CHAPTER III.. Pleasure.

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.”

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Footnote 31:

Beaunis, Sensations internes, chap. xxiii.

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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. For my own part, I am of Wundt’s opinion.

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Footnote 32:

Fisiologia del piacere, Part II., chap. ii. He enumerates the following expressions:—Gusto, diletto, compiacenza, soddisfazione, conforto, contentezza, allegria, buon umore, gioia, giubilo, tripudio, delizia, voluttà, felicità, solletico, rapimento, trasporto, ebbrezza, delirio. Perhaps the Italian language is in this point richer than the German.

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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?

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Footnote 33:

This thesis has been principally maintained in America by H. Nichols (Philosophical Review, July 1892), and in France by Bourdon (Revue Philosophique, September 1893). The former applies it to pleasure and pain, considering them fundamental sensations as distinct from one another as they are from other sensations. This article contains some ingenious considerations on the part played by the association of ideas. Bourdon applies it only to pleasure, and considers pain irreducible. He regards pleasure as a special sensation, not a common one or an attribute of all sensations; it is “of the same nature as the special sensation of tickling.” By adducing the pleasure of tickling (in which he follows Descartes and others), Bourdon partially escapes the criticism already advanced. It must be remarked, however, that tickling is itself a sensation of which the organic conditions are very vaguely determined. Besides the cutaneous impression, there are certainly also diffused reflex actions which connect it quite as much with internal sensibility as with the sense of touch.

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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.

1. The circulation increases, especially in the brain, as shown by various symptoms, in particular the increased lustre of the eyes. The experiments of Lehmann, already quoted (Chapter I.), prove that physical, as well as æsthetic pleasure, is accompanied by dilatation of the vessels and an increase of the heart’s contractions.

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Footnote 34:

Dr. G. Dumas has made experiments on the condition of the circulation in states of joy and of sadness. He has attempted an experimental verification of Lange’s theory by showing that a definite condition of the circulation always accompanies various agreeable and painful emotions, and that “joy and sadness may thus be regarded as the mental reverberation of these circulatory conditions and their organic consequences.” See “Recherches expérimentales sur la Joie et la Tristesse,” Revue Philosophique, June-August 1896.—ED.

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2. The same thing is to be observed with regard to the respiration, which becomes more active; in consequence, the temperature of the body rises, and the nutritive exchanges, becoming more rapid, result in a rich alimentation of the organs and tissues. “In joy, all parts of the body receive advantage, and are likely to last longer; the cheerful and contented man is well nourished and remains young. It is a truism that people in good health are contented” (Lange). Joy also tends to make the secretions (lacteal, spermatic, etc.) more abundant.

3. The innervation of the voluntary muscles expresses itself by exuberance of movements, by joyful exclamations, laughter, and singing. Certain cases of extreme and sudden joy have been known to produce all the effects of alcoholic intoxication. Sir H. Davy danced in his laboratory after making the discovery of potassium. At the London International Congress of Psychology (1892), Münsterberg communicated the following experiments under the title of “The Psychological Foundation of the Feelings.” A line ten centimetres in length is drawn with the right hand. When this movement has been thoroughly practised, it should be repeated with closed eyes, passing the hand first from right to left, with a movement of centripetal flexion, then from left to right, with a movement of centrifugal extension. In such a case mistakes will be made, sometimes in the one direction, sometimes in the other. Let us repeat the same experiments under the influence of certain affective states (sadness, gaiety, anger, etc.), noting all errors and their direction. Münsterberg has discovered them to be determined by a very exact law. In vexation, the extensor movements (centrifugal) are too short (average error, 10 mm.), and the flexor movements (centripetal) too long, the average excess being 12 mm. In joy, on the other hand, the centrifugal movements are in excess by (on an average) 10 mm., and the centripetal movements too short by an average of 20 mm. From this he concludes that, in pleasure, motion tends to increase; in pain, to diminish.

The manifestations of joy may be summed up in a single word—dynamogeny. Joy produces energy.

