the dissatisfactions brought on by certain inactions of the central organs of the nervous system — the emotional cravings. Solitude^ necessitating quiescence of the faculties exercise 3 in holding converse with our fellow-beings, leads by and by to great misery. The entire absence of marks of aj> prqval from those around us, causes a state of conscious- ness difficult to bear; and persons accustomed to positive applause f eel. unhappy when it is not given. In like manner, the faculties which have the closer human relations for their sphere, yield their pains of inaction — the yearnings of the ad'ections. To meet an obvious criticism it may be re- marked that the intenser forms of ^distress caused by the PT/SASUEES AND PAINS. 2*3 breaking of these closer human relations, are not to "be in- eluded among emotional cravings; but result from the representation of a future in which such cravings will never be satisfied.
We now turn to pains of the opposite kind — the states of consciousness that accompany excessive actions. Of these there are,, of course,, classes corresponding to the above-described classes of the pains of deficient actions. They must be briefly enumerated. Among the epi-periplieral feelings, those which originate on the general surface are conspicuously capable of being raised to a pain- ful strength. The sensation of heat much intensified passes into the unbearable sensation we know as burning or scald- ing. Pressure against a hard body produces by its excess an intolerable state of consciousness. Doubtless, too, all smarts and aches caused by bruises, wounds, and other injuries of the surface, imply the undue excitement of nerves which when normally excited yield the normal peripheral feelings. Auditory sensations occasionally rise to an ex- treme that cannot be borne with equanimity. Persons in the cupola from which a cannon is fired, or those in a belfry when a peal is being rung, have vivid experiences of this. It is not often that visual^ feelings reach a height which is painful — in men, at least, whose eyes are strong. But men whose eyes are debilitated cannot look at the sun without suffering, and even find it unpleasant to gaze at a large area of bright scarlet. Olfactory feelings, often exceedingly dis- agreeable, do not become positive pains. Inhaling ammo- nia does, indeed, cause a kind of smart; but this, arising not in the olfactory chamber so much as in the nostrils, is rather to be classed as an intense form of common sensation. Tastes, too, though many of them are repugnant, d not become painful by increase of strength; nor when th y repugnancy exists is strength always a needful condition. On the one hand, such a taste as that of cod-liver oil is dis- agreeable even though slight; while, on the other hand, 276 THE INDUCTIONS OP PSYCHOLOGY.
sweetness is not rendered disagreeable by any degree of intensity. Among feelings of ento- peripheral origin, the connexion between pain and excess of action is familiar. Such of them as accompany muscular strains show us pains reached through intensification, of feelings which when moderate are not painful: the distressing consciousness of extreme effort is a higher degree of the ordinary consciousness of effort. But passing over the ento -peripheral pains of this order, it is to be remarked of the rest that they arise from excessive actions in organs whose normal actions yield no feelings. The pains con- sequent on repletion come from parts which, when not over- taxed,, add no appreciable elements to consciousness; and it is thus with the viscera in general. The like may be said of those pains initiated within the limbs which are not directly due to excesses of action of the limbs themselves or parts of them. Such pains, consequent, let us say, on 2fout or on a local disease, imply extreme demands made on certain local structures and their nerves, which when not over-worked originate no sensations. The central ; feelings are scarcely in any case made painful simply by I excess. Normal emotions responding to the various normal activities, do not, however high they may rise, become in- trinsically disagreeable. We have, indeed, occasional allu- sion to states in which "joy is almost pain," showing a perceived approach to this effect of excess; but if pain so caused is ever actually reached, it is very rarely.
Thus recognizing, at the one extreme., the negative pains of inactions, called cravings, and, at the other extreme, the positive pains of excessive actions, the implication is that pleasures accompany actions lying between these extremes. It/ is true that the positive or negative pain attending one or other of the extremes is missing among actions of certain orders; and that other actions may be named which are dis- agreeable even when of medium intensity. In some of these cases the explanation is that no feeling of the order due to PLEASURES AND FAINS. 277 the extreme state arises "because the extreme state is not reached. The fact that from the kidneys there comes no craving, may pair off with the fact that they have always work to do. No one longs for tactual impressions for the sufficient reason that tactual impressions are unceasing. The emotions that go along with the successful pursuit of the various objects of life, cannot well rise from a pleasurable degree to a painful degree; since the environing conditions which cause them do not admit of the required progressive intensification. Generally speaking, then,, pleasures are the concomitants of medium activities, where the activities are of kinds liable to be in excess or in defect; and where they are of kinds not liable to be excessive, pleasure increases. as the activity increases, except where the activity is either constant or involuntary.
