From desire to desire

This is a compilation of texts on the basic idea that human beings, having satisfied one desire, move on to attempt to satisfy a different desire, and that this seems to go on indefinitely while on earth, but could possibly end if we attain unto God, who is the last end of man. Of course, not all texts will recognize this last possibility.

At its first posting, I am much less satisfied with this compilation than with others on this blog. I have long delayed publishing it, out of a desire to improve it first. I still hope to update it later.

Texts that I will not quote

In the Bible, the entirety of Ecclesiastes 1–2 seems relevant, but that is very long, and I do not find any one section particularly relevant, so I have linked it rather than trying to quote it.

The Second Noble Truth, from Buddhism, also seems relevant, but I do not know which primary texts would be best to quote about it, and I have not tried to look for one.

The quote collection

Socrates: [...] Let me request you to consider how far you would accept this as an account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in a figure:—There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the truth?
Callicles: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.
Socrates: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.
Callicles: Certainly.
Socrates: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be hungering and eating?
Callicles: Yes.
Socrates: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?
Callicles: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.

— Plato, Gorgias, 493d–494c

He must, then, if it should so happen, be able to lift up his voice, to come upon the stage, and say, like Socrates: “O mortals, whither are you hurrying? What are you about? Why do you tumble up and down, O miserable wretches! like blind men? You are going the wrong way, and have forsaken the right. You seek prosperity and happiness in a wrong place, where they are not; nor do you give credit to another, who shows you where they are. Why do you seek this possession without? It lies not in the body; if you do not believe me, look at Myro, look at Ofellius. It is not in wealth; if you do not believe me, look upon Crœsus; look upon the rich of the present age, how full of lamentation their life is. It is not in power; for otherwise, they who have been twice and thrice consuls must be happy; but they are not. To whom shall we give heed in these things? To you who look only upon the externals of their condition, and are dazzled by appearances, — or to themselves? What do they say? Hear them when they groan, when they sigh, when they pronounce themselves the more wretched and in more danger from these very consulships, this glory and splendor. It is not in empire; otherwise Nero and Sardanapalus had been happy. But not even Agamemnon was happy, though a better man than Sardanapalus or Nero. But, when others sleep soundly what is he doing?

“Forth by the roots he rends his hairs.”

And what does he himself say?
“I wander bewildered; my heart leaps forth from my bosom.”

Why; which of your affairs goes ill, poor wretch? Your possessions? No. Your body? No. But you have gold and brass in abundance. What then goes ill? That part of you is neglected and corrupted, whatever it be called, by which we desire, and shrink; by which we pursue, and avoid. How neglected? It is ignorant of that for which it was naturally formed, of the essence of good, and of the essence of evil. It is ignorant what is its own, and what another’s. And, when anything belonging to others goes ill, it says, “I am undone; the Greeks are in danger!” (Poor ruling faculty! which alone is neglected, and has no care taken of it.) “They will die by the sword of the Trojans!” And, if the Trojans should not kill them, will they not die? “Yes, but not all at once.” Why, where is the difference? For if it be an evil to die, then whether it be all at once or singly, it is equally an evil. Will anything more happen than the separation of soul and body? “Nothing.” And, when the Greeks perish, is the door shut against you? Is it not in your power to die? “It is.” Why then do you lament, while you are a king and hold the sceptre of Zeus? A king is no more to be made unfortunate than a god. What are you, then? You are a mere shepherd, truly so called; for you weep, just as shepherds do when the wolf seizes any of their sheep; and they who are governed by you are mere sheep. But why do you come hither? Was your desire in any danger? Your aversion? Your pursuits? Your avoidances? “No,” he says, “but my brother’s wife has been stolen.” Is it not great good luck, then, to be rid of an adulterous wife? “But must we be held in contempt by the Trojans?” What are they? Wise men, or fools? If wise, why do you go to war with them? If fools, why do you heed them?

— Epictetus, Discourses, book III, discourse XXII

Moreover, we are continually engaged and fixed in the same occupations; nor, by the prolongation of life, is any new pleasure discovered. Yet that which we desire, seems, while it is distant in the future, to excel all other objects; but afterwards, when it has fallen to our lot, we covet something else; and thus a uniform thirst of life occupies us, longing earnestly for that which is to come; while what fate the last period may bring us, or what chance may throw in our way, or what death awaits us, still remains in uncertainty.

— Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, end of book III
(Watson trans., page 144; see also the similar OLL ed.)

