1881.] The Philosophy of Pain. 341 
and especially in man, is of a very complex character in its 
results, — not always good, nor always evil ; sometimes a 
friend, and sometimes useless, if not hostile. 
Such being the fadts, we may well pause before pro- 
nouncing it a principle divinely implanted for our preserva- 
tion, or, viewing the case from another side, before concluding 
that it has played a fundamental and favourable part in 
human development. 
There are those who assert that pain is merely an intensi- 
fication of feelings which in their normal degree are plea- 
surable. This view holds good perhaps alone in the case of 
temperature, where a certain range not differing greatly from 
the heat of our own bodies is pleasant, but becomes more 
and more painful, and even deadly, as it rises above or sinks 
below this standard. But this heat-sensation is perfectly 
exceptional and unique in thus changing its character in 
accordance with its degree. The gentlest contadt with rock 
or iron bar, with the point of a thorn or the edge of a knife, 
is certainly not painful, but as certainly not pleasant. Or 
take the sensations of acute disease ; they are no intensifi- 
cation of any ordinary normal state. When in perfedt 
health we are simply unconscious of the very existence of 
those organs which when diseased become the seat of in- 
tense torment. There is no transit from pleasure to pain, 
for those parts are never the seat of pleasure. Two points 
must here indeed be noted — the greater intensity of pain as 
compared with pleasure, and the far wider scope which the 
former possesses in the animal body. What physical delight 
can be for a moment likened in its height to the pangs of 
tooth-ache ? There is no part, internal or external, which 
may not become the seat of pain, whilst how few are ever, 
or can ever become, the seat of any positive pleasure ! 
But this last word reminds us of a new difficulty. If pain 
is a warning mark or consequence, attached to certain 
adtions that we may carefully avoid them, and if the 
growing violence of pain — as in the case of putting our 
linger in the fire — is an evidence of growing danger, we 
might not unnaturally expedf that pleasure would be a 
characteristic mark of whatever is safe and salutary — the 
more salutary the more intense the delight. 
But how does this conclusion agree with experience ? 
Have we no foods delicious to the taste, but of doubtful 
digestibility or wholesomeness, sometimes even positively 
poisonous ? Have we no beverages, of pleasant flavour and 
aroma, but which some authorities condemn altogether, 
whilst others declare them dangerous, except used with 
