328 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. a 



vary from slij^lit discomfort to intense agony according as the 

 inaction is prolonged. Of kindred character are the acquired 

 cravings for tobacco, alcohol, and other narcotics. Inaction 

 of the muscles causes great discomfort in children who are 

 compelled to sit still, and grown persons feel similar annoy- 

 ance when the enforced stillness is long enough kept up 

 Prisoners kept in dark cells soon feel an intense craving for 

 light, which in time becomes scarcely less intolerable than 

 raging hunger. A similar explanation suffices for the emo- 

 tional yearnings involved in home-sickness, ennui, deprivation 

 of the approval of our fellow-creatures, or in separation frou' 

 our favourite pursuits. All these painful states are due to the 

 enforced inaction of certain feelings, social or aesthetic. And 

 in similar wise, as Mr. Spencer observes, the bitter grief 

 attendant upon the death of a friend results from the ideal 

 representation of a future in which certain groups of habitual 

 emotions must remain inactive or unsatisfied by outward 

 expression. 



The objection maybe made that all this is but an elaborate 

 way of saying that certain pains result from the deprivation 

 of certain pleasures. But since such an objection, in its very 

 statement, recognizes that certain kinds of unimpeded acti- 

 vity, physical or psychical, are pleasures, it need not disturb 

 us, or lead us to imder-estimate the value of Hamilton's 

 suggestion. Let us note next that excessive action of any 

 function, equally with deficient action, is attended by pain. 

 Local pain results from intensified sensations of heat, light, 

 sound, or pressure ; and though it may be in some cases true, 

 as Mr. Spencer asserts, that sweet tastes are not rendered 

 positively disagreeable by any degree of intensity,^ the alleged 

 fact seems quite contrary to my own experience, and to thai 

 of several other persons whom I have questioned. Other 

 local pains, as in inflammation and sundry other forms ol 

 disease, are apparently due to increased molecular activity in 

 * Spencer, Principles of Psijcholonij, vol. L p. 276, 



