[170] Cf. Sully, Pessimism, p. 226 n.
[171] Cf. J. Ward, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, xvi. (1882), 377.
[172] Phil. d. Unbewussten, p. 747.
[173] Bentham, Theory of Legislation (by Dumont, 1876), p. 103 ff. Wundt, Physiologische Psychologie, 2d ed., p. 469, finds in this an instance of Weber's law. Thus, the man with £100 receives the same pleasure on receipt of £1, as the possessor of £1000 does on receiving £10. As Wundt remarks, however, this is only true within certain limits. Sixpence may give more pleasure to a beggar who is never far from the starvation-point, than the clearing of a million to Baron Rothschild. Further than this, the law only states an "abstract" truth. For the susceptibility to pleasure is not only very different in different individuals, but this difference depends on many other circumstances than the amount of wealth already in possession,—such as original emotional susceptibility, &c.
[174] Cf. Comte, Positive Philosophy, ii. 144.
[175] Phän. d. s. B., p. 640.
[176] Lectures on Metaphysics, ii. 432.
[177] L. Dumont, Théorie scientifique de la sensibilité, 2d ed., p. 83; cf. F. Bouillier, Du plaisir et de la douleur, 2d ed., p. 29 ff. Reference may also be made to the leading psychological text-book. "Das Gefühl," says Volkmann (Lehrbuch der Psychologie, § 127, 3d ed., ii. 300), "ist nämlich keine eigene Vorstellung neben den anderen (es gibt keine eigenen 'Gefühlsvorstellungen'), ja überhaupt gar keine Vorstellung." Professor Bain's view is different, but does not altogether prevent him from acknowledging the subjectivity of feeling: "Without intellectual images clearly recollected, we do not remember feelings; the reproduction of feeling is an intellectual fact, and the groundwork is intellectual imagery."—Emotions, p. 63.
[178] Cf. Green, Introduction to Hume, ii. § 7.
[179] Cf. Spinoza, Ethica, iii. 11, schol.; Hobbes, Leviathan, i. 6, p. 25; Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 283. Professor Bain's statement is carefully guarded: "A very considerable number of the facts may be brought under the following principle—namely, that states of pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of pain with an abatement, of some, or all, of the vital functions."