and thirst⁴⁷. Cicero warns that when appetite is master, no self-control remains⁴⁸. Marcus Aurelius calls being pulled by desire’s strings the mark of beasts and tyrants⁴⁹. Milton shows inordinate desires seizing the government from reason⁵⁰, and has the Lady answer Comus with a well-governed appetite⁵¹. Locke makes mastery of inclination the foundation of virtue⁵². Kant sharpens the opposition into a principle. Inclination may be loved but never respected, and must be overpowered by the law⁵³. It has only conditional worth, and every rational being would wish to be free of it⁵⁴. Augustine had placed the fault elsewhere, in the lusting rather than in the thing desired⁵⁵.

The drama shows passion winning. Plutarch likens Antony’s passion for Cleopatra to Plato’s rebellious horse breaking from counsel⁵⁶. Racine’s Phaedra bids her nurse serve her madness, not her reason⁵⁷. Hamlet says reason panders will⁵⁸. Lothario’s delight in Camilla overthrows his loyalty to his friend⁵⁹. Pascal generalizes: the will’s corrupt desires defeat the enlightened mind⁶⁰, and unbelief springs from lust rather than reason⁶¹.

Here the moderns open a genuine controversy. Mill argues that strong impulses are energy and the raw material of human nature. Men act ill from weak consciences, he holds, not from strong desires⁶². Goldsmith judges that without strong desire life is a smouldering fire⁶³. Stevenson, studying Pepys, suggests that a single desire is a lust, while many desires can balance and control one another⁶⁴. This is a modern answer to the ancient fear, and it remains unsettled.

Against it stand the doctrines of renunciation. Epictetus calls the power of desiring and avoiding man’s divine portion⁶⁵. He counsels that one let desire go, as the child must release the nuts to free his hand from the jar⁶⁶. At life’s banquet one should take modestly what reaches one and not send desire out toward what is absent⁶⁷. Marcus Aurelius would pray not to desire the woman rather than for a way to possess her⁶⁸. Cicero reports Sophocles glad to escape love as from an insane master⁶⁹. Descartes carries the Stoic maxim into the method: change one’s desires rather than the order of the world⁷⁰. The Buddhist writings go further. Desire arises from sensation and gives rise to attachment, and its cessation ends the chain of misery⁷¹. The Buddha’s utterance at enlightenment declares the mind to have seen the last of all desire⁷². Even so, the texts distinguish noble craving for Nirvana from ignoble craving for what perishes⁷³. The Gita traces a descent from brooding on sense objects to ruin⁷⁴. It calls Kama man’s enemy, smoke over the fire of reason⁷⁵, and pictures the perfect man as an ocean unmoved by inflowing streams⁷⁶.

Christian mortification differs from both, because its aim is to redirect desire rather than to extinguish it. Augustine confesses that he long wished concupiscence satisfied rather than extinguished⁷⁷. Thomas à Kempis teaches that peace comes from resisting passion⁷⁸. Desires, even good ones, must be examined and subjected to God’s will⁷⁹, for not every desire is from the Holy Spirit⁸⁰. Woolman would have the Holy Spirit set right bounds to desire⁸¹.

How the young should be trained in wanting is chiefly Locke’s subject. Children must never obtain their longings by crying⁸². Their love of dominion and possession is the root of vicious habits⁸³, and voiced wishes turn into demands⁸⁴. Yet Locke does not want to kill desire. Curiosity is to be cherished while other appetites are suppressed⁸⁵. Where there is no desire there is no industry⁸⁶. Huxley likewise holds that education can supply motives toward worthier desires⁸⁷.

Bodily appetite is the simplest form of the idea and among the oldest. Homer’s Odysseus repeatedly blames the ravening belly⁸⁸. Hunger drives his crew to the sacred cattle⁸⁹, and the lotus makes men forget their homeward way⁹⁰. For Plato the body fills us with lusts and fears, and the captive soul conspires in her own captivity^91,92. Bunyan says fleshly appetite is neighbor to present things⁹³. Comedy turns the same appetite to laughter in Massinger’s Greedy⁹⁴ and in Jonson’s Mammon, whose fantasies of feasts and seraglios join gluttony to lechery⁹⁵.

