[Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics by Alexander Bain]@TWC D-Link bookMoral Science; A Compendium of Ethics PART II 205/699
Vital motions, _e.g._, circulation, nutrition, &c., need no help of imagination; on the other hand, voluntary motions, as going and speaking--since they depend on a precedent thought of whither, which way, and what--have in the imagination their first beginning.
But imagination is only the relics of sense, and sense, as Hobbes always declares, is motion in the human organs communicated by objects without; consequently, visible voluntary motions begin in invisible internal motions, whose nature is expressed by the word _Endeavour_.
When the endeavour is towards something causing it, there is Appetite or Desire; endeavour 'fromward something' is Aversion. These very words, and the corresponding terms in Greek, imply an actual, not--as the schoolmen absurdly think--a metaphorical motion. Passing from the main question, he describes Love and Hate as Desire and Aversion when the object is present.
Of appetites, some are born with us, others proceed from experience, being of particular things. Where we neither desire nor hate, we contemn [he means, disregard]. Appetites and aversions vary in the same person, and much more in different persons. Then follows his definition of _good_,--the object of any man's appetite or desire, as evil is the object of his hate and aversion. Good and evil are always merely relative, either to the person of a man, or in a commonwealth to the representative person, or to an arbitrator if chosen to settle a dispute.
Good in the promise is _pulchrum_, for which there is no exact English term; good in the effect, as the end desired, is _delightful_; good as the means, is _useful_ or _profitable_.
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