If I know you well, you have already been trying to find out, from the very beginning of my letter, what little contribution it brings to you. Sift the letter, and you will find it. You need not wonder at any genius of mine; for as yet I am lavish only with other men’s property. – But why did I say “other men”? Whatever is well said by anyone is mine. – This also is a saying of Epicurus: “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.” Nature’s wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless. Suppose that the property of many millionaires is heaped up in your possession. Assume that fortune carries you far beyond the limits of a private income, decks you with gold, clothes you in purple, and brings you to such a degree of luxury and wealth that you can bury the earth under your marble floors; that you may not only possess, but tread upon, riches. Add statues, paintings, and whatever any art has devised for the satisfaction of luxury; you will only learn from such things to crave still greater.

Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point. The false has no limits. When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless. Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point. If you find, after having travelled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature. Farewell.

— Seneca, Letter 16, §§7–9

Attalus used to employ the following simile: “Did you ever see a dog snapping with wide-open jaws at bits of bread or meat which his master tosses to him? Whatever he catches, he straightway swallows whole, and always opens his jaws in the hope of something more. So it is with ourselves; we stand expectant, and whatever Fortune has thrown to us we forthwith bolt, without any real pleasure, and then stand alert and frantic for something else to snatch.” But it is not so with the wise man; he is satisfied. Even if something falls to him, he merely accepts it carelessly and lays it aside. The happiness that he enjoys is supremely great, is lasting, is his own. Assume that a man has good intentions, and has made progress, but is still far from the heights; the result is a series of ups and downs; he is now raised to heaven, now brought down to earth. For those who lack experience and training, there is no limit to the downhill course; such a one falls into the Chaos of Epicurus, – empty and boundless.

— Seneca, Letter 72, §§8–9

You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.

— Augustine, Confessions 1.1 (speaking to God)

It is natural to a reasonable being to desire that which appears to him, according to his particular mode of thinking, better than what he possesses; and never to be satisfied if a good thing wants the particular quality which he prefers. If he loves beauty he will desire what seems to him most beautiful. If he plumes himself on the possession of a very precious jewel, he will desire to possess a still more splendid one; and whatever riches he may have, his nature is to want more. Is it not a thing we see every day, the owner of immense property and wealth buying up more land, and never content but in extending his estates? Those who dwell in vast palaces, are they not for ever building new ones, always altering, making round the cornered, and the cornered round? Are not men in high position constantly aspiring to higher, constantly striving to rise, out of an ambition more and more difficult to appease? There is no limit to such restlessness, because, in all such things, it is impossible to reach a point absolutely good and high. But it is not astonishing that so long as a man can see beyond him something greater and more perfect, he should be dissatisfied with his own possession of what is less and worse. What does seem foolish beyond all expression is, always to be longing for things which cannot even lull to sleep our desires, far less satisfy them. What follows? this—that the heart, tempted by many deceitful charms, wearies itself to no purpose, is always craving, and counts for nothing what it has enjoyed, compared to what it fain would have; and is tormented, by desire of what it has not, out of all delight with what it possesses. All one cannot have; for the little it is possible to get, the price of labour must be paid; and it must be enjoyed with trembling; nay, with the miserable certainty that one day it must be lost, though the date of that day be not known.

I have described the conduct of a perverted will blindly seeking the sovereign good. It makes haste in vain, the plaything of its own vanity, deceived by iniquity. Why wear out the day in fruitless struggle this way and that, and be caught by death unsatisfied? In such toils do the profane entangle themselves who seek about, like fools, to obtain their souls’ desires. They consume their life in useless efforts and arrive at no perfect happiness; for they are in love with created things, not with the Creator, and they try them, one and then another, before they dream of trying the Lord that made them all. Yet, if they could have their hearts’ desire and achieve the possession of the world, less Him who is its author, they would feel at last, by the same law which has ruled their life, that Him they must have, or never rest. They have gone from one ambition to another, coveting always some better thing; and now, masters of all in heaven and earth, they would soon find all insufficient, and discover that they were forced to seek Him who is wanting still, they must seek God Himself. Once discover that, once attain unto Him, there is peace; it is impossible to go beyond. The soul must cry out: “It is good for me to adhere to my God;” or, “What besides Thee have I in heaven, and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth?” and again: “Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.” Even this way would a soul necessarily end in God if it could try in sequence all lesser things than He.

— Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Love of God, ch. 7

Now this Soul, which still craved some support for her life, in order not to fall into despondency, as she had been created for love and happiness, trimmed her sail to the wind, although it was contrary, and finding herself no longer able to live in her own region, she still sustained herself, as best she could, saying, with some show of truth: “This beauty, pleasure, goodness, grandeur, and delight, together with all that adorns created things, furnish one means of knowing and tasting those that are divine;” and when she had tasted them she exclaimed: “Oh, how beautiful must be celestial things!”

