284 THE FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS 
psychology an organic bequest. But the attainment of ends 
thus already predetermined has feeling-tone, both as process 
and in its resulting consciousness, and this feeling-tone serves 
to modify, through the situation it introduces, future be- 
haviour, and thus, in a sense, affords a new end to subsequent 
conation. 
“ Life,” wrote James Martineau,* “is a cluster of wants 
physical, intellectual, affectional, moral, each of which may 
have, and all of which may miss, the fitting object. Is the 
object withheld or lost? there is pain: is it restored or 
gained ? there is pleasure : does it abide or remain constant ? 
there is content. The two first are cases of disturbed equi- 
librium, and are so far dynamic that they will not rest till 
they reach the third, which is their posture of stability and 
their true end.” This is an adequate description of the 
essential features in conative process. But in genetic pre- 
cedence, as in individual development, the physical wants 
come first, and, at the outset of behaviour, the satisfaction or 
content is not and cannot be foreseen, since it has never yet 
entered into experience. To adopt a distinction suggested by 
Professor Mackenzie,t the conation is purposive, since we see 
that an end is involved, but not purposeful, since there is no 
definite consciousness of the end aimed at. But when experi- 
ence has introduced feeling-tone into the situation, we may 
say that this, in a sense, introduces a new end to subsequent 
behaviour. 
Mr. Herbert Spencer has said { that pleasure is that which 
we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there; pain, 
that which we seek to get out of consciousness and keep out. 
May we assert, then, that, in the modification of behaviour 
due to experience, the pleasure to be gained or the pain to be 
avoided is the psychological end? Certainly not without 
qualification, unless we be among those who are content to 
accept any form of words which gives a general sort of notion 
* “Types of Ethical Theory,” vol. ii., f. 350. 
¢ “ Manual of Ethics,” p. 85. 
¢ “Principles of Psychology,” vol. i., pt. ii., ch. ix. § 125. 
