A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins.

  • Mary Whiton Calkins
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    73/446 page 55
    VI. Elemental Pain Experience The pin point which, gently applied, excites first a sensa¬ tional experience of pressure, may bring about, an instant later, a very different sort of consciousness, that of pain. This is evidently distinct from all other sensation-elements through stimulation of the skin, and no good observer con¬ fuses the pressure-consciousness with the pain due to a heavy weight. But it is perhaps less easy to realize that the con¬ sciousness of pain is quite distinct from that of unpleasantness. It is unpleasant, for example, not painful, to discover that one has given to the deck steward twice too large a fee; and the sight of the rose-pink gown of the lady with auburn hair is unpleasant and not painful. The confusion is mainly due to the fact that the sensational experience of pain is always accompanied by unpleasantness. In the case of apparent exceptions, as of the slight pain which we intentionally inflict upon ourselves to see how it will feel, the pleasantness is probably that of the novelty, not of the pain. But it does not follow from the fact that pains are always unpleasant, that unpleasantnesses are always painful, still less that the two are identical. Our first conclusion, therefore, is that painfulness, an experience which follows upon the burning, bruising, or cutting of the skin and upon certain internal changes, is different from unpleasantness or disagreeableness. Some psychologists believe that there is one quality of pain, as of pressure, and that the experiences which we differentiate as acute, dull, stinging, gnawing pains are qualitatively the same, though differing in intensity, perhaps in extensity or bigness, and in steadiness. Professor Ebbinghaus, on the other hand, teaches that there are two pain-qualities, the
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