ABSTRACT
Eager is used to qualify the desires or passions; earnest, to qualify the wishes or sentiments; the former has either a physical or moral application, the latter altogether a moral application: a child is eager to get a plaything; a hungry person is eager to get food; a covetous man is eager to seize whatever comes within his grasp: a person is earnest in solicitation, earnest in exhortation, earnest in devotion. Eagerness is mostly faulty; it cannot be too early restrained in children. Whence this term is with particular propriety applied to brutes.
