The same process can be observed in the course of all the so-called pain-emotions. During active expression, while the general mental state increases in definiteness, the purely “algedonic” element of pain is gradually weakened or changed. Anger, which begins with an inhibition and a vascular contraction, to which,[75] on the mental side, corresponds a feeling of intense pain, is thus in its active stage a decidedly pleasurable emotion.[76] Fear, which in its initial stage is paralysing and depressing, often changes in tone when the first shock has been relieved by motor reaction.[77] And to some extent the same may be said even of despair. In every pain-emotion where there is a development of active energy involved in the reaction upon the initial feeling, the tone of this feeling is apt to undergo some change owing to the influence of this activity.
This circumstance explains why expression for expression’s sake as a life-preserving principle occupies so important a place in the life of man. But it also accounts for another phenomenon which, although not directly connected with the expressional impulse, is æsthetically so important that it cannot properly be passed over in this work. We refer to the apparent paradox that anger, fear, sorrow, notwithstanding their distinctly painful initial stage, are often not only not avoided, but even deliberately sought. Taken in connection with those perhaps even more curious cases, in which sensation-feelings of pain are intentionally provoked, this apparent inversion of the normal course constitutes one of the most important problems in emotional psychology. The question of such “luxuries of grief,” or, to use a more appropriate German phrase, “Die Wonne des Leids,” is, however, so complicated that its treatment will require a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER V
THE ENJOYMENT OF PAIN
We have pointed out that enjoyment can be derived by sentimental reflection on moods of sadness. Such refined forms of the “luxury of grief” presuppose a certain intellectual development and a tendency to introspection, which cannot possibly be assumed in primitive man. But as the active forms of the so-called pain-emotions are highly appreciated—we may even say indulged in as enjoyments—by the lower tribes of man, there must evidently be some more immediate cause of this delight. And we are the more tempted to look for this cause in the emotional process itself, by the fact that even bodily pains, which do not admit of any sentimental interpretation, may be deliberately excited.
We remarked in our treatment of the simple emotional elements, that pleasure and pain can in no case be estimated by any absolute measure. Now that we have to find some explanation of the delight in pain, which applies to purely physical as well as to mental pain, we begin by admitting that the relative character of feeling probably accounts for many instances in which the pain is merely apparent. The same external stimulus which acts on one individual with hypernormal strength, and therefore evokes pain, may in the case of another individual who has duller senses, produce a weaker impression, and thus call forth a pleasurable reaction. The taste and smell anomalies of hysterical patients afford us good examples of such abnormal pleasure. And, on the other hand, there are plenty of instances, too familiar to be enumerated, in which an impression which a sick person would call painful brings pleasure to a healthy one.
Again, the power of receiving pleasurable sensations from strong stimuli may often be increased by exercise. Mr. Marshall has applied his psycho-physiological principles to the interpretation of these “acquired pleasure-gettings” and though he perhaps does not exhaustively and convincingly explain the process, he at least gives a graphic and clear account of its most probable course. He thinks that a hypernormal stimulus indirectly increases the blood-supply to the stimulated organ. This organ will therefore, if the operation of the stimulus is not too prolonged, store up some portion of unused nutritive force during the subsequent repose. And thus, if the same stimulus is shortly afterwards repeated, the organ will be able to respond with greater facility and intensity, i.e. react under the conditions of pleasurable reaction. In this way Marshall accounts for the classic instances of acquired liking for olives and tobacco.[78]
It is probable that a similar influence of repeated exercise may also operate in the department of compound emotions. Lehmann, who explains the transformation of originally painful impressions into pleasurable ones in a somewhat different way, viz. by his law of “the indispensability of accustomed things” refers to this law those instances in which persons who have had many troubles grow so accustomed to them, that in a moment of ease they feel a kind of loss.[79] The validity of this law will be recognised by every one who has any opportunity of observing the vaguely and weakly unpleasant feeling which sometimes appears when we are suddenly liberated from some pursuing anxiety. And the indispensability of accustomed sensations may impel persons to create new mental pains or worries to replace the old ones.
