The pleasurable and painful sensations are common to all the senses. We have pleasures and pains of the eye, of the ear, of the touch, the taste, the smell, and also of many internal parts of the body, for which, though, as we shall presently see, they hold a great share in composing the springs of human action, we have not names, nor any means of accurate estimation.[36]
[36] In the case of many pleasurable or painful sensations, it is open to question whether the pleasure or pain, especially the pleasure, is not something added to the sensation, and capable of being detached from it, rather than merely a particular aspect or quality of the sensation. It is often observable that a sensation is much less pleasurable at one time than at another, though to our consciousness it appears exactly the same sensation in all except the pleasure. This is emphatically the fact in cases of satiety, or of loss of taste for a sensation by loss of novelty. It is probable that in such cases the pleasure may depend on different nerves, or on a different action of the same nerves, from the remaining part of the sensation. However this may be, the pleasure or pain attending a sensation is (like the feelings of Likeness, Succession, &c.) capable of being mentally abstracted from the sensation, or, in other words, capable of being attended to by itself. And in any case Mr. Bain’s distinction holds good, between the emotional part or property of a sensation (in which he includes the 186 pleasure or pain belonging to it) and its intellectual or knowledge-giving part. It must be remembered, however, that these are not exclusive of one another; the knowledge-giving part is not necessarily emotional, but the emotional part is and must be knowledge-giving. The pleasure or pain of the feeling are subjects of intellectual apprehension; they give the knowledge of themselves and of their varieties.—Ed.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CAUSES OF THE PLEASURABLE AND PAINFUL SENSATIONS.
NEXT in order to the Pleasurable and Painful Sensations, it is necessary to take notice of the causes of them. We can generally trace them to certain constant antecedents; and it is evidently of the greatest importance to us to be able to do so; as it is by those means only, we can lessen the number of the painful sensations, increase the number of the pleasurable.
Of the causes of our Pleasurable and Painful Sensations, it is necessary to distinguish two classes; first, the immediate causes; secondly, the remote causes; a remote, being not, strictly speaking, the cause of the sensation, but the cause of that cause. Thus, the lash of the executioner is the immediate cause of the pain of the criminal. The sentence of the Judge, is the cause of that cause. The sound of the violin is the immediate cause of the pleasure of my ear; the performance of the musician, the cause of that sound; the money with which I have hired the musician, the cause of that performance. The money is, in this case, the cause of the cause of the cause of the sensation; or the cause, at two removes.
188 It is necessary to be remarked, respecting the causes of our pleasurable and painful sensations, that, they are apt to become greater objects of concern to us, to rank higher in importance, than the sensations themselves. It is a vulgar observation, with respect to money, for example, that, though useful only for obtaining pleasure, or saving from pain, it is often employed for neither purpose, but hugged as a good in itself.
The importance attached to the cause of the sensation, is a case of association easy to be traced. The pleasurable and painful sensations themselves are, specifically, not numerous. The causes of them, on the other hand, are exceedingly numerous, and diversified. Again; the mind is not much interested in attending to the sensation. The sensation provides for itself. The mind, however, is deeply interested in attending to the cause; that we may prevent, or remove it, if the sensation is painful; provide, or detain it, if the sensation is pleasurable. This creates a habit of passing rapidly from the sensation, to fix our attention upon its cause.