PLEASURE, PAIN AND INTELLIGENCE 151 



and pain are such only through their motor correlations. We 

 may say, not that pain is mysteriously associated with withdraw- 

 ing activities, but that pain is the psychic state which accompan- 

 ies such activities — that it is those activities that constitute it 

 pain. Pleasure would thus become the feeling which is reached 

 out for; pleasure is pleasure just because it is sought. Or to 

 state the matter somewhat paradoxically, if we were so consti- 

 tuted as to seek pain, the pain would not be pain but pleasure. 

 It is indeed difficult to define the difference between pleasure and 

 pain without appealing to the motor accompaniments of these 

 feelings. The following words from Spencer are significant in this 

 connection : 



If we substitute for the word Pleasure the equivalent phrase — a feeling 

 which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there, and if we sub- 

 stitute for the word Pain the equivalent phrase — a feeling which we seek 

 to get out of consciousness and to keep out, etc., 



showing clearly that the qualities of these feelings are defined 

 in terms of their motor accompaniments. 



If we sought pain with quickened pulses and enthusiastic 

 efforts, smiled when we obtained it, endeavored to keep it in 

 consciousness as long as possible, and acted in all ways towards it 

 as we now do towards pleasure, would it not then be pleasure? 

 Such a conclusion, I must confess, jars against ones common 

 sense habits of thought. Would it not seem absurd to say that 

 red would be blue and blue red if the motor tendencies, whatever 

 they may be, which these sensations awaken, were reversed? 

 Would not the sensation of pain be the same if our nervous system 

 were so constructed that excitations producing pain led to entirely 

 different activities? How far the qualities of sensations are to 

 be regarded as things standing as it were by themselves, just as 

 atoms are supposed to possess certain qualities independently of 

 their various combinations, may be open to question. It is 

 a question for which fortunately our general discussion does not 

 require an answer and we may leave it therefore to specialists in 

 psychology and metaphysics. What we are concerned with at 

 present is an explanation of the pleasure-pain process. If we 



