Le plaisir est la jouissance actuelle des sens: c'est une satisfaction entière qu'on leur accorde dans tout ce qu'ils appètent ; et lorsque les sens épuisés veulent du repos ou pour reprendre haleine, ou pour se refaire, le plaisir devient de l'imagination; elle se plaît à réfléchir au plaisir que sa tranquillité lui procure. Or, le philosophe est celui qui ne se refuse aucun plaisir qui ne produit pas des peines plus grandes et qui sait s'en créer.'-Anon. 'How singular is the thing called pleasure and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never will come to a man together; and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. Their bodies are two, and yet they are joined to a single head; and I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and how, when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows.'-Plato, Phaedo, Jowett's Trans. 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 painful. 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 |