Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of FeelingStanley, Hiram Miner
Philosophy
Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling
Stanley, Hiram Miner
Emotions
The law of evolution is, that origin of function and all progressive
modification arise at critical stages. Thus it is in painful
circumstances that the origin of mind is to be traced, and the important
steps in its development have been achieved in severest struggle and
acutest pain at critical periods. Pleasure is not then the original
stimulant of will, but is a secondary form. Pleasure has an obvious
utility which is far from the absolutely primitive. The pleasure-mode
early enters, however, to sharpen by contrast the pain-mode, and it is
only by their interaction that any high grade of psychic life could be
built up. The development of pleasure cannot be from pain, but as a
polar opposite to it. We cannot bring the development of mind into a
perfectly continuous evolution from a single germ, as is the case in
biological evolution. In a sense we may say that pleasure and pain are
complementary, like positive and negative electricity, but the
comparison cannot be pressed. We cannot, indeed, carry it so far as to
believe either absolutely essential to the other. We mention, then, the
evolution of pleasure as a problem which is yet to be dealt with in
full. However, that it is not original element in mind is easily seen
from this. As we ascend the grades of psychic life the pleasure-pain
gamut lengthens, and as we descend, it shortens, with pleasure always as
the intermediate factor. Thus, if we can represent it by a line,
PAIN PLEASURE PAIN
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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