6o 



The law of self-conservation has been thus formulated by 

 Bain : "States of pleasure are connected with an increase, 

 states of pain with an abatement, of some or all of the vital 

 functions ;" but the cause of the two states is desire, as it is 

 just because there are in us tendencies that may be satisfied 

 or appeased that we feel pleasure or pain. In fact, when 

 we experience pleasure or pain, we wish to preserve the one 

 and destroy the other. In this law of pleasure and pain, 

 we have the key to the leading varieties and expressions of 

 the feelings, and it is named the law of self-conservation, 

 because without it the system could not be maintained, 

 for, as Bain says : " Inasmuch as we follow pleasure and 

 avoid pain, if pleasure were injurious and pain wholesome, 

 we should incur entire shipwreck of our vitality, as we often 

 partially do, through certain tendencies that are exceptional 

 to the general law." The law of pleasure and pain we regard 

 therefore as fundamental : the law that connects pleasure 

 with increase of vital power ; pain with the diminution of 

 vital power. In fact we may look upon this law as, in many 

 respects, the foundation, the main-stay of our being ; it is 

 the principle of self-conservation the self-regulating, self- 

 acting impulse of the animal system. 



" The phenomena of the affections," says Ribot, pertain 

 to our inmost being. By this fact of cognition the outer 

 world is let in upon us, and is reproduced in miniature, 

 for thought is nothing but existence arriving at self-con- 

 sciousness ; but our feeble personality is associated with 

 this impersonal state by the pleasures and pains it produces 

 in us, for sensation and volition make us what we are. The 

 modes of sensibility are so intimately connected with the 

 organs, and with the whole constitution that, a priori, we 

 might conclude that they are transmitted by heredity." The 



