DEVELOPMENT OF PLEASURE AND PAIN 67 



we are still without the first of these, and the second seems 

 to be hopelessly beyond our attainment. There is one fact, 

 however, about which there will be no dispute. 



It will always be found, when any considerable period is 

 reviewed, that there has been a distinct absolute increase 

 in both pleasure and pain, between the commencement and 

 the end. Both the pleasures and the pains of the civilized 

 man greatly exceed, in number and in intensity, and, it may 

 be said, in variety, those of the savage ; while the difference, 

 if the feelings of the lower animals are compared, is im 

 measurably greater. The pleasures and pains of the Medusa, 

 even if it be assumed that the two classes have already been 

 differentiated in the dim sentience attached to so primitive 

 a nervous structure, are neither so numerous nor so instense 

 as those of a dog, nor those of a dog as those of a man. 



For mankind themselves it is a pleasure to be able to quote 

 Mr. H. Spencer : 



The variation (in degrees of pain and pleasure) largely 

 depends on the degree of nervous development. This is 

 well shown by the great insensibility of idiots ; blows and 

 cuts, and extremes of heat and cold being borne by them 

 with indifference. The relation thus shown in the most 

 marked manner where the development of the central 

 nervous system is abnormally low, is shown in a less marked 

 manner where the development of the central nervous 

 system is normally low ; namely, among the inferior races 

 of men. Many travellers have commented on the strange 

 callousness shown by savages who have been mangled in 

 battle or by accident ; and surgeons in India, say that 

 wounds and operations are better borne by natives than by 

 Europeans. Further, there comes the converse fact that, 

 among the higher types of men, larger brained and more 

 sensitive to pain than the lower, the most sensitive are those 

 whose nervous developments, as shown by their mental 

 powers, are the highest ; part of the evidence being the rela 

 tive intolerance to disagreeable sensations common among 

 men of genius, and the general irritability characteristic 

 of them. 1 



The items in the account are innumerable, and little is 



1 Data of Ethics, p. 177. 

 E 2 



