Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/536

 524 CHAKLES MEECIEB : the activity, and the action of the organism on the environ- ment, and therefore also the corresponding feeling must, it is evident, largely depend on the quantitative relation that subsists between activity and outlet. The possible number of inter-relations between two independent variables, each of which may vary from zero to a maximum, is obviously infinite, but those of the two factors that we now consider may be collected for our purposes into a small number of groups. Outlet may be proportionate to activity, or there may be a margin of outlet beyond activity, or there may be a margin of activity beyond outlet ; and these margins may be wide or narrow. These are all the relations that need concern us. Further, the relation that we consider may be that of a single activity -to its outlet or that of a group or a large number of activities to their outlets. Taking first the general case, we find that where there is a large number of activities that are left unexercised for want of outlet, there arises in correspondence with this relation between the or- ganism and the environment the massive feeling of Ennui, a feeling that becomes more voluminous the greater the number of activities that remain unsatisfied, and more intense the greater the discrepancy between activity and outlet. It matters not, so far as this feeling is concerned, how the absence of the outlet has been brought about. It may be due to a mode of life enforced merely by social penalties, or to the loss of the usual outlets and a want of plasticity in finding others, as in the retired man of business, in whom the margin of activity over outlet is but small and the feeling merely disagreeable ; or it may be due to the incarceration of the individual in solitary confinement, when the deprivation of outlet for almost every activity augments the feeling of Ennui from a degree that is ordinarily mere Disagreeableness to one of intolerable Misery. When the absence or deficiency of outlet is prolonged, the feeling of Ennui merges into that of Discontent. On the other hand, when the outlets are ample, and sufficient to allow the free exercise of all activities, the corresponding feeling is one of Contentment. If we take the case of individual activities instead of that of activities in general, then, when outlet is absent or is deficient, the specialised feeling corresponding with this specialised relation is the feeling of Desire, a feeling which rises in intensity with the excess of any particular activity over its outlet. Should the activity from previous accumulation or other cause gush out so copiously on the occurrence of an outlet as to leave the organism exhausted, the negative feeling of Satiety results. When this condition