“A motive, then, is the idea of a pleasure; a particular motive, is the idea of a particular pleasure; and these are infinite in variety.
“Another question is, in what circumstances does the idea of a pleasure become a motive? For it is evident, that it does not so in all. It is only necessary here to illustrate, not to resolve the question. First, the pleasure must be 264 regarded as attainable. No man wills an act, which he knows he cannot perform, or which he knows cannot effect the end. In the next place, the idea of the particular pleasure must be more present to the mind, than any other of equal potency. That which makes the idea of one pleasure more potent than another; or that which makes one idea more present to the mind than another, is the proximate cause of the motive, and a remote cause of the volition. The cause of that superior potency, or of that presence to the mind, is a cause of the volition, still more remote, and so on.—Ed.
SECTION II.
CAUSES OF OUR PLEASURABLE AND PAINFUL STATES, CONTEMPLATED AS THE CONSEQUENTS OF OUR OWN ACTS.
The motives which are formed by the association of our actions, not with our pleasures immediately, but the causes of them, are much more numerous than those which are formed by the association of them with the pleasures themselves; and give birth to a much greater number of actions.
The cause of this we have already explained, and need not explain it again.
The causes of our Pleasures, including as well the remote as the proximate, are so numerous, that it is necessary to speak of them in classes.
We have surveyed them under the following Heads; Wealth, Power, Dignity, our Fellow-creatures, the objects called Sublime and Beautiful; and having fully explained the associations by which they become AFFECTIONS, we have now only to shew, by what additament these Affections are converted into MOTIVES.
It is not difficult to trace the course of association. The idea of the pleasure carries us to the idea of the cause; the idea of that cause, to the idea of its cause; and so on till we arrive at that action of ours which is the commencing cause, and gives birth to all the 266 rest. This association forms a complex state of consciousness, which receives the name of MOTIVE.