Pain, pleasure and æsthetics : an essay concerning the psychology of pain and pleasure, with special reference to æsthetics / by Henry Rutgers Marshall.

  • Henry Rutgers Marshall
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pain, pleasure and æsthetics : an essay concerning the psychology of pain and pleasure, with special reference to æsthetics / by Henry Rutgers Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    normal or very little above the normal, will bring fully into action their svirplus stored energy. B. By the artificial nutrition of organs which are to be called into action. C. By a decided hypernormality of activity for a short time after merely normal rest.] It is, of course, evident that these methods of pleasure production may be used coincidentally, but it is desirable for us here to treat them in isolation. The pleasures of rest after labour, or relief from pain, as we have already seen, although really to be considered as a sub-class under the pleasures of activity, are in practice separable from them, because they are reached in practice by distinct methods. Unquestionably use is made of them in the arts which deal with phenomena of succession. No slight pleasure is it that we obtain in music by the introduc- tion of a calm restful movement following upon a train of intense and vigorous passages calling for our active attention. But on the whole these pleasures do not form an element of marked importance in aesthetic work, especially because they are so dependent upon the existence of, and are in- separably connected with, anterior pains. We may pass on, therefore, without further examination in this direction. A. The first point made above gives us the widely re- cognised sesthetic principle of contrast. Contrast in any region of mental effect involves the presence of contents which have not been in consciousness in the late past. [This involves the action of organs which have not been functioning lately. Gradations in sense effect or in thought transitions are mental movements which imply the gradual coming into action of the organs which are successively the centres of activity. Contrast eliminates all gradations; it in- volves the action of organs, which through mere rest have become well prepared for activity, and which, therefore, produce pleasurable activity when stimulated.]
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