How, then, do the elementary feelings differ from sensations? In the first place, sensations submit readily to being picked out and observed, and in fact become more vivid when they are brought into the "foreground", while feelings grow vague and lose their character when thus singled [{174}] out for examination. Attend to the noises in the street and they stand out clearly, attend to the internal sensation of breathing and it stands out clearly, but attend to your pleasant state of feeling and it retreats out of sight.
In the second place, sensations are "localized"; you can tell pretty well where they seem to come from. Sensations of light, sound and smell are localized outside the body, sensations of touch are localized on the skin (or sometimes outside), taste sensations are localized in the mouth, organic and muscular sensations in some part of the body. On the other hand, pleasantness and unpleasantness are much less definitely localized; they seem to be "in us", without being in any special part of us.
In the third place, feelings differ from sensations in having no known sense organs. There is no special sense organ or set of sense organs for the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness, as there is for warmth or cold. Some sensations are pleasant, to be sure, and some unpleasant; but there is no one kind of sense organ that has the monopoly of either sort of feeling.
Feeling-Tone of Sensations
The pleasantness or unpleasantness characteristic of many sensations is called their "feeling-tone", and sensations that are markedly pleasant or unpleasant are said to have a strong or pronounced feeling-tone. Bitter is intrinsically unpleasant, sweet pleasant, the salty taste, when not too strong, neither one nor the other, so that it has no definite feeling-tone. Odors, as well as tastes, usually have a rather definite feeling-tone. Of sounds, smooth tones are pleasant, grating noises unpleasant. Bright colors are pleasant, while dull shades are sometimes unpleasant, sometimes merely indifferent or lacking in feeling-tone. Pain is usually unpleasant, moderate warmth and cold pleasant, simple touch [{175}] indifferent. Very intense sensations of any kind are likely to be unpleasant.
The statements made above as to the subjectivity and non-localization of feeling do not apply altogether to the feeling-tone of sensations. The pleasantness or unpleasantness of a sensation is localized with the sensation and seems to belong to the object rather than to ourselves. The unpleasantness of a toothache seems to be in the tooth rather than simply "in us". The pleasantness of a sweet taste is localized in the mouth, and we even think of the sweet substance as being objectively pleasant. We say that it is a "pleasant day", and that there is a "pleasant tang in the air", as if the pleasantness were an objective fact.
By arguing with a person, however, you can get him to admit that, while the day is pleasant to him, and the tang in the air pleasant to him, they may be unpleasant to another person; and he will admit that a sweet substance, ordinarily pleasant, is unpleasant when he has had too much of sweet things to eat. So you can make him realize that pleasantness and unpleasantness depend on the individual and his condition, and are subjective rather than objective. Show a group of people a bit of color, and you will find them agreeing much better as to what color that is than as to how pleasant it is. Feeling-tone is subjective in the sense that people disagree about it.
Theories of Feelings
1. Pleasantness might represent a general organic state, and unpleasantness the contrary state, each state being an internal bodily response to pleasant or unpleasant stimuli, and making itself felt as an unanalyzable compound of vague internal sensations.
This theory of feeling is certainly attractive, and it would [{176}] account very well for all the facts so far stated, for the subjectivity of feeling, for its lack of localization, and for the absence of specific sense organs for the feelings. It would bring the feelings into line with the emotions. But the real test of the theory lies just here: can we discover radically different organic states for the two opposite feelings?