Herrick, Modem Algedonic Theofies. 7 



mation of stimuli and explosive overflow of an injurious char- 

 acter. 



Mr. Grant Allen claims that all strong pleasures result 

 from the escape of stored up potential energy which has been 

 hoarded for a considerable time, but at the same time " pleas- 

 ure is the concomitant of a normal amount of function in 

 sentient tissues." Marshall calls attention to what seems to 

 him a contradiction here. But upon the hypothesis suggested 

 in this paper there is no contradiction. AH normal functioning 

 is to a certain extent pleasurable. Pleasure is the result of the 

 conscious participation in an unimpeded nervous function. The 

 pleasure is enhanced in proportion as the amount of function in- 

 creases and our attention to it increases (not necessarily varying 

 proportionally by any means, however) until the function is 

 checked or impeded. Such impediment may be offered by the 

 limitation of nutritive power in the cell or by other stimuli im- 

 pinging upon it from without. If when the normal activity of 

 the cell is reached there are afforded sufficient avenues for the 

 overflow of the stimulus to other like cells, an irradiation takes 

 place enhancing the pleasure-giving power without producing 

 abnormal functioning. This may be the physiological equiva- 

 lent of what Mr. Allen describes as stored up potential energy. 



Horwicz considers pleasure as a restoration of equilibrium. 

 This however must be in a somewhat unusual sense. Physio- 

 logically pleasurable excitement is of the nature of restoration 

 of equilibrium in so far as an excitement of one organ is trans- 

 formed into a quickening of the functioning of all accessible or- 

 gans but it is rather the method of such equilibration than the 

 fact of it which explains the pleasurable nature of the process. 

 Lotze recognizes the dependence of pleasure and pain on the 

 employment of vital energy but added that a psychic perception 

 of the organic advantage or disadvantage was the immediate 

 cause. Bain seems to correlate pleasure-pain with stored en- 

 ergy and excess but not very intelligently. 



Zollner taught that pleasure is the psychical concomitant 

 or aspect of the transformation of potential energy into kinetic, 

 while the opposite process is painful. This is in effect a resist- 



