968 CUTANEOUS SENSATIONS. 



the senses, they are in certain hardly existent at all. 1 "Painful" 

 may therefore be a quality potential to a certain group of senses, but 

 not general and common to each and all the senses. Nor does it seem 

 to stand in such antithesis to " the pleasurable," as to be potential 

 constantly in those species or orders of sensations, in which the latter 

 is existent or potential. That is to say, a pleasure-pain series seems 

 for some senses an unproven attribute. Some species of sensa- 

 tions, e.g. certain tastes and odours, seem "unpleasant," even at the 

 threshold of the sensible intensity of their stimuli ; and, similarly, 

 others seem in some individuals to possess from very limen up to 

 maximum a pleasurable, certainly no painful, character, e.g. the taste of 

 "sweet." If stress be laid on this aspect of the question, it can be 

 urged that some species of sensation are characterised in common by 

 the attribute agreeable, and others in common by the attribute dis- 

 agreable ; and that neither the one character nor the other are qualities 

 common to all species of sensation. 



The disagreeableness of a vivid colour contrast or of discordant 

 notes is akin to pain but is really a degree of " physical pain ? " Is 

 it strictly expressible as a fraction of the agonising torture of a 

 scalded limb ? " The nerves which subserve smell, taste, hearing, and 

 sight cannot produce pain; violent irritation of the optic nerve produces 

 intense visual sensations but not pure " pain." 3 " The pain which we 

 feel when the finger is cut is a wholly different thing from the pain 

 given to the most delicately musical ear by even the most horrible 

 discord." 4 



With regard to smell, the comparatively poor development of olfactory 

 sense in man makes it very hazardous to assert that in that case " disagree- 

 ableness " cannot reach an intensity which, on the first-mentioned theory, is a 

 " pain " equal in violence to any cutaneous or other. The fact that, e.g. in the 

 case of the skunk, emissions of an odour can protect the emitter from car- 

 nivorous foes in its " struggle for existence," is evidence of the violence of the 

 unpleasantness that an olfactory sensation can be plausibly argued to attain. 



Pain may be only an extreme case of disagreeableness, but some forms of 

 disagreeableness are much more complex mental states than others. The 

 full scope of the terms " agreeable " and " disagreeable " is too wide for the 

 discussion here. They attach to manifold processes 5 besides simple sensations 

 and perceptions, processes built on "affective tone," whether "negative" or 

 " positive," and attributed to whatever psychical process, as on a foundation. 

 What psychical process, it can be asked, is not? The sight of blood is 

 disagreeable by reason of associated experience of disagreeable sensations. If 

 the intellectually disagreeable is of later development than the physically 

 disagreeable, 6 it can be argued that all " disagreeable " has arisen out of the 

 physically painful. "Doubtless in lower animals pain is almost the only 

 stimulus." 7 



Here it is necessary to guard against expanding the set problem by 

 unwary use of the word " pain." This word will be here limited to 

 phenomena of which everyday parlance speaks as bodily or " physical " 



1 On points in this connection, Helmholtz, " Physiol. Optik," Berlin, 1896, sec. 26. 

 - See, for instance, C. A. Strong, Psychol. Rev., N.Y. and London, 1894, vol. ii. p. 329. 

 3 Vierordt, " Grundriss," Tubingen, 1877. 



4 Foster, "Text-Book of Physiology," 1900, part iv. 



5 Lehmann, " Hauptgesetze des menschlichen Gefiihlslebens, " Leipzig, 1892. 



6 W. James, "Text-Book of Psychology," London, 1892, p. 69. 



7 Ibid. 



