6. Sense of pleasure potentiality of the thing, which implies—
(a) Idea of pleasure.
(b) Idea of personal experience thereof, i.e., some egoistic sense.
(c) Sense of experience as in time past, as experienced.
(d) Sense of time as future as implied in sense of the experienceable.
7. The longing, yearning, peculiar desire quality as feeling mode.
8. Desire pain.
In the first place then, the object of desire, the desideratum, is not the object as such. We do not desire things merely as such, but only as far as they are significant of experience. Presentation does not, at least normally and originally, ever end in itself, but it is always connected, and connects with pleasure-pain experiences. Desire begins by being vague as to its object; under slight pressures of pain we want something, but we know not what; we have dim, undefined longing, but the indefinite object is always a possibility of experience, a centre of pleasure-pain potency. At the first stirring of hunger pains, we have a vague uneasiness and sense of lack, with a most general idea of object and longing toward it, and suffer the pain from hunger. We may be physiologically hungry without feeling hungry, and so may have a desire of thing in general to remove pain before the pain is felt and recognised in its particularity as hunger pain. When hunger comes, or, primitively, is achieved, then we want something to eat; and as this feeling intensifies, the craving becomes more and more definite as to object; bread, etc., is wanted, and in famine hunger there is the most particular representation, as of certain dishes formerly eaten with great relish. Lumholtz, wandering famished on a Christmas in the wilds of Australia, thinks of the puddings in his native Norway. The evolutionary significance of this increasing definition of object in desire is obvious in that greater definiteness and accuracy of self-preservative action is thereby assured.
As far as the nature of the emotion desire goes, it seems quite indifferent whether there is presentation or representation of object. I desire equally, whether I actually see the bonbon on the table or when I merely represent it—see it in my mind’s eye.
Primarily then, and always, even in the latest evolution, as tendency at least, the desire is for the pleasure in the object, and desire is excited by every representation of the pleasurable. If one says, “I can look upon pleasure without desire,” we may well question whether there is really personal pleasure represented. Dancing, card-playing, wine-drinking, may be pleasures which do not attract me because I do not care for them; and by such a statement we indicate the practical parallelism of pleasure and desire which is forced upon common introspection. If you care for it, it is a pleasure to you; if you do not care for it, it is not a pleasure to you; such is the result of common observation, and a very just conclusion so far as I can see. To excite desire, we naturally suggest the pleasurable. One person persuading another to go to a party says: “I know you would have a good time.” When one answers, “I know that I would have a good time, but I dread the trouble of getting ready”; here is a conflict of desires in which desire of present ease and comfort may overcome desire of future pleasure. We may, indeed, assert that one cannot honestly say, “I know it would be a great pleasure to me, but I have no desire for it.” When such a phrase is used, it can only mean that the pleasure is interpreted as belonging to the generic class of pleasures, yet not a pleasure to the individual in his present conception, or else its contingency, implied by “would,” is so great that desire is practically nil.