Licence: In copyright
Credit: The mind of man : a text-book of psychology / by Gustav Spiller. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![the painful area affected. Strictly speaking, it would be impossible to tell from a pain sensation whether it is intense or not, e.g., a bad attack of neuralgia did not reveal to me sensations of any intensity. We tell (ch, 6) the difference by the varied manner in which the central nervous system reacts. When we consider the question of heat and cold, the same facts meet us. As we become hotter, a host of changes are engendered; the heat spreads; comfort is felt; the heat becomes uncomfortable, and, at last, intolerable and burning. Indeed, when we touch unawares something ice- cold, we may think that we have touched something hot. In the evolution of felt cold, non-cold sensations indicate what is called the intensity^ The stiffness and unmanageableness of the limbs, the smoothness of the palms, and the reactions generally, are the principal indications of cold. A very cold hand yields a wealth of sensations for the classification of which I should not like to be responsible. Organic changes of an extensive order destroy in this way the notion of simple intensity. Experimenting with pressures, no more satisfactory result is obtained. Lifting an ounce is accompanied by passing sensations in the finger tips; in lifting a heavy book, sensory changes supervene right up the arm; and in lifting a heavy piece of metal, the whole body—head, trunk, extremities— seems to become alive with sensations. On the other hand, putting these different weights in a balance, no such multitude of changes is traceable. Hence “intensely heavy” has here again reference to complex organic changes which are of secondary importance as far as the feeling of pressure is concerned. We conclude, therefore, that increase or decrease of weight or pressure, is marked by changes which defy mathematical statement. If we examine the other senses, the same state of things repeats itself.. An intense light is one that hurts our eyes or one that illuminates well. In the first case we have a special non-light effect, for pain is not a fact of light. In the second case we also ignore the light, and study its illumina-, tive effects. An intense light is also better seen, shows more details, and is more easily attended to; but these properties refer to the nature of the attention process. A dull light has after all a different quality from a bright light. A similar analysis holds of the other senses. [Test.'] We may hence conclude generally that while certain definite and easily calculable changes are observable in the non-organic world, these are,, roughly speaking, accompanied in the organic world by indefinite and only indirectly calculable effects. It is one thing to register the fact that a change is felt; it is quite another to determine the nature of that change. For this reason the word Intensity is scarcely used in the following pages, the words aggressiveness, obviousness and warmth of feeling taking its place. However, I have no intention of declaring that the question is settled.* * See Heinrich, Die inodernephysiologische Psychologies 1899, pp. 43-5S-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21938982_0072.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
