Though races of men are contrasted with one another so much less than
genera and orders of animals are, yet, as we saw in the last chapter,
along with visible differences there go invisible differences, with
accompanying likings for different modes of life. Among some, as
the Mantras, the love of unrestrained action and the disregard of
companionship, are such that they separate if they quarrel, and hence
live scattered; while among others, as the Damaras, there is little
tendency to resist, but instead, an admiration for any one who assumes
power over them. Already when exemplifying the indefiniteness of
happiness as an end of action, I have referred to the unlike ideals
of life pursued by the nomadic and the settled, the warlike and the
peaceful--unlike ideals which imply unlikenesses of nervous structures
caused by the inherited effects of unlike habits accumulating through
generations. These contrasts, various in their kinds and degrees among
the various types of mankind, every one can supplement by analogous
contrasts observable among those around. The occupations some delight
in are to those otherwise constituted intolerable; and men's hobbies,
severally appearing to themselves quite natural, often appear to their
friends ludicrous and almost insane: facts which alone might make us
see that the pleasurableness of actions of this or that kind, is due
not to anything in the natures of the actions but to the existence of
faculties which find exercise in them.
It must be added that each pleasurable emotion, like each pleasurable
sensation, is relative not only to a certain structure but also to
the state of that structure. The parts called into action must have
had proper rest--must be in a condition fit for action; not in the
condition which prolonged action produces. Be the order of emotion what
it may, an unbroken continuity in the receipt of it eventually brings
satiety. The pleasurable consciousness becomes less and less vivid,
and there arises the need for a temporary cessation during which the
parts that have been active may recover their fitness for activity,
and during which also the activities of other parts and receipt of the
accompanying emotions may find due place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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