293 CHAPTER LIX. PLEASURES AND PAINS. § 1. A PLEASURE is a pleasurable feeling; a pain is a painful feeling. The distinction between feelings, as to their quality, is between their pleasurableness and painfulness, there being an intermediate point of indifference which gives rise to a neutral class. A pleasurable feeling is an ultimate experience of the human mind; so also is a painful feeling. A pleasurable feeling is one whose continuance is desired, and to obtain which action will take place; a painful feeling is one to be avoided, and to escape which action is directed. § 2. The question has been mooted whether the pleasure or pain of a feeling is the feeling or is another feeling added thereto. It seems to me the former is the more correct view. The determination of the question may depend upon the estimate put upon the indifferent feelings. These latter, though so far from the extremes of pleasure and pain as to mark states of feeling proper to be classed by themselves, are nevertheless in my estimation only relatively pleasurable feelings. The mass of our feeling at any one moment is, on the whole, pleasurable or painfu1. Since pleasures are relatively great according to the magnitude of the transition from a state of pain; the most marked pleasure follows a previous marked pain. After an exuberance of pleasurable feeling the system calms down into a state of contentment, into a kind of indifferent state as regards the extremes. The whole body of feeling, then, may be characterised as indifferent, though really being a state of pleasure. In this state special feelings may arise which are not sufficiently powerful to disturb the general equanimity, as an emotion of novelty or wonder; the feeling does not have sufficient force to enable us to assign to it a definitely pleasurable or painful character, or it is counteracted and balanced by other feelings. Or again, when there is a powerful disturbing element introduced to affect the state of consciousness there is an appreciable interval when the emotions are changing before the pleasurable or painful character of the associations is fully determined; this feeling of transition, before it passes into a state of recognisable pleasure or pain, is an indifferent feeling, as in surprise, or some powerful impression of novelty. These three cases, I think, will cover all of the indifferent feelings; from them it will appear that the latter are not feelings destitute of a pleasurable or painful character, but feelings so intermediate between extremes of pleasure and pain, or so well balanced by other feelings, that their quality as pleasure is not distinguishable. All that is necessary, then, to produce such feelings is to effect a balancing of pleasure and pain, or a passage from pleasure to pain, or the reverse. So far, then, from the presence of indifferent feelings arguing that pleasure or pain is something superadded to a feeling, it would seem to indicate that one or the other is an intrinsic quality of feeling. The fact that one feeling at one time is the same as at another in all respects save the degree of pleasure which varies, would only prove that on the one occasion there is present a neutralising element of pain which is absent on the other. § 3. A state of feeling is not long uniformly pleasurable or painful. There is a continual variation along the scale connecting the maximum of pleasure with the maximum of pain. There is a fluctuation like that of the waves of the sea, and while the general effect is on the whole pleasurable there are frequent interjections of m.Lor pains; so likewise in a state of pain there are momentary or minor alternations of pleasure. A mere change in the quantity or degree of pain or pleasure gives rise to the opposite feeling; it is pain that abates pleasure and pleasure which supersedes and alleviates pain; as one increases the other deIn our highest moments of ecstasy painful feelings will often obtrude themselves; the agony of the martyr at the stake is relieved by pleasurable anticipations of joy to come. creases. § 4. Whenever the mind is possessed by a pleasurable or painful feeling, intellectual associations are cemented, and the objects intellectually apprehended in connection with the feeling are impressed upon the mind in associated unities. The feeling, when present, is presentative pleasure or pain; subsequently, by the force of association and according to its laws, the intellectual associates of the feeling are recalled, and with them comes back in greater or less degree the feeling itself. We have then a representative pleasure or pain; frequent repetition gives greater permanency, and these representations become a part of the mental furniture. We thus come to identify and describe our pleasures and pains by the associated objects intellectually grasped. We speak of the pleasures of meeting a friend, meaning the pleasure excited within us by seeing and conversing with him. The pleasures of wealth are the pleasures occasioned by having wealth and using it; the pleasures of taste, in the lower sense, are those pleasures excited by tasting. By means, then, of intellectual associations, pleasures and pains are described, defined, separated, integrated, and classified. § 5. It is further to be observed that, aside from the intellectual associations, that is, in their capacity as feeling, pleasures and pains differ from each other only quantitatively, not qualitatively. A pleasure, as pleasure, is only greater or less than another. The different kinds of pleasures receive their character wholly from the intellectual attachments; as just remarked, we describe and define our pleasures and pains according to our intellectual apprehension of the objects which are before the mind when the pleasure is present. But inasmuch as the art of living and the development of character depend upon the highest economy of pleasures, a quantitative estimate of them is of the greatest importance. The classifications of pleasures and pains will thus be grouping according to intellectual associations