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.
Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.
But unfortunately Locke treated ideas of reflection as if they were another class of objects of contemplation beside ideas of sensation.
It is more difficult to designate this form of conation on its practical side by a satisfactory name.
In the perception of a tree we can distinguish the act of experiencing, or perceiving, from the thing experienced, or perceived.
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.
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.
Curiosity begins as an act of tearing to pieces or analysis.
Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.