Note 33 — Chapter III · PLEASURE.

This thesis has been principally maintained in America by H. Nichols (Philosophical Review, July 1892), and in France by Bourdon (Revue Philosophique, September 1893). The former applies it to pleasure and pain, considering them fundamental sensations as distinct from one another as they are from other sensations. This article contains some ingenious considerations on the part played by the association of ideas. Bourdon applies it only to pleasure, and considers pain irreducible. He regards pleasure as a special sensation, not a common one or an attribute of all sensations; it is “of the same nature as the special sensation of tickling.” By adducing the pleasure of tickling (in which he follows Descartes and others), Bourdon partially escapes the criticism already advanced. It must be remarked, however, that tickling is itself a sensation of which the organic conditions are very vaguely determined. Besides the cutaneous impression, there are certainly also diffused reflex actions which connect it quite as much with internal sensibility as with the sense of touch.