It is superfluous to say that we consider pleasure, for the same reasons as pain, to be an additional phenomenon, a symptom, a sign, a mark, denoting the satisfaction of certain tendencies; and that it cannot be regarded as a fundamental element of the life of the feelings. Like pain, pleasure is separable from the complex of which it forms part, and under certain abnormal conditions may totally disappear. Anhedonia (if I may coin a counter-designation to analgesia) has been very little studied, but it exists. I need not say that the employment of anæsthetics suppresses at the same time pain and its contrary; but there are cases of an insensibility relating to pleasure alone. “The sensation of sexual pleasure is, in very rare cases, subject to lesions affecting no other part of the organism. Brown-Séquard saw two cases of special sexual anæsthesia, all other kinds of sensibility, those of the urethral mucous membrane and the skin, still persisting. Althaus quotes another case. It would no doubt be possible to find such cases in larger numbers were it not for the false modesty which prevents patients from speaking of the subject. Fonssagrives cites a very remarkable example observed in a woman.” This insensibility exists not only for physical but also for moral pleasure (joy, high spirits, etc.). Apart from the cases of profound melancholy, which will occupy us later on, where the individual is untouched by the slightest impulse of joy, there are cases of anhedonia which seem simpler and clearer. “Antoine Cros mentions the case of a patient, a young girl, suffering from congested liver and spleen, which of course altered the state of her blood, and thus, for a time, modified her constitution. Her moral character was greatly altered by it. She ceased to feel any affection for father or mother; would play with her doll, but could not be brought to show any delight in it; could not be drawn out of her apathetic sadness. Things which previously had made her shriek with laughter now left her uninterested. Her temper changed, became capricious and violent.” Esquirol has recorded the case of a magistrate, a very intelligent man, suffering from a liver complaint. “Every affection seemed to be dead in him. He showed neither perversion nor violence, but there was complete absence of emotive reaction. If he went to the theatre (as he continued to do from force of habit) he could find no pleasure there. Thoughts of his house, his home, his wife, his absent children, affected him no more, he said, than a theorem of Euclid.” We have here a specimen of what we may call a purely intellectual existence—that of the Wise Man of the Stoics.

Footnote 35:

Richet, Recherches, etc., p. 212.

Footnote 36:

Lewes, Physical Basis of Mind, p. 327.

These facts—and we shall find analogous ones in other chapters, under other headings—show that, as we have seen in the case of pain, pleasure does not depend simply on the quantity of excitement. To attribute all pleasures to excitements of medium energy is equivalent to the formula: “Pain is due to an intense and prolonged excitement.” In both cases intensity alone is emphasised; but there are pleasures irreducible to medium energy and depending on the quality of the excitement and the nature of the sentient subject. Will it be said that sexual pleasures are the concomitants of a medium activity? The pleasure produced by harmonious chords is, for a musical ear, a matter of quality, not of intensity. We find it impossible, therefore, to reduce the objective conditions of pleasure to a single formula.

Although general opinion has established a distinction between sensory and spiritual pleasures, this distinction is purely theoretical. Pleasure, as an affective state, always remains identical with itself; its numerous varieties are determined only by the intellectual condition originating it—sensation, image, concept. It would be tedious to repeat in detail the analysis already given of pain in order to apply it to pleasure; it will be sufficient to indicate the principal points.

All forms of pleasure are accompanied by the organic modifications previously enumerated. Primarily, it can only be physical—i.e., combined with a sensation, such as the pleasure of a soft, warm contact, the satisfaction of hunger and thirst in children and animals. Then pleasure becomes an anticipation, as in the case of a dog when his food is being brought to him; to employ the term used by Herbert Spencer, it is a presentative-representative state. Then, in this ascending evolution, pleasure appears attached to pure representations. This—as in the case of pain—is the main group, that of the varied and numerous joys which console humanity for its sufferings; these, too, are divided into egoistic and sympathetic pleasures. There remain the highest and rarest manifestations attached to pure concepts—the pleasures of æsthetic creation, those of the metaphysician or the man of science. We might further show how the transition from pleasure, considered as strictly physical (that of the thirsty man drinking a cool beverage in long draughts), to the subtlest, most ethereal intellectual pleasures, may in fact be gradually traced step by step; that the two elements—sensory and representative—are always coexistent, and that we qualify any given pleasure solely according to the preponderance of one or the other. Finally, if we have found in hypochondriasis a composite form, which might be classed with equal justice as a physical or moral pain, in the domain of pleasure it is not difficult to discover analogous forms. The æsthetic pleasure called forth by forms, by colours, and especially by sounds, affords us an example. It is incontestable that these three kinds of sensation can, unassisted, in and by themselves, produce a sensory pleasure. Certain colours, certain qualities of sound, certain chords, produce at once an agreeable impression. Then the representations evoked by memory excite, in their turn, a degree of pleasure quite distinct from the original sensations. Fechner, in his Vorschule der Æsthetik, distinguishes, in his analysis of the elements of the Beautiful, the direct factor, i.e. sensation, and the indirect or associative factor, that is to say, the associated ideas evoked. These two coexistent factors are only separable by psychological analysis, and the position established by Fechner for the intellectual elements has its equivalent for the emotional states.

