The same process can be observed in the course of all the so-called pain-emotions. During active expression, while the general mental state increases in definiteness, the purely “algedonic” element of pain is gradually weakened or changed. Anger, which begins with an inhibition and a vascular contraction, to which,[75] on the mental side, corresponds a feeling of intense pain, is thus in its active stage a decidedly pleasurable emotion.[76] Fear, which in its initial stage is paralysing and depressing, often changes in tone when the first shock has been relieved by motor reaction.[77] And to some extent the same may be said even of despair. In every pain-emotion where there is a development of active energy involved in the reaction upon the initial feeling, the tone of this feeling is apt to undergo some change owing to the influence of this activity. This circumstance explains why expression for expression’s sake as a life-preserving principle occupies so important a place in the life of man. But it also accounts for another phenomenon which, although not directly connected with the expressional impulse, is æsthetically so important that it cannot properly be passed over in this work. We refer to the apparent paradox that anger, fear, sorrow, notwithstanding their distinctly painful initial stage, are often not only not avoided, but even deliberately sought. Taken in connection with those perhaps even more curious cases, in which sensation-feelings of pain are intentionally provoked, this apparent inversion of the normal course constitutes one of the most important problems in emotional psychology. The question of such “luxuries of grief,” or, to use a more appropriate German phrase, “Die Wonne des Leids,” is, however, so complicated that its treatment will require a chapter to itself. CHAPTER V THE ENJOYMENT OF PAIN We have pointed out that enjoyment can be derived by sentimental reflection on moods of sadness. Such refined forms of the “luxury of grief” presuppose a certain intellectual development and a tendency to introspection, which cannot possibly be assumed in primitive man. But as the active forms of the so-called pain-emotions are highly appreciated—we may even say indulged in as enjoyments—by the lower tribes of man, there must evidently be some more immediate cause of this delight. And we are the more tempted to look for this cause in the emotional process itself, by the fact that even bodily pains, which do not admit of any sentimental interpretation, may be deliberately excited.