Page:The Science of Religion (1925).djvu/53

conditions or means. And at the root of creation or increase of conditions or means there is a desire for them which is an excitation or feeling, and also a mental picture of the past when these conditions gave rise to pleasure. Naturally the desire seeks fulfillment by the presence of these conditions; when it is fulfilled, pleasure arises, when not fulfilled, pain arises. And because pleasure, as we remarked already, is born of desire and is connected with transitory things, it leads to excitation and pain when there is a disappearance of those things. That is how our misery commences. To put it briefly: from the original purpose of the business, which was the removal of physical wants, we turn to the means,—either to the business itself or to the hoarding of wealth coming out of it,—or sometimes to the creation of new wants, and because we find pleasure in these we are drawn away to pain, which, as we pointed out, is always an indirect outcome of pleasure.