What have been called "unconscious" desires have been brought very much to the fore in recent years by psycho-analysis.
Returning from this digression to our main topic, namely, the criticism of "consciousness," we observe that Freud and his followers, though they have demonstrated beyond dispute the immense importance of "unconscious" desires in determining our actions and beliefs, have not attempted the task of telling us what an "unconscious" desire actually is, and have thus invested their doctrine with an air of mystery and mythology which forms a large part of its popular attractiveness.
But when all that is explained and worked out on paper (which is perfectly possible, for it is contemptible and senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never understand), then certainly so-called
desires will no longer exist.
Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and
desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class.
SOCRATES: And does he who
desires the honourable also
desire the good?
"But suppose he
desires to do two opposite things, neither of which will permit him to do the other?" Maud interrupted.
As he had from a child a taste for painting, and as, not knowing what to spend his money on, he had begun collecting engravings, he came to a stop at painting, began to take interest in it, and concentrated upon it the unoccupied mass of
desires which demanded satisfaction.
The first theory, of assassination, was quickly abandoned when it was subjected to the light of reason, for it was evident that an assassin could have dispatched the little Prince at the same time that he killed the Lady Maud and her lover, had such been his
desire.
My second maxim was to be as firm and resolute in my actions as I was able, and not to adhere less steadfastly to the most doubtful opinions, when once adopted, than if they had been highly certain; imitating in this the example of travelers who, when they have lost their way in a forest, ought not to wander from side to side, far less remain in one place, but proceed constantly towards the same side in as straight a line as possible, without changing their direction for slight reasons, although perhaps it might be chance alone which at first determined the selection; for in this way, if they do not exactly reach the point they
desire, they will come at least in the end to some place that will probably be preferable to the middle of a forest.
For the French retreating along the old Smolensk road, the final goal- their native land- was too remote, and their immediate goal was Smolensk, toward which all their
desires and hopes, enormously intensified in the mass, urged them on.
But Adam would not take 'em, Nor the ships he wouldn't make 'em, Singing:--"Water, Earth and Air and Fire, What more can mortal man
desire?"(The Apple Tree's in leaf.)
Ye lack innocence in your
desire: and now do ye defame desiring on that account!
And when Saturday night came, and the week's work was over until Monday morning, I knew only one
desire besides the
desire to sleep, and that was to get drunk.
"Did your excellency
desire to see me?" inquired he.
Secondly, that what is commonly called love, namely, the
desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh, is by no means that passion for which I here contend.
