Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/655

No. 6.] 'pleasure' and the word 'pain' are also revived with objective connotations in pleasurable and painful phases respectively; but I cannot bring myself to believe that I have images of pleasures or pains similar to the images I have of sensations, or that pleasures or pains can be revived apart from any content to which they are attached.

I have attempted in Section I. to show that the arguments suggested as favorable to the sensational theory of Pleasure and Pain are not conclusive, and in Section II. to show further that there are many positive objections to be raised to the acceptance of this theory. In what follows I shall attempt to show that there is a hypothesis relative to Pleasure and Pain, which is not in disaccord with the observations that have been used as arguments supporting the sensational view, and which explains with seeming adequacy the facts I have raised in objection to that view.

The hypothesis which I wish to present is this: that pleasure and pain are qualities of relation one of which must, and, given the proper conditions, either of which may belong to any element of consciousness. That, psychologically considered, the condition of pleasure is psychic effectiveness of the element of consciousness to which the pleasure is attached, or, in other words, of which it is a quality; and the condition of pain, psychic ineffectiveness of the element to which the pain is attached. That, physiologically considered, we may suppose pleasure to be 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 the stimulus is greater in amount than the energy which the stimulus habitually calls forth. Pain, on the other hand, may be supposed to be experienced