Sexual desire receives the darkest portraits. Augustine records how the madness of lust took rule over him at sixteen⁹⁶. Freed of ambition, he remained enthralled by carnal desire⁹⁷. Shakespeare’s sonnet calls lust perjured and murderous, a bliss turned woe⁹⁸. Lear rails at women’s riotous appetite⁹⁹. Pascal names three lusts, of the flesh, the eyes and the pride of life, which inflame the world like rivers of fire¹⁰⁰. Rousseau finds sexual passion hot and destructive among men¹⁰¹. Burns, by contrast, has nature pour the fire of desire into each bosom so that mankind may increase¹⁰². Montaigne sets physical desire, which ends in satiety, against friendship, which grows as it is enjoyed¹⁰³. The allegorists give carnal temptation its figures: Homer’s Sirens¹⁰⁴, Dante’s Siren stripped to reveal her foulness¹⁰⁵, and Bunyan’s Wanton and Madam Bubble^106,107.

Ambition is desire for rank and dominion. Plutarch finds in Caesar an unquenchable thirst of empire¹⁰⁸ and in Alcibiades a love of superiority visible from childhood¹⁰⁹. Milton’s Satan would rather reign in Hell¹¹⁰. Macbeth has only vaulting ambition to spur him¹¹¹. Penn calls ambition a restless, insatiable distemper¹¹². Bacon likens it to choler, malignant when checked¹¹³. Rousseau traces social injury to the rage for relative fortune¹¹⁴, and Carlyle shows Scott ruined by ambition that fed on success¹¹⁵. Yet the tradition also distinguishes nobler forms. Cicero separates true glory from glory sought for itself¹¹⁶. Machiavelli praises the desire to acquire when it stays within one’s power¹¹⁷. Ruskin calls the love of power an inextinguishable instinct, to be desired as power to heal and guard¹¹⁸. Pascal’s nobleman is a sovereign of desire, served because he commands what men covet¹¹⁹.

Avarice and envy complete the worldly passions. Smith describes the Spaniards’ “sacred thirst of gold” after Columbus¹²⁰. More traces covetousness to fear of lack and to pride in excelling others¹²¹. Aesop’s dog loses the real meat for the shadow¹²², and Bunyan’s Hill Lucre destroys those who turn aside¹²³. Dante explains envy as wishes fixed on goods that sharing diminishes, a love cured only by the higher sphere¹²⁴. Hobbes notes that two men desiring what both cannot enjoy become enemies¹²⁵.

Curiosity is ambiguous throughout. Augustine calls it the lust of the eyes veiled as knowledge¹²⁶. The fairy tales punish the forbidden door^127,128, and Milton’s Satan schemes to excite desire for forbidden knowledge¹²⁹. But Dante insists the natural desire to know would be given in vain if it could not be satisfied¹³⁰. Goethe has curiosity lead man from the novel through the useful to the good¹³¹. Burke thinks it a sharp appetite for novelty but one easily satisfied¹³². Wanderlust shares this doubleness. Sindbad’s soul, “prone to evil,” calls him to sea again and again^133,134. Dante’s Ulysses sets the zeal to explore above love of family¹³⁵, while Tennyson’s lotos-eaters lose all wish to strive¹³⁶.

The last word belongs to those who read all desire as a displaced longing for God. Augustine’s craving for objects of sense is an inner emptiness¹³⁷. Thomas à Kempis teaches that no created thing can satisfy desire¹³⁸. Pascal divides men’s wills between covetousness, which uses God and enjoys the world, and charity, which does the opposite¹³⁹. Saints and ordinary men alike seek satisfaction, he says, and differ only in where they place it¹⁴⁰. Bunyan’s man with the muck-rake gathers straws beneath a heavenly crown¹⁴¹. Purification remains even here. Thomas finds the fervent desire for heaven tainted by self-seeking¹⁴². Pascal suggests that to possess God is simply to desire Him¹⁴³, whereas Dante places the end of every wish in the last sphere¹⁴⁴. Whether desire is finally to be satisfied, endlessly renewed, or abolished is the question these books leave open.