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VOLITIONAL STIMULUS OF PAIN.

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or the various forms of rage, anger, fury, is often a part of the So the convulsions of terror are wakened up by the same wide-spreading influence. It depends on the character of the individual at the moment, whether any, or which of these forms and displays of emotion are brought out, and to what degree; but all of them are extremely accessible to the stimulus of pain; anger and terror being more so than grief.

The foregoing description is meant to comprehend the strictly emotional characteristics of pain. Let us pass next to the volitional peculiarity, which is likewise very strongly marked.* By this I mean, as expressed in the Definition of Mind, the stimulus to a definite action for getting free from the state. The greater number of feelings have in them more or less of the property of spurring to action; some urge us to act for abating the feeling, others for the continuance or increase of it; the one class we term pains, the other pleasures, and although there is a broad distinction between these two great divisions of our states of consciousness in the region of emotion as above stated, yet the best marked and most unequivocal difference is that manifested under volition, or in the nature of the action that they respectively give birth to. Pain is what we avoid, repel, flee from; pleasure is what we cling to, and labour to increase. Intense pains are those that incite us vehemently

to work for their abatement.

Thus, therefore, it is a part of the character of physical suffering to stimulate strongly every action that is felt to work an alleviation or tend to a relief, and to repel strongly all actions that heighten the irritation. The struggles of an animal to escape from a particular situation, prove to us that the creature is in pain. Any movement causing a felt relaxa

I have already observed (see note, p. 86), that after exhausting the description of each feeling, as feeling or emotion, we derive additional and instructive marks by proceeding to consider the effect of the state in stimulating to action. Volition, although a distinct fact of mind, implies a feeling as a part of its nature. Every feeling, therefore, has a certain character as respects volition; either it does not stimulate to action at all, in which case it is an example of emotion pure and simple, or it does stimulate to action, which fact is a property of the feeling, and deservedly enters into the description of it.

tion of the feeling is strenuously kept up, any movement of an aggravating kind is as strenuously resisted. If a means of alleviation is known, the sufferer employs it; if no such means is recognised, mere tentative struggling is maintained for the chance of relief. If lying down brings ease, that is chosen; if the erect posture gives relief, that posture would be sought and retained by the youngest infant or the most inexperienced of the brutes.

Volitionally, one feeling is stronger than another according as the one engrosses our activity in preference to the other. If a person suffering from the sickening air of a crowded room is also liable to pains from exposure to the cold night air, we judge that feeling to be strongest which is acted on. This measure is solely as regards the spur to action, and not as regards the expression, or any of the characters of pure emotion.

Our delineation of acute pains is not yet complete. We have viewed them as emotion and as volition; we may now derive marks of discrimination from the relation they bear to Intellect or thought. I shall advert to only one such mark, but this points to the very foundation and essence of our Intelligence; I mean the more or less facility of reviving the state or feeling in the absence of the physical cause, the ease of stirring up the experience as a recollection or idea. Conscious states differ remarkably in this particular; some that are most intense while they last, are very difficult to realize as a matter of recollection; their intellectual or ideal existence is of a low order. Others again are remarkable for their conceivability by an intellectual effort, and are therefore more prone to enter into the ideal life of the individual: such are the emotions of spectacle, the feelings of the beautiful and the sublime. We recognise a superior dignity in the emotions that have an ideal or intellectual persistence, as compared with such as can exist only in the actual, or while their physical stimulus is present. Applying this to the case in hand, we are fortunately able to say that acute pains, such as those cuts or lacerations whose consideration we have begun with, do not persist in the intellect as ideal emotions, and are

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not easily revived in any effort of recollection. Of all intense feelings, they may be reckoned to stand lowest in these peculiarities: whereby their influence and malignancy become confined to the evil hour of their real presence.

