It is well known that when a greater pain or stimulus is thrown into competition with a lesser one, the lesser is submerged. Of this fact the school-boy makes use when he initiates the novice into the mystery of the painless pulling of hair. The simultaneous but severe application of the boot to the blindfolded victim takes complete but exclusive possession of the final common path and the hair is painlessly plucked as a result of the triumph of the boot stimulus over the pull on the hair in the struggle for the final common path. Persons who have survived a sudden, complete exposure to superheated steam, or whose bodies have been enwrapped in flame, testify that they have felt no pain. As this absence of pain may be due to the fact that the emotion of fear gained the final common path, to the exclusion of all other stimuli, we are trying by experimentation to discover the effects of simultaneous painful stimulation of all parts of the body. The data already in hand, and the experiments now in progress, in which anesthetized animals are subjected to powerful stimuli applied to certain parts of the body only, or simultaneously to all parts of the body, lead us to believe that in the former case the brain-cells become stimulated or hyperchromatic, while in the latter case no brain-cell changes occur. We believe that our experiments will prove that an equal and simultaneous stimulation of all parts of the body leaves the brain-cells in a state of equilibrium. Our theory of pain will then be well sustained, not only by common observation, but by experimental proof, and so the mechanistic view will be found in complete harmony with another important reaction.