Footnote 37:

For further details on this point see Chapter VII.

II.

The generally accepted formula connecting pleasure with medium activities is supported by a commonly observed fact—viz., that pleasure carried to excess or continued too long often transforms itself into its opposite. The pleasures of eating may lead to nausea, tickling soon becomes a torture, as well as heat and cold, and one cannot endure even a favourite melody when played for two consecutive hours. In a word, a sensation or representation at first agreeable may, either gradually or suddenly, be found to have its opposite associated with it. While the sensory or intellectual element remains the same—at least in appearance—the affective state is changed.

So familiar an occurrence, well known from the remotest antiquity, from which various consequences have been deduced by philosophers, would not in itself possess sufficient importance to arrest our attention, did it not, for all its insignificant appearance, afford us the opportunity of penetrating the depths of our subject.

We may remark that the same transformation takes place inversely—a state in itself disagreeable may become agreeable. This transmutation is to be found at the root of nearly all the pleasures which we call acquired: a taste or smell at first repugnant may become delightful.

The same thing happens with regard to certain physical exercises connected with touch and the muscular sense. The use of alcoholic drinks, of tobacco, of all sorts of narcotics, would furnish us with abundance of examples. Pleasure is found in certain forms of literature which were at first found revolting; the same thing may be said of painting; and the history of music is one long piece of evidence in favour of this transformation of tastes.

In the first place, we have to note that the hackneyed expression, “transformation” of pleasure into pain, and vice versâ, is inaccurate. Pain cannot be changed into pleasure or pleasure into pain, any more than black can be changed into white. What is meant is that the conditions of existence of the one disappear to give place to the conditions of existence of the other. There is succession, but not transformation; a symptom does not transform itself into its opposite.

This succession, abrupt or gradual, leads us to ask whether there might not be a common basis, a certain identity of nature, between the two antagonistic phenomena. The question thus put may be answered by one of two alternative hypotheses.

1. The admission that the difference is fundamental and irreducible, that pain is as clearly to be distinguished from pleasure as the visual sensation is from the auditory sensation: that these feelings constitute an antinomy—an irreconcilable antagonism. The clearest affirmation of this thesis is found in those writers who make pleasure and pain “sensations” comparable to other sensations, and having their own specific character.

2. The admission that the difference is one of degree, not of nature; that the two contrary manifestations are only two moments of the same process; that they differ from each other only as sound differs from noise, or a very acute sound from a very deep one, both resulting from the same cause—the number of vibrations in any given space of time. I am myself inclined to maintain this second hypothesis.

Let us take as an example a simple case where the process is manifested in its totality. We have a person in a so-called indifferent, neutral, or medium state, that is to say, one which cannot be described as agreeable or painful; the individual is simply alive, that is all. He is sensitive to the perfume of flowers; some are placed in his room—pleasure is the result. At the end of an hour all is changed; the subject is incommoded by the smell of the flowers, and avoids them. Hence we have three successive moments: indifference, pleasure, pain.

But these three moments in consciousness have their correlatives in the modifications of the organism: circulation, respiration, motion, the various phases of nutrition. The first answers to the average vital formula of the individual; the second to an increase in the vital functions, and, according to the usual formula (which we shall examine later on), to an augmentation of energy; the third to a lowering of the vital functions and a diminution of energy. Such are the data of observation and experience. Féré’s researches on the olfactory sensations (to mention no others) have shown that the feelings accompanying them, pleasant or otherwise, show themselves in an augmented or diminished pressure on the dynamometer. In a subject whose dynamometric force is normally 50-55, a disagreeable odour lowers the index to 45, an agreeable one raises it to 65. In another (a hysterical patient) the odour of musk, at first very pleasant, raises the dynamometer from 23 to 46; in three minutes it becomes disagreeable, and the pressure sinks to 19. We find, therefore, that the organism is subject to perpetual fluctuations, indicated in the consciousness by agreeable or disagreeable feelings: the two opposites are connected with one and the same cause, the vital functions forming their common basis; and I should be inclined to propound the following hypothesis:—

Footnote 38:

Féré, Sensation et Mouvement, pp. 62, 63.

In most cases, if not in all, two contrary processes are going on simultaneously—one of increase, the other of diminution; what comes into the consciousness is only the result of a difference.

