Lat. _conari_, to attempt, strive), a psychological term,
originally chosen by Sir William Hamilton (_Lectures on Metaphysics_,
pp. 127 foll.), used generally of an attitude of mind involving a
tendency to take _action_, e.g. when one decides to remove an object
which is causing a painful sensation, or to try to interrupt an
unpleasant train of thought. This use of the word tends to lay emphasis
on the mind as self-determined in relation to external objects. Another
less common use of the word is to describe the pleasant or painful
sensations which accompany muscular activity; the _conative_ phenomena,
thus regarded, are psychic changes brought about by external causes.

The chief difficulty in connexion with Conation is that of
distinguishing it from Feeling, a term of very vague significance both
in technical and in common usage. Thus the German psychologist F.
Brentano holds that no real distinction can be made. He argues that the
mental process from sorrow or dissatisfaction, through hope for a change
and courage to act, up to the voluntary determination which issues in
action, is a single homogeneous whole (_Psychologie_, pp. 308-309). The
mere fact, however, that the series is continuous is no ground for not
distinguishing its parts; if it were so, it would be impossible to
distinguish by separate names the various colours in the solar spectrum,
or indeed perception from conception. A more material objection,
moreover, is that, in point of fact, the feeling of pleasure or pain
roused by a given stimulus is specifically different from, and indeed
may not be followed by, the determination to modify or remove it.
Pleasure and pain, i.e. hedonic sensation _per se_, are essentially
distinct from appetition and aversion; the pleasures of hearing music or
enjoying sunshine are not in general accompanied by any volitional
activity. It is true that painful sensations are generally accompanied
by definite aversion or a tendency to take action, but the cases of
positive pleasure are amply sufficient to support a distinction.
Therefore, though in ordinary language such phrases as "feeling
aversion" are quite legitimate, accurate psychology compels us to
confine "feeling" to states of consciousness in which no conative
activity is present, i.e. to the psychic phenomena of pleasure or pain
considered in and by themselves. The study of such phenomena is
specifically described as Hedonics (Gr. [Greek: hedone], pleasure) or
Algedo