Yet the mere craving for customary sensations cannot explain those cases of genuine luxury in grief in which pain-sensations and pain-emotions are sought precisely because they are painful. But if we take into account the powerful stimulating effect which is produced by acute pain, we may easily understand why people submit to momentary unpleasantness for the sake of enjoying the subsequent excitement. This motive leads to the deliberate creation not only of pain-sensations, but also of emotions in which pain enters as an element. The violent activity which is involved in the reaction against fear, and still more in that against anger, affords us a sensation of pleasurable excitement which is well worth the cost of the passing unpleasantness. It is, moreover, notorious that some persons have developed a peculiar art of making the initial pain of anger so transient that they can enjoy the active elements in it with almost undivided delight. Such an accomplishment is far more difficult in the case of sorrow. The reactions are here seldom allowed so free a course as to be able to change the feeling-tone of the state. Moreover, the remembrance of the objective cause will always tend to reawaken the original feeling with its accompanying inhibition. Besides, a man of culture and refinement is generally deterred by a kind of respect for his own emotional life from artificially stirring up states of sorrow for his own enjoyment. This reluctance, however, does not seem to exist in lower stages of development. The crying feasts of the Maoris and the Todas—which afford a striking parallel to the ceremonial wailings of ancient Greece—are no doubt, whatever their ritual significance may be, attended with a kind of pleasure.[80] By seizing on some real or fictitious cause for grief—the death of a Linos or an Adonis—the participants succeed, we imagine, in creating a state of sorrow in which the active and stimulating elements outweigh the pain.
However barbarous this kind of amusement may seem to us, it is by no means certain that we have completely outgrown such pleasures. The delight in witnessing the performance of a tragedy undoubtedly involves the enjoyment of a borrowed pain, which, by unconscious sympathetic imitation, we make partially our own.[81] And the same phenomenon appears in a yet cruder form in the custom, so general among the lower classes of most countries, of visiting funerals and similar ceremonies where sorrow can be contemplated and shared. Even civilised man is thus able to enjoy the pleasure which may be connected with emotions of sorrow and despair, at least in second-hand reproduction.
It is scarcely necessary to go through all the various emotional states in order to prove that every one of them, if it can per se be enjoyed (in nature or art), is either primarily or by its reactions connected with an increase of outward activity. But we must point out that the pleasure derived from this motor excitement is often still further enhanced by the agency of an intellectual element which is simpler than sentimental reflection, and does not presuppose any tendency towards introspection. In pain as in pleasure, in suffering as in voluptuousness, we attain a heightened and enriched sensation of life. The more we love life, the more must we also enjoy this sensation, even if it be called into existence by pain. Lessing, who cannot possibly be called morbid, confesses to this taste in an interesting letter written to Mendelssohn: “Darinn sind wir doch wohl einig, l.F., dass alle Leidenschaften entweder heftige Begierden oder heftige Verabscheuengen sind? Auch darinn: dass wir uns bei jeder heftigen Begierde oder Verabscheuung, eines grösser Grads unserer Realität bewusst sind und dass dieses Bewusstsein nicht anders als angenehm sein kann? Folglich sind alle Leidenschaften, auch die allerunangenehmsten, als Leidenschaften angenehm.”[82] (“We are agreed in this, my dear friend, that all passions are either vehement cravings or vehement loathings, and also that in every vehement craving or loathing we acquire an increased consciousness of our reality, and that this consciousness cannot but be pleasurable. Consequently, all our passions, even the most painful, are, as passions, pleasurable.”) And Helvetius has expressed almost the same idea: “Nous souhaiterons donc, par des impressions toujours nouvelles, être à chaque instant avertis de notre existence, parceque chacun de ces avertissements est pour nous un plaisir.”[83] (“Accordingly, we shall desire, by means of constantly renewed impressions, to be at every moment reminded of our existence, because each of these reminders is for us a pleasure.”) For the sake of this “avertissement” of existence, individuals of intense vital temperament, like Richard Jefferies and Maryia Bashkirtseff, have positively loved their very sufferings.[84]