Though wejthus see whereabouts pleasure is to be found among the feelings, it must be admitted that its relations remain but ill-defined. The conception of it as the con- comitant of an activity which is neither too small nor too great, is a conception open to a criticism akin, to that made by Mr. Mill on the doctrine of Sir W. Hamilton, that " plea- sure is a reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power, of whose energy we are conscious/* and upon the kindred doctrine of Aristotle, that it accompanies the action of a healthy faculty on its appropriate object. For there arise the questions What constitutes a medium activity? What determines that lower limit of pleasur- able action below which there is craving, and that higher limit of pleasurable action above which there is pain?
Is it possible to answer these questions, and is it possible to answer the further question — How happen there to be certain feelings,(as among tastes 'and odours) which., are disagreeable in all degrees of intensity, and.others that are agreeable in all degrees of intensity? Answers are, I believe, to be found. But they must be sought in a region which psychologists have not explored. If we study feelings only 278 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
as they at present- exist,, we shall find no solution; but we may find a solution if we turn to the past conditions under which feelings have "been evolved.
§ 124. Let us first glance at the fact, sufficiently obvious and sufficiently significant., that the extreme states,, positive and negative, along with which pains occur, are states inconsistent with that due balance of the functions con- simtmg health; whereas that medium state along with which pleasure occurs, is consistent with, or rather is demanded by, this due balance. This we may see a priori. In a mutually-dependent set of organs having a consensus of functions, the very existence of a special organ having its special function, implies that the absence of its function must cause disturbance of the consensus — implies, too, thai, its function may be raised to an excess which must cause disturbance of the consensus — implies, therefore, that main- tenance of the consensus goes along with a medium, degree of its function. The a priori inference involved, that these medium actions productive of pleasure must be beneficial, and the extreme actions productive of pain detrimental, is abundantly confirmed a posteriori where the actions are of •all-essential kinds. Here are a few cases.
Intense cold and intense heat both cause acute suffering, and if the body is long exposed to them both cause death; while a moderate warmth is pleasurable and conduces to physical well-being. Extreme craving for food accompanies a hurtful inaction of the digestive organs, and if this craving and this inaction persist the result is fatal. Conversely, if solid food, or liquid, continues to be swallowed under com- pulsion, regardless of the painful sensations produced, the effect is also detrimental, and may even kill. But between these pains attending deficient and excessive action there are the pleasures of eating, which are keenest when the benefit to be derived is greatest. To a person in health duly rested, the feeling that accompanies absolute inaction PLEASURES AND PATH'S. 279 of the muscles is unbearable; and this inaction is injurious. On the other hand, extreme exertion of the muscles in general is alike distressing and productive of prostration, while exertion of a particular muscle pushed to a painful excess, leaves a temporary paralysis, and occasionally, by rupturing some of the muscular fibres, entails prolonged uselessness. Arrest of breathing by forcible closure of the air-passages, causes an intolerable state of consciousness; and life soon ceases if there is no relief. The breathing of foul air is injurious as well as repugnant; while the breathing of air that is exceptionally fresh and pure, is both plea- surable and physically advantageous. So, too, is it with the feelings caused by contacts with objects. Though, as above pointed out, we cannot be debarred from these, and therefore have no craving for them and little or no pleasure in them, yet we are liable to excesses of them and the accompanying pains; and these pains are the correlatives of detrimental results — crushings, and bruises, and lacerations. It is even so with extremely strong tastes and smells. The intense vegetal bitters are poisonous in any considerable quantities, and the intensest are poisonous in very small quantities. Powerful acids, too, are poisonous — being, indeed, immediately destructive of the membranes they touch. And gases that violently irritate when inhaled, as concentrated ammonia, or as pure chlorine, or as hydro chloric acid, work deleterious effects.
These facts should of themselves suffice to produce the conviction, spite of apparent exceptions, that pains are the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures are the correlatives of actions conducive to its' welfare. We need not, however, rest satisfied with an in- duction from these instances yielded by the essential vital functions; for it is an inevitable deduction from the hypothesis of Evolution, that races of sentient creatures could have come into existence under no other con- ditions.
