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Desire then is the invasion of the whole self by the wish, which, as it invades, sets going more and more of the psychical processes but at the same time, so long as it remains desire, does not succeed in getting possession of the self.

Samuel Alexander

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Samuel Alexander
Age: 79 †
Born: 1859
Born: January 6
Died: 1938
Died: September 13
Philosopher
University Teacher
Sydney
NSW
Desire
Invasion
Process
Processes
Doe
Sets
Self
Possession
Whole
Remains
Going
Succeed
Long
Getting
Psychical
Time
Wish
Invades

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When we come to images or memories or thoughts, speculation, while always closely related to practice, is more explicit, and it is in fact not immediately obvious that such processes can be described in any sense as practical.
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But though cognition is not an element of mental action, nor even in any real sense of the word an aspect of it, the distinction of cognition and conation has if properly defined a definite value.
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The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception.
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You can mark in desire the rising of the tide, as the appetite more and more invades the personality, appealing, as it does, not merely to the sensory side of the self, but to its ideal components as well.
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The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.
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We cannot therefore say that mental acts contain a cognitive as well as a conative element.
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Such being the nature of mental life, the business of psychology is primarily to describe in detail the various forms which attention or conation assumes upon the different levels of that life.
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The mental act of sensation which issues in reflex movement is so simple as to defy analysis.
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Thus the same object may supply a practical perception to one person and a speculative one to another, or the same person may perceive it partly practically and partly speculatively.
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An expectation is a future object, recognised as belonging to me.
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Curiosity begins as an act of tearing to pieces or analysis.
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Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.
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In the perception of a tree we can distinguish the act of experiencing, or perceiving, from the thing experienced, or perceived.
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Hence, in desiring, the more the enjoyment is delayed, the more fancy begins to weave about the object images of future fruition, and to clothe the desired object with properties calculated to inflame the impulse.
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For psychological purposes the most important differences in conation are those in virtue of which the object is revealed as sensed or perceived or imaged or remembered or thought.
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It is convenient to distinguish the two kinds of experience which have thus been described, the experienc-ing and the experienc-ed, by technical words.
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But unfortunately Locke treated ideas of reflection as if they were another class of objects of contemplation beside ideas of sensation.
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