It is at least far more simple and consistent to explain, with Hamilton and Bain, the activity itself as the physiological condition of pleasure. If any increase of function—whether brought about by chemical, mechanical, or psychical (that is, indirectly mechanical) influences—be considered as a physiological condition of pleasure, and any arrest of function in the same way be considered as a counterpart of pain, then all states of pleasure or pain may be included in one common interpretation. Only it must be remembered that the increase of function can never be measured by any absolute standard. The same stimulus which in one individual calls forth pleasure may in another individual cause pain, and the same bodily activity which we enjoy when in a vigorous state of health may occasion suffering when we are weak or ill. Such variations are evidently conditioned by the varying functional powers of the organs involved. When these powers are reduced, a stimulus, or a movement which usually produces a stimulating effect, may instead call forth depression and pain.
In every explanation of pleasure-pain, attention must therefore be paid not only to the claims which are made on the several organs by the objective causes (stimuli or movements), but also to the capacity of the organs to meet these claims. This capacity, on the other hand, is evidently dependent upon the supply of energy afforded by the nutritive processes. In the endeavour to pay due attention to both these factors Lehmann has been led to this conclusion: “Pleasure and pain may in all cases be assumed to be the psychical outcome of the relation between the consumption of energy which at a given moment is demanded from the organs, and the supply of energy which is afforded by nutrition.”[48] In the course of a lengthy and laborious investigation Marshall has arrived at a very similar result: “Pleasure and pain are determined by the relation between the energy given out and the energy received at any given moment by the physical organs which determine the content of that moment.” Pleasure is experienced, according to Marshall’s definition, whenever a surplus of stored energy is discharged in the reaction to the stimulus; pain is experienced whenever a stimulus claims a greater development of energy in the reaction than the organ is capable of affording.[49]
In this mode of treatment due attention is paid to those theories according to which the conditions of pleasure are to be sought, not in expenditure of force, but in the receiving of force or in the recovery of balance.[50] But though this point has its own importance, it cannot by any means be put on a level with the dynamic aspect. Pleasure can never arise when the organs are not well-nourished, strong, and capable of function; but it arises only on the condition that they actually do perform a function. As Marshall has rightly remarked, there is no reason to believe that surplus of vigour and receipt of nourishment in themselves could ever be objects of consciousness.[51] As long as we can speak of mental states, these must be accompanied by corresponding activities. The chief merit of Marshall’s thesis is precisely this, that every emotional state, independently of its tone and of its perceptible manifestations, can be interpreted in terms of activity. Pleasure, acute or massive, appears as the result of a stimulus, which, owing to a happy proportion between its intensity and the functional capacity of the organ, has modified the bodily functions in such a way as to produce manifestations of energy. Pain, acute or massive, appears as the result of a stimulus, possibly of the same kind, which, owing to a disproportion arising from its own greater intensity or the smaller functional capacity in the organ, has called forth a functional inhibition—that is to say, that kind of activity which is manifested to us as an arrest of energy.
It would be too sanguine to expect the real nature of pleasure and pain to be exhaustively defined in any formula such as the above. From a theoretical point of view grave objections may undoubtedly be raised against Marshall’s theory as well as against every general interpretation of emotional states. It may even be admitted, and we desire to admit it as soon as possible, that in several cases it seems extremely difficult to derive the feeling-tone of even the simplest sensations from the proportion between “energy given out and energy received.”[52] But since, as far as we can see, similar difficulties meet us in the application of every existing emotional theory, for the present we must consider the constructions of Mr. Marshall, notwithstanding their speculative and necessarily unsafe character, as affording us the most consistent explanation of the hedonic phenomena. In an earlier work, Förstudier till en konstfilosofi (A Preliminary Study for a Philosophy of Art), I have tried to discuss and refute some of the arguments which can be adduced against this theory. In the present work such a theoretic digression would lead us too far away from the main subject. For a right understanding of the relation between feeling and “expressional” movements it is not necessary, we believe, to adopt exclusively any one of the emotional theories. We shall be quite content if it is admitted that Mr. Marshall’s interpretation affords us a scheme or formula by the aid of which we can account, if not for the nature, at least for the external manifestations of our feelings.
In applying his definitions to the various kinds of pleasure and pain, Mr. Marshall has recourse to three important principles, viz. the limited amount of energy which our system is capable of developing at any given moment, the storage of surplus supplies of nourishment, and the transference of energy from one organ to another. By referring to these principles he has been able to bring under his explanation those feelings which seem to correspond not to “activities,” but to “states.”[53]
As is well known, Hamilton had already pointed out the important, though unsuspected, element of activity which is involved in our enjoyment of dolce far niente.[54] But with the physiology at his command he could scarcely have explained why rest after heavy work is always accompanied by eminently pleasurable feelings. If it be assumed, however, that in the case of psychical effort, e.g., the call upon our limited fund of energy has reduced the vegetative functions to inactivity, and that this inactivity has caused a storage of nutritive supply, then it is self-evident that the vegetative functions, as soon as the one-sided effort has ceased, must discharge their surplus in movements of a pleasurable character.
The pain arising from restricted activity can equally be explained in terms of movement. If we believe that our system has a limited amount of energy which—as long as life is maintained—must necessarily be active in some direction or other, then we shall also understand that anything which closes the natural and usual outlet of this energy will give rise to activities in related organs, the nutritive state of which does not present the conditions of pleasurable function. Mr. Marshall has tried to indicate the details of the transition by which inactivity in one organ causes excessive activity in other organs. His description of the “gorging of the nutritive channels,” “the calling for aid of the disabled elements,” etc., is, however, too figurative and poetical to be of any importance in a psychological argument.[55] Taken as a vague and necessarily coarse metaphor, this physiological image may, however, illustrate a process which perhaps can never be exactly analysed, but which is nevertheless familiar to everybody. No one who has experienced in any higher degree the diffused sensation of gnawing inactivity can doubt the active element in this corroding feeling. One seems to feel how the checked and thwarted impulses devouringly turn themselves inward. Poetical literature is full of passionate outcries against the tortures which imposed inaction inflicts on active spirits; and modern autobiographies give us pathetic examples of the sufferings of those whose intellectual activity has been diverted from outward aims to internal analysis. The candid confessions of Amiel and Kierkegaard show the inevitable necessity with which mental energy, if arrested in its natural course, finds itself an outlet in destructive activity. This truth had already been expressed in simple and drastic form in Logau’s old epigram:—
Ein Mühlstein und ein Menschenherz wird stets herumgetrieben.
Wenn beides nicht zu reiben hat, wird beides selbst zerrieben.
The displacement of mental attention corresponding to the transference of energy from one organ to another in the inevitable search for a channel of outlet causes arrested activity to be felt as an unbearable massive pain; but this process implies at the same time a possibility of relief. If the sufferings of restriction can be considered as brought about by arrested impulses which have turned inwards, then it is evident that any outward activity may overcome the obstruction. Pleasure can perhaps not be achieved before the checked organ resumes its functions; but even a vicarious activity in some related organ may relieve the pain. Hence the diffused, undirected movements by which we instinctively try to get rid of a feeling of restriction. Every high-strung emotional state which has not yet found its appropriate expression affords an instance of this sensation. Exalted delight therefore often manifests itself in ecstatic dances and songs, which, properly speaking, rather relieve an incipient pain than express a pleasure. Violent movements act as unconscious expedients by which the organism restores itself to its normal balance.