280 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
§ 125. If we substitute for tlie word Pleasure the equiva- lent phrase — a feeling which we seek to bring into con- sciousness and retain there, and if we substitute for the word Pain the equivalent phrase — a feeling which we seek to get out of consciousness and to keep out; we see at once that, if the states of consciousness which a creature endea- vours to maintain are the correlatives of injurious actions, and if the states of consciousness which it endeavours to expel are the correlatives of beneficial actions, it must quickly disappear through persistence in the in- jurious and avoidance of the beneficial. In. other words, those races of beings only can have survived in which, on the average, agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities conducive to the maintenance of life, while dis- agreeable and habitually-avoided feelings went along with activities directly or indirectly destructive of life; and there must ever have been, other things equal, the most numer- ous and long-continued survivals among races in which these adjustments of feelings to actions were the best, bend- ing ever to bring about perfect adjustment.
If we except the human race and some of the highest allied races, in which foresight of distant consequences in- troduces a complicating element, it is undeniable that every animal habitually persists in each act which gives pleasure, so long as it does so, and desists from each act which gives pain. It is manifest that, for creatures of low intelligence, unable to trace involved sequences of effects, there can be no other guidance. It is manifest that in proportion as this guidance approaches completeness, the life will be long; and that the life will be short in proportion as it falls short of completeness. Whence it follows that as, other things equal, the longer -lived individuals of any species will more frequently produce and rear progeny than the shorter-lived, the descendants of the one must tend to replace those of the other — a process which, equally operative among the multiplying families of these surviving descendants, cannot PLEASURES AND PAINS. 281 tut work towards mainteuance and improvement of the guidance.
How then,, it will be asked, does it happen that animals sometimes die from eating poisonous plants, or surfeit them- selves- fatally with kinds of food which, though wholesome in moderate quantities, are injurious in large quantities? The reply is that, by natural selection, the guidance of plea- sures and pains can be adjusted only to the circumstances of the habitat within which the special type has been evolved. Survival of the fittest cannot bring the inclinations and aversions into harmony with unfelt conditions. And since each species under pressure of increasing numbers is ever thrust- ing itself into adjacent environments, its members must from time to time meet with plants, with prey, with enemies, with physical actions, of which neither they nor their ancestors have had experience, and to which their feelings are unadapted. Not only by migration into other habitats, but also by changes, inorganic and organic, within its own habitat, does each species suffer from failures of adjustment. But mis-adjustment inevitably sets up re-adjustment. Those \ individuals in whom the likes and dislikes happen to be most out of harmony with the new circumstances, are- the first to disappear. And if the race continues to exist there cannot but arise, by perpetual killing-off of the least adapted, a variety having feelings that serve as incentives and deterrents in the modified way required.
We will consider more at length, in connection with our own race, the qualifications with which the general law must be received.
§ 126. Mankind shows us in many conspicuous ways, the failures of adjustment that follow changes of environing conditions — not so much the changes which migrations in- volve, though these too are to be taken into account, but the changes caused by the growth of large societies.
Prehistoric men, like men as we find them still in many 282 THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.
parts of tlie Earth, had feelings congruous with the wander- ing predatory life, only incipiently social, which they had to lead. Inadequate supply of wild food compelled some of their descendants to become pastoral and agricultural; and these multiplied into populous tribes and eventually into settled communities. They were thereby cut off from activi- ties like those of the men whose characters they inherited, and were forced into activities to which their inherited characters furnished no incentives. Throughout the course of civilization this has been, and continues in large measure to be, the source of discordances between in- clinations and requirements. On the one hand, there ;still survive those feelings, quite proper to our remote ancestors, which find their gratification in the de- iStructive activities of the chase and in warfare — feelings, .which, anti-social as is the conduct they prompt, in- • directly cause numerous miseries. On the other hand, persistent and monotonous labour has been rendered bv the pressure of population a necessity; and though to civilized men work is by no means so repugnant as to savages, and to a few is even a source of pleasure, yet the re-adjustment has at present gone by no means so far that pleasure is habitually found in the amount of work habitu- ally required. Further, it is to be observed that many of the industrial activities which the struggle for existence has thrust on the members of modern societies, are in-door activities — activities not only unresponded to by the feel- ings inherited from aboriginal men, but in direct conflict with those more remotely inherited and deeply organized feelings which prompt a varied life in the open air.
