Read "On will and Desire" by Baruch Spinoza online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Now that it is known that we have no free will to make an affirmation or a denial, let us just see what is the correct and true distinction between will and desire.
According to Aristotle's definition, Desire appears to be a genus containing two species. For he says that the Will is the longing or inclination which one feels towards that which is or seems good. Whence it appears to me that by Desire he means any inclination, be it towards good, be it towards evil; but when the inclination is only towards what is or appears to be good, or when the man who has such inclination, has it under the appearance of good, then he calls it good will; while, if it is bad, that is, when we observe in another an inclination towards something which is bad, he calls that bad will. So that the inclination of the soul is not something whereby affirmations or denials are made, but only an inclination to obtain something which appears to be good, and to flee from what appears to be bad.