704 The American Naturalist. [September, 
teristically intense, isnottrue. Again, that intensity of stimu- 
lus is not a uniform determinant of pleasure is one of the best 
known truths of every form of art. And that the motor effects 
of pleasure are not conspicuous for violence is not less well 
known. Some of them are violent, no doubt, yet abundance 
of others are among the most soothing and quieting influences 
which we experience. The entire field of pleasure therefore 
—source, centre, and motor discharge—is one endless contra- 
diction of the assumption that its neural discharge is predomi- 
nately intense, and points even to a new definition of pleasure 
from that of which the traditional school is possessed. Again, 
it is the delusive general relationship of pleasure to health, 
strength and welfare which has ever been the source of error. 
With health and freshness all functions, undoubtedly, are more 
vigorous, and those which give pleasure are more active among 
the rest. Also, in health we are freer of unpleasant disorders. 
Yet it remains true that the feeblest invalid is often capable of 
the intensest pleasure, and that the trained athlete may suffer 
excruciating pain if the dentist but tickle the bare nerve of his 
tooth with a feather. 
Against the “ discharge” link, pleasurable or painful, in Mr. 
Baldwin’s “ Circular Reaction,” it would seem unnecessary to 
push the sword further. In has absolutely no foundation in 
fact. Yet, as this is of a class of tradition that dies hard, I 
will bring yet multiplied objections against it. When a child 
first brings its finger into contact with a flame it instinctively 
draws its arm away: a complicated and delicately articulated 
mechanism has been evolved by nature, and inherited by the 
child for this purpose. The case is typical, and other examples 
are innumerable. Now, under Mr. Baldwin’s Plan of Evolution, 
it would have been impossible for such an organized response to pain 
to have developed. His whole scheme is one wherein “the ex- 
cess discharges” of pleasure conduce to the developnient of 
organized responses to pleasure, and the “ restricted discharges ” 
of pain specially prevent the development of organized responses to 
pain. It is true that Mr. Baldwin expressly declares his “ New 
Factor” to be ontogenic. Still, if so, then pain restrictions 
must have yet worked from the moment of each creatures 
