We have repeatedly used the word end. Conation is the intrinsic tendency of a state of consciousness to pass beyond itself into a different state. Just in so far as the tendency is realised, it ceases to exist, or in other words, finds its end. When it is completely realised its end is completely attained, and it completely disappears. Hunger disappears after a full meal; intellectual curiosity disappears when a problem is solved, and so on. Thus the word end, used in reference to conative tendencies, whatever else it may imply, implies also its ordinary literal meaning. The end after which consciousness strives, is, when attained, the termination of the striving. This is a point to which we shall have to refer later. It is obscured by two circumstances. The first is, that there are some ends, such as the moral ideal, which can never be completely attained. The second is, that while we are actually striving after the end, we think about its own positive nature, and not about the psychological result which would follow its complete achievement. We do not consciously strive after the cessation of our own activity, except when we try to go to sleep or when in any other way we endeavour after repose. None the less, it remains a fact that the complete achievement of any end means the complete cessation of the special activity directed towards that special end.

As feeling-tone has two phases, pleasure and displeasure, the first positive and the second negative, so conation has a positive phase, appetition, and a negative phase, aversion. It is either directed to maintain and further develop a presented object, or the reverse. To use a phrase of Hobbes, it is either an endeavour towards or an endeavour from wards. Appetition by no means coincides with pleasure, or aversion "with displeasure. We may feel a very keen desire for an object, and yet feel nothing but displeasure if we are delayed or obstructed in its attainment. I may desire food, and this is a positive conation. But if no food is to be had, the feeling-tone of consciousness will be disagreeable. So we may have an aversion to the presence of a person; and this is very unpleasant if wo cannot got rid of him; but it may bo very pleasant, if we can throw him out of the window, or kick him downstairs. It is worth while to note this point, because it disposes of certain attempts which have been made to identify conation with feeling-tone.

Wo have finally to deal with the question whether conation in some form or degree is invariablv a constituent of consciousness. The problem is beset with the same difficulties as in the case of feeling-tone, and similar remarks apply here also. We are apt to assume that consciousness is absolutely inactive, when it is only comparatively so. We only notice that wo are endeavouring after an end, when our endeavour rises above a certain pitch of intensity. Thus wo do not generally say that our consciousness is active when we happen to catch sight of an object and attend to it in a slight and transient way. None the less, conation may be, and probably is, present in this case, as well as in the most intense mental effort. The best mode of approaching the question introspectively is by comparing different degrees of conative tendency; a state of consciousness which, taken by itself, would appear to be purely passive and inert, ceases to appear so when it is compared with one which is still more passive and inert.

"Take, for example, the following series: (1) In a state of delicious languor I enjoy the organic sensations produced by a warm bath. (2) In an indolent mood, I let my eye wander from object to object, and amuse myself with what I see, without any definite plan or purpose. (3) Without plan or purpose, I give the rein to my own ideas, following the train of more or less casual associations. (4) I repeat the multiplication table, or work out some simple arithmetical question of a familiar kind. (5) I work out an arithmetical question which is more of a task because it is more complex, though it is of a familiar type, and presents nothing in the nature of a puzzle. (6) I attempt an arithmetical question which for a time baffles me, because it contains a difficulty which requires to be overcome by repeated trials. (7) In a critical point of my career I endeavour to decide between two courses of action,—the whole course of my future life being dependent on the decision. Of these, (7) is a mental state characterized by a far more intense feeling of activity than (1); and (2), (3), (4), (5), (6) constitute an ascending scale of transitions mediating between them."*

We must distinguish between activity and the feeling of activity. The only question which introspection can consider is whether we always have some immediate experience of striving, or tendency towards an end. Even if this question is answered in the negative, it may still remain true that conscious process, as a matter of fact, always involves tendency towards an end, though the tendency is not always a mode of being conscious.

* Analytic Psychology, vol. i., pp. 1601.