called “aversion.” These words, “appetite” and “aversion,” we have from the Latins; and they both of them signify the motions, one of approaching, the other of retiring. So also do the Greek words for the same, which are ὁρμὴ and ἀφορμὴ . For Nature itself does often press upon men those truths, which afterwards, when they look for somewhat beyond Nature, they stumble at. For the schools find in mere appetite to go, or move, no actual motion at all: but because some motion they must acknowledge, they call it metaphorical motion; which is but an absurd speech: for though words may be called metaphorical, bodies and motions cannot.
That which men desire, they are also said to “love”: and to “hate” those things for which they have aversion. So that desire and love are the same thing; save that by desire, we always signify the absence of the object; by love most commonly the presence of the same. So also by aversion, we signify the absence; and by hate, the presence of the object.
Of appetites and aversions, some are born with men; as appetite of food, appetite of excretion, and exoneration, which may also and more properly be called aversions, from somewhat they feel in their bodies; and some other appetites, not many. The rest, which are appetites of particular things, proceed from experience, and trial of their effects upon themselves or other men. For of things we know not at all, or believe not to be, we can have no further desire than to taste and try. But aversion we have for things, not only which we know have hurt us, but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not.
Those things which we neither desire, nor hate, we are said to “contemn”; “contempt” being nothing else but an immobility, or contumacy of the heart, in resisting the action of certain things; and proceeding from that the heart is already moved otherwise, by other more potent objects; or from want of experience of them.