QUESTIONS
72. In what respects do images not differ from percepts?
73. In what three respects are images as a rule distinguishable from percepts?
74. What are the advantages of the characteristics of images?
75. What is the nervous correlate of imagery?
76. What is the nervous correlate of a latent idea?
§ [6]. Feeling
Sensations and their images are closely related mental states. They are of the same kind. As a third class of elementary mental states the feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness are customarily added. But it would probably be more correct to say that these feelings are mental states of an altogether different kind, in comparison with which the distinction between sensations and images disappears. Pleasantness and unpleasantness never occur apart from sensation or imagery, whereas the latter states of consciousness may be free from any pleasantness or unpleasantness. The pleasantness which I experience is always the pleasantness of something—of the taste of a peach, or of my good health, or of a message received. However, we must not conceive this dependence of pleasantness and unpleasantness as similar to the dependence of color or pitch or spatial extent or duration on the thing to which these belong as its qualities. Color, pitch, and these other qualities are essentially determined by objective conditions, the physical properties of the thing in question. But pleasantness or unpleasantness is only to a slight extent, if at all, determined by objective conditions. Honey tastes very much the same whenever we eat it. A tune sounds very much the same whenever we hear it. But these sensory experiences are, in consequence of subjective conditions, now highly pleasant, now almost indifferent, now decidedly unpleasant.
The same colors and straight lines may be combined into a beautiful design or into an ugly one, the same descriptions of scenery and events into an attractive or a tedious book. A feeling which is already in existence may prevent the growth of an opposite feeling. On a rainy day we are likely to feel as if everything in the world were gray; on a sunny spring day as if everything were rosy. The grief-stricken or desperate person experiences a given situation with other feelings than the person full of joy or hope. A particularly strong factor in our life of feeling is the frequency of recurrence of a situation. The most beautiful music suffers from being played at every concert and on every street, the most delicious dish from being put on the table every day. On the other hand, a bitter medicine gradually loses its unpleasantness, an unpleasant situation becomes indifferent to a person whose profession compels him to face it frequently. As the unchanging is at a disadvantage in our life of perception, so is the recurrent in our life of feeling.
The subjective factor which determines what feelings accompany our perceptions may be defined as the relation of the situation perceived to the weal and woe of the organism. Pleasantness indicates that the impressions made upon the organism are adapted to the needs or capacities of the organism or at least to that part of the organism which is directly affected; unpleasantness indicates that the impressions are ill adapted or harmful. Exceptions to this rule may be explained through the great complexity of the situations by which the organism is often confronted, and through the complications resulting from the fact that the organism must adjust its activity not only to the present but also to the future, and not only in harmony with the present but also with past experience. Feeling is a reliable symptom and witness only for the present and local utility or inadequacy of the relation between the organism and the world. It is not a prophet of the future. Disease may result from eating sweets, whereas medicine is often bitter.