Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/644

628 are nearly or entirely unconscious in normal health, are productive of pain under the abnormal conditions of disease or under the artificial stimulations of the investigator; and the argument from these facts also loses its force.

3. It is held that certain nerve trunks, when excessively stimulated by the methods open to the experimenter, do not give pain. This, it is claimed, shows that there is no capacity to produce pain in the organs which have been stimulated. The claim is too wide, however; for, granting the facts, all that is really shown is that nerves which would give pain under the experimental conditions are separate from the trunks which the stimulation reaches. It is not clear, however, that the facts are to be conceded. Evidence cannot be felt to be decisive by the advocates of the view which it is supposed to corroborate, if they think it is necessary to state it as doubtfully as Dr. Nichols does in his articles. I think the argument cannot, on any ground, be considered a very satisfactory one when we consider the great difficulties attending the production of the artificial and delicate stimulations relied upon, and the greater difficulty of obtaining these results in subjects whose tale of absence of pain can be considered scientifically conclusive.

4. It is shown that where one operation brings both touch (e.g.) and pain, in many cases the pain arises distinctly after the touch, etc. This lateness of perception is probably exaggerated by the tendency ingrained in us to consider with promptness those elements in our experience which enter into the make-up of objects; pleasure and pain are notably not of this nature. But so far as the statement is true for normal subjects, the facts certainly here argue that separate sets of organs have been stimulated successively. The possibility is not precluded, however, of there being in such cases a certain sensation other than the pain, to which this pain belongs, which sensation follows the sensation of touch, etc. In other words, it is quite possible to argue from the observed facts that touch is followed by