Desires depend on certain tendencies of our human nature which may be classified as a) organic needs, b) instincts and c) general innate tendencies.
a) Organic needs or wants are those human tendencies which are necessary for the continued existence and normal development of the body. We human beings share such needs with the lower animals and even with the plants, for plants need food, moisture and air just as we do. Consciousness of such organic needs is called 'appetite'. In an appetite, as contrasted with the desire which is the normal development of an appetite in human beings, the craving is vague and not directed to any particular object. The most prominent feature of consciousness in an appetite is the strong unpleasantness of the appetite remaining unsatisfied and the pleasantness accompanying its satisfaction.
b) McDougall defines an instinct as an inherited or innate psycho – physical disposition which determines its possessor or perceive and to pay attention to objects of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular quality on perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or at least to experience an impulse to such action.
c) The general innate tendencies differ from the instincts in not being characterized by one particular feeling, state, or by a tendency to one particular mode of action. The kinds of action in which one general innate tendency may express itself are indefinitely variable. According to McDougall, these include sympathy or the tendency to share the emotions of which we observe the expressions in others, suggestibility or the tendency to accept beliefs from others in absence of logically adequate grounds for their acceptance, and imitation or the tendency of one individual to copy the movements and activities of another.
a) Organic needs or wants are those human tendencies which are necessary for the continued existence and normal development of the body. We human beings share such needs with the lower animals and even with the plants, for plants need food, moisture and air just as we do. Consciousness of such organic needs is called 'appetite'. In an appetite, as contrasted with the desire which is the normal development of an appetite in human beings, the craving is vague and not directed to any particular object. The most prominent feature of consciousness in an appetite is the strong unpleasantness of the appetite remaining unsatisfied and the pleasantness accompanying its satisfaction.
b) McDougall defines an instinct as an inherited or innate psycho – physical disposition which determines its possessor or perceive and to pay attention to objects of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular quality on perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or at least to experience an impulse to such action.
c) The general innate tendencies differ from the instincts in not being characterized by one particular feeling, state, or by a tendency to one particular mode of action. The kinds of action in which one general innate tendency may express itself are indefinitely variable. According to McDougall, these include sympathy or the tendency to share the emotions of which we observe the expressions in others, suggestibility or the tendency to accept beliefs from others in absence of logically adequate grounds for their acceptance, and imitation or the tendency of one individual to copy the movements and activities of another.
