Pleasure and Pain. 711 



tions per second, and the other 144. They do not interfere with each 

 other in doing their work, which is simply to respond to the impulses 

 they receive from the other end, although taken together they are far 

 from constituting a harmonious whole. And so of the receiving organs 

 in the cerebrum. The actual agitations which they are fitted for, they 

 undergo whenever appropriately impelled, regardless of their relation- 

 ship with each other. It is the consolidation of these agitations into 

 one sensation that brings out the fact that as a whole they are inhar- 

 monious, and we are warranted in the conclusion that in this case at 

 least a sensation of a whole composed of inharmonious parts is a pain- 

 ful sensation. In this example we have no trouble to trace inharmony 

 to the actual mechanical vibrations which occur in the objective instru- 

 ments which furnish the noise. These vibrations alternately reinforce 

 and neutralize each other, causing beats and interference in the sound 

 waves. But we must not be too hasty to conclude that this evident in- 

 harmony in the physical world necessarily produces sensations of pain 

 or annoyance in us. Whoever has heard the discordant racket which 

 may be produced by the simultaneous sounding of bells, gongs, drums, 

 &c. , and reflects that this is supposed to be music by one-third of the 

 people of the world, will admit that it does not. People whose musical 

 sense has never been cultivated ( nor inherited ) are not disturbed by dis- 

 cordant sounds. 



We might mention many other examples of harmonious relationships 

 in our environment which tend to develop in us an appreciation of them 

 and satisfaction in them, such as harmony of color and symmetry in 

 form. When such appreciation or sense is cultivated, its violation gives 

 pain ; but if there is no cultivation the fact of the union of inharmoni- 

 ous colors, or of unsymmetrical objects, produces no effect upon us. 

 What we call the cultivation of the musical sense, the color sense, &c. , 

 depends upon the differentiation of brain cells by previous experience 

 and habit under certain associations, and is, in fact, the erection of 

 standards or principles, as set forth in chapter 65. Having got our 

 standard idea of what has given us pleasure in any particular depart- 

 ment, each new sensation is automatically compared with such standard, 

 and if it supports and reinforces the standard, it gives pleasure ; if it 

 disagrees with such standard, and tends to detract from and subvert or 

 disturb it, uneasiness or pain results. It requires no argument to show 

 that this principle extends to all the customs and conventionalities of 

 life. We have our standard ideas of the correct thing in law, religion, 

 medicine, politics, education, fashions in dress, deportment, &c. Those 

 things we see in the environment which confirm and build up * these 

 standards and the cerebral organs, of which they are the expression, 

 are pleasant, while those things which are not in harmony with them, 



