All pain of the body, of what sort soever, and disquiet of the
mind, is uneasiness: and with this is always joined desire, equal to
the pain or uneasiness felt; and is scarce distinguishable from it.
For desire being nothing but an uneasiness in the want of an absent
good, in reference to any pain felt, ease is that absent good; and
till that ease be attained, we may call it desire; nobody feeling pain
that he wishes not to be eased of, with a desire equal to that pain,
and inseparable from it. Besides this desire of ease from pain,
there is another of absent positive good; and here also the desire and
uneasiness are equal. As much as we desire any absent good, so much
are we in pain for it. But here all absent good does not, according to
the greatness it has, or is acknowledged to have, cause pain equal
to that greatness; as all pain causes desire equal to itself:
because the absence of good is not always a pain, as the presence of
pain is. And therefore absent good may be looked on and considered
without desire. But so much as there is anywhere of desire, so much
there is of uneasiness.
32. Desire is uneasiness. That desire is a state of uneasiness,
every one who reflects on himself will quickly find. Who is there that
has not felt in desire what the wise man says of hope, (which is not
much different from it), that it being "deferred makes the heart
sick"; and that still proportionable to the greatness of the desire,
which sometimes raises the uneasiness to that pitch, that it makes
people cry out, "Give me children.
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