Some things we want. Because we like them; Some things we like. Because we want them.
We want candy, because we like the sweet taste; but we like a cold drink because and when we are thirsty and not otherwise. Thirst is a want for water, a state of the organism that impels us to drink; and when we are in this state, we like a drink, a drink is pleasant then. How absurd it would be to say that we were thirsty because we liked to drink! when the fact is that we like to drink because we are thirsty. The desire to drink must first be aroused, and then drinking is pleasant.
What is true of thirst is true of hunger, or of any organic need. The need must first be aroused, and then its satisfaction is pleasant. This applies just as well to fighting, laughing, fondling a baby, and to all the instincts. It gives you no pleasure to strike or kick a person, or to swear at him, unless you are first angry with him. It gives you no pleasure to go through the motions of laughing unless you "want to laugh", i.e., unless you are amused. It gives you no pleasure to fondle the baby unless you love the baby. Let any instinct be first aroused, and then the result at which the instinct is aimed causes pleasure, but the same result will cause no pleasure unless the instinct has been aroused.
The same can be said of desires that are not exactly instinctive. At a football game, for example, when one of the players kicks the ball and it sails between the goal posts, half of the spectators yell with joy, while the other half [{180}] groan in agony. Why should the appearance of a ball sailing between two posts be so pleasant to some, and unpleasant to others? This particular appearance is by itself neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but because the desire to see this happen has been previously aroused in the partisans of one team, and the desire that it should not happen in the partisans of the other, therefore it is that the pleasantness or unpleasantness occurs. First arouse any desire, and then you can give pleasure by gratifying it, displeasure by thwarting it. This is the pleasure of success, and the unpleasantness of failure.
Pleasures of this class may be named secondary, because they depend upon pre-aroused desires.
Primary Likes and Dislikes
Though many of the most intense pleasures and displeasures of life are of the secondary type, this fact must not blind us to the existence of the primary pleasures and displeasures, typified by sweet and bitter. Any sensation with a pronounced feeling-tone is a primary pleasure or displeasure. We like or dislike it just for itself, and without regard to the gratification of any pre-aroused instinct or desire.
There are natural likes and dislikes--apart from the satisfaction of instincts--and there are others that are acquired. In other words, there are native tastes and acquired tastes. Individuals differ considerably in their native tastes, and still more in their acquired tastes. Liking for sweets is native, liking for fragrant odors is native, but liking for lemonade, or black coffee, or olives, or cheese, is acquired, and not acquired by everybody. Liking for bright colors is native, but liking for subdued colors, and the special pleasure in color harmonies, are acquired. So we might [{181}] run through the list of the senses, finding under each some sensations with native feeling-tone, and other sensations that acquire feeling-tone through experience.
Some people have a native liking for numbers and other facts of a mathematical nature. We say of such a one that he has a natural taste for mathematics. Another has a natural dislike for the same. Some have a taste for things of the mechanical sort, others fight shy of such things. Some have a natural taste for people, being sociable creatures--which means more than being gregarious--while others are little interested in mixing with people, observing their ways, and the give and take of friendly intercourse.
Now the question arises whether these native likes and dislikes, for odors, colors, tones, numbers, machinery, and people, are really independent of the instincts. Some psychologists have insisted that all the interest and satisfaction of life were derived from the instincts, laying special stress on the instincts of curiosity and self-assertion.