Chapter 7: On the Appetitive—§1. On Will and Desire

In man two powers appear representing in the phenomenon the soul; will and desire; and both are emanations of the soul’s self-knowledge, that is, its self-consciousness.

Will has a higher origin, because it springs from both knowing and understanding, whereas desire springs from understanding alone. The different origin of each brings with it as a consequence the different reference of each; therefore will is referred to the thumic part of the soul and becomes a lawgiving power regulating will and the soul’s movement in accord with intellect and reason; desire is referred to the impulse of the soul and attaches more closely to the affections and sensory feeling.

Desire accompanies appetite and impulse, while will imposes itself upon appetite and hence upon desire and thus produces the character of man that reveals man as moral and distinguishes him from irrational animals. Will therefore accompanies the rational activities of the spirit; for this reason it imposes itself upon desire. Often we impose on ourselves deprivations and hardships for a purpose indicated by will; often we resist our natural needs and overlook both hunger and thirst and sleep, and impose on ourselves deprivations contrary to the demands of desire seeking satisfaction in what is deprived. Will is above the soul’s desire and for this reason imposes itself upon desire.

Will in man is the ruling and directing power; desire is the obedient and serving power. Will over desire has the position that the soul has over the body. Will is the operative power of the soul through which it represents itself in its rational activity. He who wills expresses the rational demand of the soul; the “I will according to reason” signifies the will of this personality, which raises the personality itself to the superhuman. He who expresses his desire not according to reason, but according to the impulses of the appetitive, does not express the demand of the soul, but of the body; hence his desire cannot be considered as a request of his personality, as not freely and reasonably presented, but forced by the appetitive.

Will is free, subject to no material bond; desire can be pressed by necessity and yield to it; but will never. Those who deny moral freedom to man ignore man and his spiritual life; for those the answer is difficult, as is the description of the sun to a blind person from birth; he who has not known the spiritual man and his spiritual life is unable to understand what moral freedom is and free will of man. They regard will as unfree as being altered and changed by food which follows its laws and limits; but have they known the free will of the spiritual man? Would it be altered by food? In the spiritual man the voice of the internal word, the voice of will unites with the divine word, and remains there unalterable; but these things are incomprehensible to them; hence they will always remain seeking whether man has free will and is morally free.

Already let us examine also the animal; does the animal also have moral freedom? Does it have free will? Because man has in almost every circumstance knowledge of the end and purpose of his actions, which serve to the rest of the soul. Animals lack will; their motion operates according to desire, which does not exceed sensory self-preservation; for this reason their movements are instinctive; the animal is deprived of this; because the impulse-driven activity, however purposeful, does not occur in knowledge of the end and purpose of the activity, as occurring by natural necessity and through mechanical motion.

The difference between human will and the actions of the animal manifests itself fully in the higher order of will in the appetitive, which is also called spiritual, because its objects are noetic and rational desires; in them the disposition of man toward arts and sciences appears, the inclination toward knowledge of truth, the desire toward development of his spiritual powers, the desire toward great works and new discoveries, the love toward what is spiritual, poetry and worship, the inclination toward beauty, toward goodness, toward truth, and in general the tendency toward what is noble and lofty, the longing for the spiritual world, are things wholly unknown to animals. And how could animals possess spiritual will, since they lack knowledge and intellect, that is, operating nous, internal and external speech, and a body serving the will appropriately? Animals do not have will; they have only desire; because they have only intellect; let us examine whether they have consciousness and self-consciousness.