A difference between what? Between receipt and expenditure. Let us, in order to show this clearly, take a point at which the destructive and constructive activities exactly balance one another, a condition corresponding to the neutral or indifferent state of psychologists, and let us represent the same by the numerical formula 50 = 50. At a subsequent point of time the destructive activities predominate; let us suppose them equal to 60, while the value of the constructive falls to 40. On comparing the second moment with the first, we find a negative difference of -20, whose psychic equivalent is a painful state of consciousness. Let us then suppose a third moment, when the constructive activities are in the ascendent and equal 60, while the destructive fall to 40; there will be a positive difference of +20, whose psychic equivalent is a pleasant state of consciousness. I must beg the reader to take all this only by way of illustration.

Thus understood, the “transformation” of pleasure into pain, and pain into pleasure, is only the translation into the order of affective psychology of the fundamental rhythm of life. The latter reduces itself to the ultimate fact of nutrition, consisting of two mutually interdependent processes, one of which implies the other, assimilation and dissimilation. Except in extreme cases, such as inanition and exhaustion on the one hand, and plethora on the other, in which one of the two processes prevails almost without counterpoise, they usually oscillate on either side of a medium, as pleasure and pain do on either side of an alleged neutral state. In physiology it happens that a very clear and easily verified phenomenon covers and hides a contrary phenomenon, so that the principal part of the occurrence is erroneously taken for the whole. Thus one knows that a muscle is heated by exercise, which seems to contravene the law of the transformation of energy, as the mechanical work done ought to consume a part of that mode of motion which we call heat. Béclard and several others after him have shown that there is a real lowering of temperature at the beginning of positive work, and that two opposite phenomena appear in the muscle when in action: one physical, absorbing heat and determining a cooling of the active muscle; the other chemical, producing a heating of the muscle. The latter masks the former. In the same way, the well-known experiments of Schiff have shown that the brain is heated when it receives impressions and elaborates them; it ought to grow cold, since it is doing work; but Tanzi’s experiments seem to establish the existence of alternating oscillations of cold and heat while the brain is at work. We recall these facts, though not in direct relation to our subject, to show that the coexistence of two opposite processes, the most apparent of which conceals the other, is not a chimera. There are frequently two simultaneous phenomena, of which the one is seen and not the other.

According to this hypothesis, then, the conditions of existence of pleasure and pain are implied the one by the other, and always coexistent. What is expressed by consciousness is a surplus, and what is called their transformation is only a difference in favour of one or the other.

Footnote 39:

This also seems to be the view adopted by Rutgers Marshall (op. cit.). In the first place, he always considers “pleasure-pains” as connected states, pleasure being experienced “whenever the physical activity coincident with the psychic state to which the pleasure is attached involves the use of surplus stored force—the resolution of surplus potential into actual energy; or, in other words, whenever the energy involved in the reaction to a stimulus is greater in amount than the energy which the stimulus habitually calls forth.”—P. 204.

I add some final remarks on the so-called transformation of pain into pleasure. Being rarer than its opposite, it presents some peculiarities to be noted.

Very acute pleasures exhaust quickly—a condition very favourable to the rapid appearance of pain; I do not see that acute pain ever changes into pleasure, except perhaps in a few cases to be examined in the following chapter.

The “transformation” does not take place abruptly, but always by a gradual transition.

Some have attempted to explain it by habit; but this is so general a term as to require fresh definition in each individual case. It has also been said that the painful sensation, being accompanied by disorganisation and lowering of the vital power, produces, ipso facto, an organic repair, a vital increase, which is the essential condition of pleasure. But this does not prove that the period of reintegration coexists with the first impression and imparts to it a contrary affective sign. The novice in the use of tobacco is at first incommoded by headache, nausea, etc.; then there follows a period of repair, but it is not directly connected with the act of smoking.

It seems to me preferable to admit, with Beaunis, that the agreeable states we speak of are not simple but complex, consisting of a certain number of elements. “It may happen that, among the elements which compose sensation, some are agreeable and some painful; with habit and exercise the painful element gradually disappears from the consciousness, and only the agreeable elements of the sensation remain. In this case there would not really be a transformation of the pain into pleasure, but an extinction, a disappearance of the disagreeable elements of the sensation, and a predominance of the agreeable ones.”

Footnote 40:

Beaunis, Sensations internes, pp. 246, 247.

The cause of this change seems to me to lie in the biological function called adaptation, of whose true nature very little is known, and which appears to reduce itself to nutritive modifications. Experiment shows that its efficacy cannot be depended on: it succeeds in some persons, but fails in others.