394 Appendix 
nized aspects in the object desired for the time being, 
and becomes more intense, threatening again to gain the 
upper hand. The individual then falls in a state we call 
“indecision.” When a philosopher discovers by intro- 
spection that he is in this situation, he will easily realize 
that both affectivities exist together within him, that they 
are “flesh of his flesh,” and that the slightest and most 
insignificant physical occurrence is enough to cause either 
one to gain ascendency over the other. It is clear that 
he can easily fall a prey to the illusion that nothing at 
all, any chance breath of wind, is enough to give one the 
preponderance over the other. This is the subjective 
illusion of free will which for many centuries has con- 
stituted the greatest and most difficult problem that philos- 
ophy has been called upon to solve. 
Finally to come to the consideration of “pleasure” 
and “pain,” it is the merit of the modern psychological 
school that it has shown the fallacy of Bain’s theory that 
the fundamental fact of animal life is the pursuit of 
“pleasure,” in other words, the search for everything 
pleasant and the avoidance of everything unpleasant; 
and on the other hand that it has clearly emphasized that 
the conditions of pleasure and pain represent only the 
superficial part of the affective life, “of which the deep 
element consists in affective tendencies, positive or nega- 
tive. . . . These are the elementary processes of 
affective life, of which pleasure and pain represent only 
the satisfaction or failure.” #7 
Since an activation of nervous energy accompanies 
every “satisfaction” of any affective tendency, and every 
“disappointment” corresponds to an interruption or ces- 
sation of this energy, pleasure really corresponds to every 
47Ribot, Psychol. des sent., p. 2—Probl. de psych. aff., p. 16. 
