In order,
therefore, to be wholly virtuous it is only necessary to repeat virtuous
formulas. We say: "I desire to be kind to my friends, honourable in
business, philanthropic towards the poor, public-spirited in politics."
So long as we refuse to allow ourselves, even in the watches of the
night, to avow any contrary desires, we may be bullies at home, shady in
the City, skinflints in paying wages and profiteers in dealing with the
public; yet, if only conscious motives are to count in moral valuation,
we shall remain model characters. This is an agreeable doctrine, and
it is not surprising that men are un willing to abandon it. But moral
considerations are the worst enemies of the scientific spirit and we
must dismiss them from our minds if we wish to arrive at truth.

I believe--as I shall try to prove in a later lecture--that desire,
like force in mechanics, is of the nature of a convenient fiction
for describing shortly certain laws of behaviour. A hungry animal is
restless until it finds food; then it becomes quiescent. The thing which
will bring a restless condition to an end is said to be what is desired.
But only experience can show what will have this sedative effect, and it
is easy to make mistakes. We feel dissatisfaction, and think that
such and-such a thing would remove it; but in thinking this, we are
theorizing, not observing a patent fact. Our theorizing is often
mistaken, and when it is mistaken there is a difference between what we
think we desire and what in fact will bring satisfaction. This is such
a common phenomenon that any theory of desire which fails to account for
it must be wrong.

What have been called "unconscious" desires have been brought very much
to the fore in recent years by psycho-analysis. Psycho-analysis, as
every one knows, is primarily a method of understanding hysteria and
certain forms of insanity*; but it has been found that there is much
in the lives of ordinary men and women which bears a humiliating
resemblance to the delusions of the insane. The connection of dreams,
irrational beliefs and foolish actions with unconscious wishes has been
brought to light, though with some exaggeration, by Freud and Jung and
their followers. As regards the nature of these unconscious wishes,
it seems to me--though as a layman I speak with diffidence--that many
psycho-analysts are unduly narrow; no doubt the wishes they emphasize
exist, but others, e.g. for honour and power, are equally op