Physiological aesthetics / by Grant Allen.

  • Grant Allen
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiological aesthetics / by Grant Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    scioiisness and the bodily states whose concomitants they are. I do not propose to consider in the present chapter the Pleasures and Pains of the Intellect or the higher Emotions. These, as being specially-involved cases of the general laws, will receive special attention in later portions of this work. Nor shall I attempt directly to elucidate those of the ^Esthetic Feelings themselves, as they will form the sub- ject-matter of the remaining chapters of our treatise. At present I shall only deal with such Pleasures and Pains as are commonly referred to a purely bodily origin, those namely of the five senses and of the general organic and muscular sensibility ; in order that from these most conspi- cuous examples we may infer the laws of Pleasures and Pains generally. And I shall begin with Pain, because its manifestations are more obvious and noticeable than those of the opposite feeling. § 2. Pain. If we take a rapid survey of the principal varieties of physical Pain, the first point which strikes us is that the greater part of them, and especially the most intense, are the concomitants of a violent dismemberment in some one of the tissues. Of all Pains with which we are acquainted, the strongest are those which accompany the severance of an actual sensible portion of the body, as in the amputation of a limb, the excision of an ulcer, or the removal of a scalp. The disruption from the body of a much smaller member is also extremely painful, as, for example, the loss of a nail or
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