DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0211
chap, in explained by Herbert Spencer 191
play the foil, the feet of the runner to beat the ground. If
the movement is natural and easy and not persisted in when
fatigue has begun, this pleasure is its concomitant, but if on
the contrary it is jerky, constrained, or too long continued,
there results discomfort or pain. The case is exactly the
same with those far more delicate and sensitive fibres that
are connected with the organs of sight and hearing. The
small muscles which move the eye in those rapid journeys
over the objects of vision just described, have their own
minute sentiments of satisfaction and discomfort, and
manage to make these tell for much more than might have
been expected in that wonderful laboratory of the brain,
where, out of stimulus to nerves and mechanical muscular
movements, are fabricated those wholly different and
mysterious products we call pleasure and pain. Further,
in such minute but highly organised portions of the body
as the retina of the eyeball and the tympanum of the ear,
the nerve terminations which receive impressions from the
outer world transmit these inwards with a very emphatic
expression of their own satisfaction or discontent. Hence
extremely vivid sensations of pleasure or its reverse may be
excited in our minds by the most trifling physiological
changes in these delicate nerves and muscles. Those who
are specially sensitive to colour or to form derive exquisite
delight from the pure curves of a Greek vase, and suffer
positive pain when confronted with an old-fashioned aniline
mauve or magenta dye, and it is argued that the sensa-
tions depend on some particular motion of the muscles, or
stimulus to the nerves, of vision. Mr. Herbert Spencer
has given us a formula applicable to all these cases. For
aesthetic pleasure, he explains, ‘ many elements of perceptive
faculty must be called into play, while none are over-
exerted ; there must be a great body of the feeling arising
from their moderate action, without the deduction of any
play the foil, the feet of the runner to beat the ground. If
the movement is natural and easy and not persisted in when
fatigue has begun, this pleasure is its concomitant, but if on
the contrary it is jerky, constrained, or too long continued,
there results discomfort or pain. The case is exactly the
same with those far more delicate and sensitive fibres that
are connected with the organs of sight and hearing. The
small muscles which move the eye in those rapid journeys
over the objects of vision just described, have their own
minute sentiments of satisfaction and discomfort, and
manage to make these tell for much more than might have
been expected in that wonderful laboratory of the brain,
where, out of stimulus to nerves and mechanical muscular
movements, are fabricated those wholly different and
mysterious products we call pleasure and pain. Further,
in such minute but highly organised portions of the body
as the retina of the eyeball and the tympanum of the ear,
the nerve terminations which receive impressions from the
outer world transmit these inwards with a very emphatic
expression of their own satisfaction or discontent. Hence
extremely vivid sensations of pleasure or its reverse may be
excited in our minds by the most trifling physiological
changes in these delicate nerves and muscles. Those who
are specially sensitive to colour or to form derive exquisite
delight from the pure curves of a Greek vase, and suffer
positive pain when confronted with an old-fashioned aniline
mauve or magenta dye, and it is argued that the sensa-
tions depend on some particular motion of the muscles, or
stimulus to the nerves, of vision. Mr. Herbert Spencer
has given us a formula applicable to all these cases. For
aesthetic pleasure, he explains, ‘ many elements of perceptive
faculty must be called into play, while none are over-
exerted ; there must be a great body of the feeling arising
from their moderate action, without the deduction of any