whenever the physical activity coincident with the psychic state to which the pain is attached is so related to the supply of nutriment to its organ that the energy involved in the reaction to the stimulus is less in amount than the energy which the stimulus habitually calls forth. Further, that pleasures of rest are systemic and apart from the psychic activity which had been emphatic before the moment of rest, and that pains of obstruction are also systemic and apart from the psychic activity which is inhibited. That, therefore, there is ground to believe that both the pleasures of rest and pains of obstruction will be found to be statable in terms of activity in accordance with the laws above formulated.[1]
This view serves to account for the diversity of opinion expressed by different thinkers as to the nature and classification of pleasure and pain, by referring the divergence to differences of personal equation, to varied mental emphasis in the conscious life of the opposed thinkers, and by a corresponding difference of pleasure and pain distribution. It serves also to explain the persistency, referred to by Dr. Nichols, with which thinkers "from Plato and Aristotle down through Descartes, Leibniz, Hobbes, Sulzer, Kant, Herbart, Bain, Spencer, Dumont, and Allen" . . . have held to the doctrine "that pleasure and pain are in some way complementary expressions of the general welfare of the individual," notwithstanding the logical difficulties and contradictions of experience which have made their statements unsatisfactory. For it appears under this view that the relation between pleasure and pain and the welfare of the individual is not direct but indirect; while the relation is direct with the welfare of the organ the activity of which is coincident with the psychic state to which the pleasure or pain is attached. I must refer my reader to the articles in Mind, Nos. 56, 63, and 64, already referred to, for a more detailed argument in support of this view; here I shall merely consider the hypothesis as related to the sensational theory which we have under discussion.
- ↑ Cf. my articles on "The Physical Basis of Pleasure and Pain," in Mind, Nos. 63 and 64.
