Taking the definition of Professor Mackenzie as a goal and an ideal, we ask, In what ways have thinkers looked at Desire in the past, and what is the view they take of it in the present hour? To set this forth with fulness would be a great task. For Desire, t he analysis of it, and the place assigned to it, mark olf the schools of philosophy from each other, and, according as they view it, it gives the keynote to difi'erent systems of ethics. From the time of the beginnings of Greek thought down to the present time, the attempt to find a sufficient definition of Desire lias ever been renewed, and at present till' ol.l colli loveisy belwecii i'latoand the So|iliisls lias ils coiinterpaii in iIm- controversy lietween Crecn ami his supjiorters on the one hand, and Sidgwiek and the various supporters of Hedonism on the other. Both the theory of know- ledge and the theory of conduct are involved in the discussion of the question.
One of the many debts which the world owes to Socrates is the introduction of the conception of a supreme end of life. That there is one end which all men seek, and that every action must be judged by reference to that end, brought unity into man's conception of human life. Vp to ih.- time of Socrates men had thought of comlnct as ol.e.lieiice to certain practical rules, useful fiom i he point of view of prudence. ButSocratos shoH cil i jiai men's thoughts and actions must be 1:111.1.1! hy Iheir desire for something which they i.-ar.le.l a , .lesir- able. Rules wei'e simply the ways by \vlii(h the desirable end could be obtained. Illustrations of this principle abound in the statements ascribed to Socrates. A religious man desires to win the approbation of the gods ; a just man is persuaded
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that the practice of justice will bring satisfaction ; a man seeks knowledge because it is a satisfaction to know. Thus, in all departments of life there is some ilesirable end, and the thought of a desir- able end actually defines Desire as it appears to Socrates.
While a great advance was made when the thought of a supreme end of life dawned on the human mind, yet the question arose as to the nature of the end, and it received different answers. Is tlie end pleasure, or a pleasurable state of feeling ? Is it the avoidance of pain, or is it indifference to, pr superiority over, both pleasure and pain ? Is pleasure— pain, or indifference to pleasure— pain, or any other description of the end of life something to be referred to and determined by the individual man, or must we bring the thought of common life to bear on the solution of the problem? If we refer to the individual man the power of deciding what is the end of life and what is desirable as a means to that end, are we to think of the end in terms of pleasure as it appears to the cultured man, a man who is familiar with ideas and trains of ideas, or are we to think of pleasure as it appears to the natural man ? All these questions were keenly debated in the schools of Greece, and all of them have a bearing on the delinition of Desire.
Nor is it easy to say what are the views of the great masters of Greek thought on the question of desire. It is perhaps comparatively easy to say what were the views of Aiisi ippiis or of Epicurus, but not so easy to say w li.il wrir i he views of Plato or of Aristotle. Slill :, l.iiri ilrM'ription may be useful. Wequotoir I )) . .Inw.i i . ■ I'lato, speak- ing in tlie person oi S..,i,itr-, |.,■l^<l■s iutu a more ideal point of view, :iiiil r\|M(v~lv i rpn.li.ites the noti..n that the exeli:,ii,L;e ..f ;i I. U |,|r:,„ire for a
is the virtue of ordinary men who live in the world of appearance ; they are temperate only that they may enjoy the pleasure of intem)ierance, and courageous from fear of danger. Whereas the philosopher is seeking after wisdom and not after lilcas\u e, whether near or distant : he is the mystic, the initiated, who has learned to despise the body.
aliMii oi III,. J'/,,ii/,,. Kor he is compelled to confess, radiei i.lui l.uidy, perhaps, that some pleasures, i.'\ iho^r whiili have no antecedent i)ains, 'claima place in thi. s.ale of goods' (Jowett's Plato, vol. iv. ]). '2'.)i.). riato rejects the view that pleasure is necessarily iireceded liy pain. 'True pleasures are those wiiieh are given by beauty of colour and iorni, anil most of those which arise from smells; those of sound, again, and in general those of which the want is painless and unconscious, and the gratification afforded by them palpable to .sense and unalloyed with pain' {Philehnu, 51 A, Jowett's tr.). He prepared the way for the fuller analysis of pleasure and desire which we owe to Aristotle, for lie showed that pleasures which accompany tlie ni'tive iliseliar^'e of function are pleasant in i!ie,ii.e|ves : ihe phasures which are truly desinihh are tlie iJea-in.-, of the wise, all others are ;i ~li,el.i\s only ( /e/.. ."is;i I!). Thus Plato rejerts the eiiii.r theories of movement and le ]phiii -hnieiii . ill -I inguislies pleasures that are pre- i eeileil l.y |.aiii and want as pleasant only by con- I trasi, .in. I as it were by accident, from those jileasures which accomp.iny .active discharge of I