CHAPTER III.
PLEASURE.
Subject little studied—Is Pleasure a sensation or a quality?—Its physical concomitants: circulation, respiration, movements—Pleasure, like pain, is separable: physical and moral anhedonia—Identity of the different forms of pleasure—The alleged transformation of pleasure into pain—Common ground of the two states—Hypothesis of a difference in kind and in degree—Simultaneity of two opposite processes: what falls under consciousness is the result of a difference—Physiological facts in support of the above.
In treating of grief, one is apt to be embarrassed by the abundance of documents, and the difficulty of being brief; in dealing with pleasure the contrary is the case. Are we to conclude that this is because, for centuries past, physicians have been collecting observations on pain, while there exists no profession having for its object the observation of pleasure? Or is it because humanity is so constituted as to suffer more from pain than it can enjoy from pleasure, and therefore studies everything relating to pain in order to find deliverance therefrom, while accepting everything agreeable naturally and without reflection? We cannot, however, accuse psychologists of having neglected this study, although the bibliography of Pleasure is very scanty compared with that of Pain. In general, they have considered these two subjects as complementary to one another, pleasure and pain being opposed to each other as contraries, so that the knowledge of the one implies the knowledge of the other. But this is only a hypothesis—perhaps true, perhaps false—resting in great part only on the testimony of consciousness, which is always open to question and never above suspicion. “It may be,” says Beaunis, very justly, “that pleasure and pain, which seem to us two opposite and mutually contradictory phenomena, may in the end be nothing but phenomena of the same nature, only differing in degree. It is possible that they may be phenomena of different orders, but incapable of such comparison with one another as would enable us to declare one contrary to the other. It is possible that they may depend simply on a difference of excitability in the nervous centres. Again, it is possible that they may be included, sometimes in one category, sometimes in the other.”[other.”][[31]]
I.
The formulas universally made use of in characterising pleasure indicate this vague position of the problem: “Agreeable states are the correlatives of actions which conduce to the well-being or preservation of the individual.” “Generally speaking, pleasures are the concomitants of medium activities, where the activities are of kinds liable to be in excess or in defect” (Herbert Spencer). “Experience attests that, in all the sensory regions, sensations of moderate energy are specially accompanied by a feeling of pleasure. Thus this feeling connects itself with the sensations of tickling due to cutaneous excitations of slight energy” (Wundt). According to this writer, the gamut of pleasure is less rich and extensive than that of pain, and he finds the proof of this assertion in the language expressive of universal experience. “Language,” he says, “has created numerous expressions for disagreeable feelings, emotions, and inclinations, while the joyful moods of the mind are dismissed with a brief general designation. This phenomenon arises less from the fact that man observes with especial care and minuteness his disagreeable or troublesome states, than from the greater uniformity which pleasurable feelings in reality possess. This is particularly evident in the case of the sensory feelings [those connected with the sensations]. Pain has not only numerous degrees of energy, but numberless gradations according to its seat.” Mantegazza, when determining the synonyms of pleasure, appears to uphold the contrary view.[[32]] For my own part, I am of Wundt’s opinion.
The anatomical and physiological conditions of the genesis and transmission of pleasure are a terra incognita. In cases of physical pleasure, what takes place at the peripheral terminations, in the nerves, in the cerebro-spinal axis? Most authors do not even propound these questions. The physiology of pain, in spite of its uncertainties, is rich and instructive compared with that of pleasure.
In recent times it has been maintained that pleasure, as well as grief, ought to be regarded as a sensation, not as the concomitant of various psychic states; that both are fundamental senses having their own proper nervous energies distinct from other sensations. In other words, the expression, “sensations of pleasure and pain,” ought to be taken in the strict sense borne by the word sensation. I have already touched on this point in treating of pain, but it may not be out of place to return to it here; for, apart from its hypothetical character, I cannot think this assertion a happy one. In fact, if there is any psychological state clearly delimited and differentiated from all others, it is sensation.
Sensation is determined and circumscribed by a special organ serving for this purpose only, as in the case of sight, hearing, etc., or at least by special nerves and special peripheral terminations, as in the case of touch, and temperature. Internal sensations, in spite of the nervous apparatus proper to them, have a vaguer character; hence some psychologists call them indifferently sensations or feelings. The kinæsthetic sensations, or those of movement, long included under the designation of muscular sense (an improper term, gradually falling out of use), have, though diffused through the organism, nerves peculiar to themselves; those of the muscular tissue, the articulations (the periosteum, the ligaments, the synovial membranes, the tendons). But pleasure and pain have neither special nerves nor special organs. We have seen the opinion admitted with regard to the pain-bringing nerves; as for the nerves of pleasure, I know no author who has hazarded such a hypothesis, however tentatively. It is true that one of those who admit the existence of nerves of pain (Frey) gets out of the difficulty very easily by saying that pleasure, consisting only in the absence of pain, requires no special nerves. May we not say, then, that it is a complete falsification of the meaning of words to class among sensations psychical phenomena answering to none of the required anatomical or physiological conditions?[[33]]
The manifestations taking place within the organism are better known when we are in a condition of pleasure. Let us take as typical the constant pleasures, putting aside those which, by their exuberance, as we shall see later on, border on pathological forms. Whether the point of departure is a physical excitation, a representation, or a concept, two distinct events take place, as in the case of grief: on the one hand an internal state of consciousness, which we describe as agreeable; on the other a bodily external condition, of which the following are the principal characteristics.
Taken as a whole, they may be opposed, almost point for point, to the description already given of the physical manifestations of grief, and betray a heightening of the vital functions. This contrast is not without importance in favour of the common thesis which regards pleasure and pain as a pair of opposites.