Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/429

No. 4.] is as yet demonstrable. There is no doubt that we experience pleasures. Those of eating are among the most sensory. But we are not sure that these are immediately due to stimulation of afferent nerves in the mouth or below the mouth. The difference between a sensation of taste and an idea or memory of some taste is marked, and we have no difficulty in deciding between them. But our pleasures are so obscure that I, for one, am not confident that I can distinguish between those which come with our bodily sensations and those which accompany our purely imaginative processes. I cannot say that the pleasure per se of my most enjoyable meal is of quite another order than that which comes from reading a sublime poem. If any certain viand would always taste well, especially if applied to some particular taste bulb or region, or would follow any clear law for any good number of people, as quinine gives bitter from the papillae circumvallatæ for nearly every one — under such conditions for the various senses pleasure would more surely seem to be a sensation proper. But it is doubtful if there be a single form of stimulation common to any sense, to which pleasure as a sensation will respond invariably. Champagne and terrapin are delicious on one occasion, and only nauseous on another. The red and blue of our flag will thrill with delight after absence in foreign lands; the same spread of violent colors will ordinarily be distressing in a painting or in woman's dress. Normal stimulation of the sex-organs is most constant in responsive sensation. But sexual stimulation may be extremely repugnant. All this gives an uncertain and associative aspect to pleasure quite foreign to ordinary sensations and rendering it difficult for us to determine whether they are such. This has given great support to the quale doctrine, yet it is not clear why this variability should have been counted for the inseparability from other senses of pleasure and pain. Surely this difficulty of distinguishing pleasures ought to mark their lack of kinship with bodily pains, which of all sensations are among those most sharply to be recognized and with a 'tang' emphatically unlike that of any form of pleasure. A better cue, however, to the separateness of pain and pleasure under