in forms of
insanity, we find what are called "unconscious" desires, which are
commonly regarded as showing self-deception. Most psycho-analysts
pay little attention to the analysis of desire, being interested in
discovering by observation what it is that people desire, rather than in
discovering what actually constitutes desire. I think the strangeness of
what they report would be greatly diminished if it were expressed in the
language of a behaviourist theory of desire, rather than in the language
of every-day beliefs. The general description of the sort of phenomena
that bear on our present question is as follows: A person states that
his desires are so-and-so, and that it is these desires that inspire his
actions; but the outside observer perceives that his actions are such
as to realize quite different ends from those which he avows, and
that these different ends are such as he might be expected to desire.
Generally they are less virtuous than his professed desires, and are
therefore less agreeable to profess than these are. It is accordingly
supposed that they really exist as desires for ends, but in a
subconscious part of the mind, which the patient refuses to admit into
consciousness for fear of having to think ill of himself. There are
no doubt many cases to which such a supposition is applicable without
obvious artificiality. But the deeper the Freudians delve into the
underground regions of instinct, the further they travel from anything
resembling conscious desire, and the less possible it becomes to believe
that only positive self-deception conceals from us that we really wish
for things which are abhorrent to our explicit life.

In the cases in question we have a conflict between the outside observer
and the patient's consciousness. The whole tendency of psycho-analysis
is to trust the outside observer rather than the testimony of
introspection. I believe this tendency to be entirely right, but to
demand a re-statement of what constitutes desire, exhibiting it as a
causal law of our actions, not as something actually existing in our
minds.

But let us first get a clearer statement of the essential characteristic
of the phenomena.

A person, we find, states that he desires a certain end A, and that he
is acting with a view to achieving it. We observe, however, that his
actions are such as are likely to achieve a quite different end B, and
that B is the sort of end that often seems to be aimed at by anima