And thus, still traveling with her two companions, she daily lost something of her natural, divine instinct, and fed on the husks for swine, as bestial as the body, so that, in a short time, the three found themselves on very good terms with one another.

While they were journeying on, in such great love and harmony, without any dissension, we may imagine what became of the rights of the superior reason. Nothing more was said about it. All their attention was turned to earthly things, to temporal pleasures, delights, and loves; and spiritual things seemed so unpalatable to them that they had no desire either to speak or hear of them, lest they should interfere with their earthly satisfactions. Thus they continued for some time, until nothing remained to the soul but a little compunction, which she seldom noticed, although at times she did so when it remained her of the risk she ran of losing everything at death. This thought caused her great fear, but when it left her she returned to the same course as before. One thing alone was against her, and that was, that although her companions and herself were all agreed to satisfy their appetites as fully as possible, yet they were not able to do so; for the soul having a boundless capacity, all finite and earthly things could neither satisfy her nor give her peace; the more she sought, the more restless she became, because she wandered farther every day from God, her true rest.

Yet earthly things so far blinded her that she believed she found peace here below; she strove, therefore, to keep herself continually occupied, in order to satisfy herself, and when she could not accomplish this in the manner she proposed, she became disgusted, and, in her interior blindness, tried something else. Thus passing from one thing to another, and from one hope to another, she forgot herself; and losing her time in these pursuits, she never obtained her wish, for so it was mercifully ordained by the Lord God. And certainly if man could find rest on earth, few souls would be saved, for they would become so absorbed in earthly things that they would make no effort to free themselves from them. The Soul, by her natural instinct, seeks enjoyment; and when she is blinded by the Body, she procures her pleasures through its means. So the Body leads her on from one thing to another, as they seek their food together; and though the Soul has an infinite capacity, and cannot, by means of the Body, find aught that will content her, yet she foolishly allows herself to be led by it, without receiving any satisfaction.

— Catherine of Genoa, Spiritual Dialogue, part I, chapter 5

That there is something very odd about this life of ours, that it is a kind of Egyptian bondage, where a daily tale of bricks must be given in, yet where we have no straw given us wherewith to bum them, is a very old confession indeed. We cry for something we cannot find; we cannot satisfy ourselves with what we do find, and there is more than cant in that yearning after a better land of promise, as all men know when they are once driven in upon themselves and compelled to be serious. Every pleasure palls, every employment possible for us is in the end vanity and disappointment—the highest employment most of all. We start with enthusiasm—out we go each of us to our task in all the brightness of sunrise, and hope beats along our pulses; we believe the world has no blanks except to cowards, and we find, at last, that, as far as we ourselves are concerned, it has no prizes; we sicken over the endless unprofitableness of labour most when we have most succeeded, and when the time comes for us to lay down our tools we cast them from us with the bitter aching sense, that it were better for us if it had been all a dream. We seem to know either too much or too little of ourselves—too much, for we feel that we are better than we can accomplish; too little, for, if we have done any good at all, it has been as we were servants of a system too vast for us to comprehend. We get along through life happily between clouds and sunshine, forgetting ourselves in our employments or our amusements, and so long as we can lose our consciousness in activity we can struggle on to the end. But when the end comes, when the life is lived and done, and stands there face to face with us; or if the heart is weak, and the spell breaks too soon, as if the strange master-worker has no longer any work to offer us, and turns us off to idleness and to ourselves; in the silence then our hearts lift up their voices, and cry out they can find no rest here, no home. Neither pleasure, nor rank, nor money, nor success in life, as it is called, have satisfied or can satisfy; and either earth has nothing at all which answers to our cravings, or else it is something different from all these, which we have missed finding—this peace which passes understanding—and from which in the heyday of hope we had turned away, as lacking the meretricious charm which then seemed most alluring.

— James Anthony Froude, The Nemesis of Faith, “Confessions of a Sceptic”

Given things as we know them, and have known them during recorded human history, capacity for choosing is intrinsic to rationality, if rationality entails a normal ability to apprehend the real world. To move in a frictionless medium, desiring only what one can attain, not tempted by alternatives, never seeking incompatible ends, is to live in a coherent fantasy. To offer it as the ideal is to seek to dehumanise men, to turn them into the brainwashed, contented beings of Aldous Huxley’s celebrated totalitarian nightmare.

— Isaiah Berlin, Introduction to his Essays on Liberty,
in: Liberty (2002), p. 44