THE NATURE OF PLEASURE AND PAIN, 691 



he is under the influence of love may seek a greater pleasure than 

 the one that is present, and that the object of his action, in that case, 

 consciously or unconsciously, is certainly pleasure, he replies, " Yes, 

 but the actual motive is a feeling of non-satisfaction, which is the 

 same as pain." This theory touches what are the most obscure as well 

 as most important problems of psychology and morals. In our opinion, 

 the doctrine of pain, as the motive of action, could be true only if 

 all activity were solely applied to change toward another condition. 

 Of this character are effort, want, and desire ; hunger, thirst, hope, and 

 anger. But is it certain that all activity consists thus exclusively in 

 moving toward another condition, as a mobile material object moves 

 toward another point in space ? Is change, or unquiet, as the ancients 

 said, the essence of action, or is it only the result of the limits of action, 

 of its deficiency, or of the external resistance which it meets ? Present 

 enjoyment, such as the enjoyment of agreeable sounds or beautiful 

 colors, so far as it is complete, and considered in itself, does not provoke 

 the desire for anything else, is satisfied with itself. Does that mean 

 that it is constantly passive and inert ? From the circumstance that 

 the action of the living being, being never solitary, is always exerted 

 toward a point of application which itself reacts, it results that change 

 is attached to activity, as a necessity of the resistances of the medium, 

 if not of its essence. At the precise moment and in the measure that 

 we are enjoying our active state, as in the contemplation of a scene 

 of nature, we cease to desire change as Mr. Rolph and Leslie Stephen 

 maintain ; but no enjoyment and no action can continue long at the 

 same level of intensity. The prolongation of the exercise and agree- 

 able stimulation of the nerves tends to diminish the effect, according 

 to the law of wear-and-tear. It is the feeling of this diminution, of 

 this constant decline, in which pleasure betrays itself, which is the real 

 excitant of the always reviving desire or hunger. But in this case the 

 hunger is revived, because the former comfort, which existed inde- 

 pendently of it, feels itself menaced, diminished, exhausted, and es- 

 caping as it were from itself. The pain is pleasure's cry of alarm, but 

 pleasure does not essentially imply pain. 



We see then, anew, that what is really primary is the action, the 

 same in being and in comfort, from which arise, with external resistance, 

 distinct pain, and, with victory over the resistance, distinct pleasure. 

 Change, motion, and progress have their reason in the perfection of 

 activity ; but enjoyment is, as Descartes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza be- 

 lieved, the feeling of some actual perfection come to realization of 

 some power. 



In wholly absorbing activity into disquiet, want, or hunger, Mr. 

 Rolph has only discerned half of the truth. He has not insisted 

 enough on the counterpart of hunger and nutrition, which is the dis- 

 engagement of force and movement. Like Darwin, whose doctrine 

 he desired to perfect, he has considered principally the support and 