Secondary discordances, and resulting derangements of the normal guidance, are indirectly caused by this enforced persistence in habits of life at variance with the needs of the constitution. 'A sedentary occupation pursued for years in a confined air, regardless of protesting sensations, brings about a degenerate physical state in which the inherited feelings PLEASUEES AND PAINS. 283 are greatly out of harmony with, the superinduced require- ments of the body. Desired foods,, originally appropriate, become indigestible. An air pleasure-giving by its fresh- ness to those in vigour, brings colds and rheumatisms. Amounts of exertion and excitement naturally healthful and gratifying, are found injurious. All which evils, due though they are to continued disregard of the guidance of inherited feelings, come eventually to be mistaken for proofs that the guidance of inherited feelings is worthless.
There is yet another derivative cause of derangement. Men whose circumstances compel them day after day to call certain powers into undue and painful action, while they are shut out from most of the pleasures accompanying the due action of other powers, are liable to carry too far such plea- surable actions as remain to them. After disagreeable states of consciousness long submitted to, an agreeable state of consciousness is received with eagerness; and in the absence of alternative agreeable states is maintained by too great a persistence in the action which brings it. Hence arise various kinds of excess. Peelings which would not have misled men if all their other feelings had had appropriate spheres of action, become misleading when these other feel- ings are repressed. And then there is charged upon the active feelings that misguidance which has arisen from enforced disobedience to the rest.
The rectification of these profound and multitudinous dis* cordances by the re-equilibration of constitution and condi- tions, proceeds in the human race very slowly, for several reasons. They are these. As pointed out in the Principles of Biology, § 166, the fitting of an organism to new circumstances becomes less and less easily effected by survival of the fittest in proportion as the organism becomes complex. This is illustrated most clearly among ourselves. There are so many kinds of superiorities which severally enable men to survive, notwithstanding accompanying in- feriorities, that natural selection cannot by itself rectify any 234 THE INDUCTIONS OP PSYCHOLOGY.
particular unfit-ness: especially if, as usually happens, there are co-existing, unfit-nesses which all vary independently. Indirect equilibration can play but a secondary part, and the change having to be wrought by direct equilibration, or the inheritance of functionally-produced alterations, is slower than it would otherwise be. Again, the conditions to which we must be re-adapted are themselves changing, Each further modification of human nature makes possible a, further social modification. The environment alters along with alteration of the constitution. Hence there is required re-adjustment upon re-adjustnient. Once more, such help to re-adjustment as would result from survival of the fittest if individuals in most respects ill-fitted were allowed to disappear, is in great part prevented. Indeed, the imbecile and idle are artificially enabled to multiply at the expense of the capable and industrious.
In the case of mankind, then, there has arisen, and must long continue, a deep arid involved derangement of the natural connexions between pleasures and beneficial actions and between pains and detrimental actions — a derangement which so obscures these natural connexions that even the reverse connexions are supposed to obtain. And the half- i avowed belief, very commonly to be met with, that painful 1 - • • • -actions are beneficial and pleasurable actions detrimental, has been, and still is, upheld by creeds which, present for %.. - ' the worship of men a Being who is supposed to be displeased -s with them if they seek gratifications, and to be propitiated by gratuitous self-denials and even by self-tortures.
' • § 127. Here, however, we accept the inevitable corollary \;from the general.doctrine.. of Evolution, that pleasures,.are j I the incentives to life-supporting acts and pains the deterrents !! inferior sentient creatures this guidance is undeniably efficient, but also that it is undeniably efficient in ourselves, so » ' far as regards the functions on which life immediately PLEASURES ATO PAINS. 285 depends. And we cannot here suppose that a regulative system efficient for all-essential actions lias to be reversed for the actions growing out of them.
