What then, on Herbart’s view, is desire? “Feelings” accompany representations that, as they rise, become continuously more “effective” (SW VI: 59). By “effective”, he means that the representation in question determines more and more representations akin to it, while at the same time inhibiting those that are not (SW VI: 59). “Desire”, then, is the consciousness of a representation’s rising struggle towards ever-brighter light, and of its corresponding “tension” as it works itself up and over obstacles (SW VI: 59).