to the end of estimating and establishing their comparative quantitative values. § 6. In quantity, pleasures and pains are extensive or intensive. Considered extensively, they are pervasive or enduring, or both. We have then three elements of quantity of pleasures and pains 1. Pervasiveness, 2. Duration, 3. Intensity. A feeling may be pervasive, as a shudder, without being long continued or intense; it may have long continuance, as the pain of a small cut not at once healing, but may not be pervasive or intense; or again, as a sharp local pain like a stitch in the side,' it may be intense but of short duration, and not pervasive. Or again, these three elements may be mingled with each other in all variations of degree and proportion. Grief or joy may be intense, pervasive, and enduring. As a rule, intensity and duration are in an inverse ratio. The adjustment of the mutual relations of quantity in pleasures will in the future, it is safe to presume, occupy a large share of the attention of psychologists; for upon a basis thus laid rests the whole science of education. To know what pleasures are the most valuable, and in what way they are to be secured, comprehends the problem of educational art and science, which aim at nothing other than revealing and guiding to the attainment of the greatest amount of pleasure which life is capable of affording. § 7. The connection between pleasures and pains and volition is not less marked than between the former and cognition. We identify pleasures as objects of desire, and in the proportion that anything is desirable it is pleasurable; whatever is an object of desire is a pleasure; our ends are pleasures, and pleasures are ends of action. Classifications of pleasures and pains will also be determined largely by volitional association. § 8. The first notable classification of pleasures and pains was that devised by Bentham, who made fourteen classes of simple pleasures and twelve of simple pains, from which simple pleasures and pains he derived all the others. The simple pleasures are, according to Bentham-(1) The pleasures of sense, (2) The pleasures of wealth, (3) The pleasures of skill, (4) The pleasures of amity, (5) The pleasures of a good name, (6) The pleasures of power, (7) The pleasures of piety, (8) The pleasures of benevolence, (9) The pleasures of malevolence, (10) The pleasures of memory, (11) The pleasures of imagination, (12) The pleasures of expectation, (13) The pleasures dependent on association, (14) The pleasures of relief. The simple pains are: (1) The pains of privation, (2) The pains of the senses, (3) The pains of awkwardness, (4) The pains of enmity, (5) The pains of an ill name, (6) The pains of piety, (7) The pains of benevolence, (8) The pains of malevolence, (9 The) pains of the memory, (10) The pains of the imagination, (11) The pains of expectation, (12) The pains dependent on association. Bentham subdivides these classes, and enumerates various pleasures and pains falling within the main divisions and their subclasses. But his classification is a crude one. Scarcely any of his pleasures and pains, beyond those of sense, are in any wise entitled to be called simple; we are not shown what are fundamental and what derived and secondary; the pleasures and pains of association, for instance, would include or be included with most of the other classes, and the pains of privation would also include many of those placed in other divisions. Without making further and de tailed criticism of Bentham's classification, we will leave it, having made thus much exhibition of and comment upon it, remarking that it will answer the purpose of a rough grouping until a better can be found, and in certain connections will undoubtedly prove of use. § 9. Following the division of feelings according to complexity and degree of integration, pleasures and pains may be divided into Presentative or Real, and Representative or Ideal; and, as in former cases, these two grand divisions may be subdivided into inferior gradations. All the remarks which have been made as to the relations of presentative and representative cognition and feeling may be adapted to pleasures and pains. All pleasures and pains are only relatively real or ideal, every experience containing both the real and ideal element though in different proportions, even that pleasure or pain which is most evidently presentative requiring and containing also representation. Real pleasures and pains are more vivid than ideal: the ideal are susceptible of much variation and reconstruction from the original, and can be very highly refined and cultivated. All ideal feelings have a presentative side as well as a representative. Amongst the most clearly real pleasures and pains are the pleasures of eating a morsel in the mouth, the delight of a present spectacle, the sweets of reposing, exhilarations of exercising, the pain of a fetid odour, or disgusting taste, the misery of a raging fever, the pangs of present hunger. Among the most evidently ideal pleasures are the recollections of pleasures experienced, the felicitations of love, wealth, prosperity, the anticipations of future happiness; of pains of the same class may be instanced memories of past evils, pictures of woes to come, general discomfort over adversity and unfortunate circumstances. Ideal pleasures and pains pass rapidly into and awaken readily real feelings which are intense, pervasive and enduring. It is a remarkable fact that with the most highly cultivated, representations and the feelings accompanying them will rouse up a mass of present pleasures and pain more engrossing than many original sensations. The only way therefore in which the real can be separated from the ideal is by the intellectual associations. By the amount of feeling-relative vividness and faintness-we can distinguish ideal from real pleasures and pains with tolerable certainty in the one case of recollections of feelings; but even then it sometimes happens that the feeling is reproduced so as to be indistinguishable in quantity VOL. II. X |