Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/57

A DEFENCE OF PHENOMENALISM IN PSYCHOLOGY. 43 the idea on the whole is now with regard to pleasure and pain, and distinguish this existence from what the idea means, we must, I quite agree, call the idea a new creation. But we must also add that this new creation does not neces- sarily, as we have seen, qualify the meaning of the idea, for that meaning in each case, we have seen, remains an idea of past pleasure. Now this ordinary instance raises, I sub- mit, serious if not fatal difficulties. One way of meeting these would be, I suppose, to argue that the present reaction has stages and at all events is mixed, and that the various stages, or generally the various ingredients of this general mixture, somehow distribute and arrange themselves rightly without the operation of association, and thus not only be- long to, but are recognised as, belonging to their several excitants. I cannot think that such an account would prove satisfactory, and it seems to lead to complications, and to call for elucidation which I could not supply. But another way of explanation would of course consist in the denial of the fact to be explained. One might assert that there ia not in fact any such thing as a pleasant idea of past un- pleasantness or an unpleasant idea of past pleasure, and that it is only by an illusion that we think that we possess these things. But for myself I am unable to see how such a position could be maintained. And hence the above diffi- easily. But does Dr. Stout himself really accept this principle? His argument, if I understand it rightly, would prove of the ideas say of mastication and deglutition, or say again the idea of vomiting, that, un- less these always are aroused by the sight of some food, they cannot be associated with it at all, but in every possible case, where they arise, are fresh and further resultants. But is not, I would ask, such a principle false, and does not the application of it bring us into collision with fact? Dr. Stout's general view as to pleasure and pain is, I think, on the whole stated admirably, and it is perhaps in consequence of this that he is driven at times into a fatal impasse, and, as it seems to me, tries to to extricate himself by arguments that will not bear examination. In illustration of what I must be allowed to call the paradox that all pleasure involves conation, he adduces the fact that if a cat is resting comfortably, it resists interference (ii., 304-5). But this seems precisely the old fallacy about pleasure and activity which I once before tried to refute (MiND, 49, p. 18) in the form in which it was offered by Dr. Bain. You surely can- not, because under altered conditions a thing becomes this or that, treat it as actually being so now and without those conditions, except of course by a licence. And it is, I would venture to add, one thing to postulate, on what rightly or wrongly seems sufficient evidence, the existence of conation everywhere where we find pleasure, and quite another thing to undertake actually to verify the presence of this conation everywhere in fact. But on this point I may probably have failed to interpret Dr. Stout rightly.