Lanterna Rally

Author: Henry Thomas Moore

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2013-11

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9781494288112

PREFACE IN presenting to the public a volume on pain and pleasure as part of a series on the senses, a word of explanation is perhaps necessary as to the precise meaning attached to these terms. It may quite properly be asked how far I mean to identify these terms with sensation, and how far with feeling. Indeed, my whole position in regard to the relation of sensation and feeling naturally comes in question when unpleasantness is included as a variety of pain, and the sensation of tickling is put in the same general class with pleasantness. There is probably no more disputed ground in psychology than that which relates to the above point, and none in which more different shades of opinion have authoritative support. Speaking personally, I find it impossible to dispute the fact of a distinct difference between the sensation of pain and the feeling of unpleasantness, but the points of similarity seem far more significant than the points of difference. We may therefore without hesitation class them under a single general heading even though recognizing them as subclasses of a primitive type of consciousness. The right understanding of this relation will, I believe, come as the result of a genetic study rather than of cross-section analysis. The effort has been in the third chapter to suggest a probable line of genetic continuity from primitive pleasantness and unpleasantness to full-fledged sensory pleasure and pain. Especial emphasis has been laid throughout on the broad, vital significance which all pain and pleasure experiences have in common. It is believed that a satisfactory philosophy of the problem of evil can proceed only from a psychology of pain and pleasure that lends itself to broad interpretation. I wish here to acknowledge my especial indebtedness to Professor G. V. N. Dearborn for his kind loan of two hitherto unpublished hemobarograms showing the relation of pleasantness and unpleasantness to blood-pressure. These graphs appear in Chapter V.