11. So much for the systematic delineation of acute pains as exemplified by one particular group, localized in the muscular tissue. A shorter description will suffice for the others. With regard to the class 'spasms' and 'cramps,' the mode of origin is different. What that origin is I cannot pretend to say, farther than, as every one knows, that there is some form of disease in the first instance. I am equally unable to assign the peculiar action that seizes the muscular tissue under spasm. This is generally understood to be a forcible and unnatural contraction of the whole or part of a muscle. But the feeling is well known and recognised as one of the most horrible inflictions that human nature is liable to; even surpassing in agony the acute suffering typified by lacerations and bruises. It would seem to be a form of pain peculiar and specific to the muscular tissue; for although occurring in the alimentary canal in a most distressing form, we may presume with reason that the muscular fibres of the stomach and intestines are in that case the seat of the disturbance. While the feeling is one of pain and acuteness in the highest degree, it has a peculiar quality of its own, that I can only express by remarking how forcibly it sometimes suggests the idea of being drawn two ways at once; as if we were on the rack of conflicting forces. Perhaps, however, after all, the difference between it and the former class lies more in the degree of acuteness than in any other well-marked quality. The acute agony of such feelings rises to the pitch of the utterly unendurable. The expression, the efforts for relief marking the volitional power, the impression left behind, are in proportion vehement and intense.

12. Another class of feelings connected with the muscles may be specified under the same general head of Organic Feelings, those arising from over-fatigue. This cause is known to produce acute pains of various degrees of intensity, from the easily endurable up to severe suffering. It is not

necessary to advert to these more specifically, they being sufficiently comprehended by referring them to the genus of acute pains of the muscles.

Very different is the state of feeling produced by mere ordinary fatigue, which we may introduce here rather than under the second division. This is a state not at all painful, but the opposite. It is one of the pleasurable experiences allied with the muscular system, and merits a full delineation.

The antecedent cause of this state is exertion, or the repeated contraction of the muscle up to exhaustion. Of the peculiar condition of the tissue in this state we are unable to speak with any precision; and no mere hypothesis of it would serve any end. The particulars we can speak to are the Conscious state with the expression, the Volitional aspect, and the relation to Intellect, following the order already exemplified in speaking of acute pains.

The Feeling, or conscious state, is, we have said, of the pleasurable class. The peculiarity of it as a pleasure is not intensity or acuteness, but quantity, massiveness, or volume. This distinction we shall often have to introduce in our descriptions of the varieties of human consciousness; believing it to be a real and apt distinction. When, instead of one narrow acute pain or pleasure, we have a feebler kind of excitement that seems to pervade large masses of the system, this we express by saying that the quantity is great and the intensity feeble; the difference between the half-scorching rays of a fire and a warm bath would be strictly defined by a similar description. Such is the view we take of the state of the healthy fatigue of the muscles. The feeling is of course pervasive according to the extent of the exercised parts; and within those parts it is a massive or voluminous feeling of comparatively little acuteness or intensity. The state is one of the pleasures of a life of hard exercise or bodily toil, and taken along with the sleep and general sensation of health following in its train, counts for a considerable portion of the sum of human pleasure. As a more specific mark, I may mention what it has in common with the state of exercise itself, namely, a feeling of vigour, strength, or intense vitality

FEELING OF REPOSE.

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in the organs of activity. The blood still coursing rapidly through the muscular fibres developes a large amount of sensibility within them, and the state of repose is favourable to the enjoyment of this sensibility. The state is therefore very much contrasted with other states of voluminous enjoyment, such as warmth and repletion; these contain in them nothing of the sense of active vigour now described.

With regard to the Expression that manifests this emotional state to the onlooker, I would recal to the reader's observation the general fact, that expression is most marked in the intense feelings, whether of pleasure or of pain. Even very massive and abundant sensations will often yield a very languid expression, perhaps no distinguishable expression at all. Such is the case with the sensibility of muscles exhausted within limits. In so far as this shows itself at all, it is by the serene placid expression of a moderate and satisfying enjoyment. Inaction being part and parcel of the state itself, there is no scope for display or the demonstration of the feelings. The real expression is the reposing attitude, although this belongs more properly to what we have to speak of next, the activity for an end, suggested by the state in question.

The relations of this feeling to Action or Volition, demand some preliminary remarks. In the first place, the peculiarity of the state being exhaustion consequent on exercise, it naturally follows that a cessation of activity should be one of the accompanying circumstances of the feeling. As a mere physical fact, fatigue would lead to inaction. Thus there would be a discouragement to new effort arising out of the very conditions of the case, even supposing that the state of feeling had in itself a strong volitional spur like the acute pains formerly described.

In the second place, there is an aspect of this state and of many other pleasures that brings them under the head of pains; and since pain is almost always a source of volitional impulse, we derive thence a descriptive feature to enter into our delineation. When repose is forbidden to exhausted limbs there is a galling pain, and a consequent powerful stimulus to do something for relief. We find that though

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