One more qualification has to be made. We are apt; to take for granted that the beneficial actions secured mn.st be actions beneficial to the individual; whereas the only necessity is that they shall be beneficial to the race. The two are by no means identical. Up to a certain point,, while the individual is young and not yet fertile, its welfare and the welfare of the race go together; but when the repro- (luctiye age is reached, the welfare of the individual and of the race cease to be the same, and may be diametrically opposed. In fact they are diametrically opposed more fre- quently than not. I do not refer merely to those cases of asexual genesis prevalent among the lower types of animals, in which, by the breaking up of its body into two or more, the individuality of the parent is lost in the individualities of the offspring; but I refer to those cases of sexual genesis, very general among invertebrate animals, in which the death of the parents is a normal result of propagation. In the great class Insects, the species of which out-number all other animal species, the rule is that the male lives only until a new generation has been begotten, and that the female dies as soon as the eggs are deposited, or, as in some cases, leaves the dead shell of her body to be a protecting cover to the eggs. Here, however, each new generation; does not depend for its welfare on continued life of the old.. Where, as among the higher animals, the offspring have to be fostered, survival of the fittest must establish such a consti tutional balance that obedience to the feelings, peripheral and central, which secure the maintenance of the species cannot be fatal or even seriously injurious. And where, as in the highest types, successive broods or successive individuals are produced during a series of years, and especially where the successive individuals so produced have to be fostered for long periods, the implied satisfaction of the feelings must be 286 THE INDUCTIONS OP PSYCHOLOGY.
consistent with parental welfare. If we cannot infer, as a necessary result of survival of the fittest, that the guidance of the feelings is here beneficial to the individual, we can at any rate infer that it is not detrimental.
Thus, considering as transitional those many anomalies that accompany the adaptation of the human race to social conditions, and taking account of the qualification just made, we conclude that, up to the reproductive age, pains are the concomitants of actions injurious both to the indivi- dual and to the species, while pleasures are the concomitants of actions beneficial both to the individual and to the species; and that while, after reproduction commences, the same relations continue to hold, the additional relations be- tween feelings and actions which then arise, may be of a reverse kind, but that the reversal cannot obtain among the higher types of sentient beings.
§ 128. A few words must be added on one further question — "What are the intrinsic natures of Pleasures and Pains, psychologically considered? This question appears unanswerable, and may eventually prove to be so. With- out here attempting to answer it, I will briefly set down three allied general facts which indicate the direction in which an answer is to be found, if there is one.
Pleasures to a large extent, and Pains tp_sqme extent, are separate from, and additional to, the feelings with which we habitually identify them. If I hear a sound of beautiful quality, an agreeable state of consciousness is produced • but if this sound is unceasing, or perpetually repeated, the state of consciousness loses its agreeableness without other- vv'ise changing. A glow of delight accompanies the sight of a fine colour; but after having the colour before the eyes for a long time there remains only the consciousness of its quality — the delight is gone. Similarly, if I go on tasting something sweet, there comes a time when the gratification ends, though the sense of sweetness continues. Doubtless PLEASURES ASTD PATKS. 287 the sense of sweetness itself eventually becomes deadened; but the gratification gives place to nausea before this happens. Among Pains the parallel fact is les-s conspicuous; but it is not difficult to perceive that along with the localized pain, say of a bruise or a burn, there goes an element of distress that is not localized.
The second of these allied truths, illustrations of which serve in part to re-illustrate the first, is that Pleasures and Pains may be acquired — may be, as it were, superposed on certain feelings which did not originally yield them. Smokers, snuff-takers, and those who chew tobacco, furnish familiar instances of the way in which long persistence in a sensation not originally pleasurable, makes it pleasurable — the sensation itself remaining unchanged. The like happens with various foods and drinks, which, at first distasteful, are afterwards greatly relished if frequently taken. Common sayings about the effects of habit imply recognition of this truth as holding with feelings of other orders. That; acute pain can be superinduced on feelings originally agree-; able or indifferent, we have no proof. But we have proof that the state of.consciousness called disgust may be made inseparable from a feeling that was once pleasurable. The extreme repugnances shown by children to the sweet things given them along with medicines, are illustrations; and pro- bably nearly every one can furnish from his own experience some instance of acquired aversion of another order.
The thir^of these allied facts is that Pleasures are morev like one another than are the, feelings, which yield them, \ and that among Pains we may trace a parallel resemblance. The wave of delight produced by the sight of a grand land- • scape, is qualitatively much the same as that produced by an expressive musical cadence. There is close kinship be- tween the agreeable feelings aroused, the one by a kind word and the other by a highly poetical thought. Nay, it needs but to mark the accompanying expression of face, to perceive that even the pleasure which, an exquisite per* THE INDUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY.