easant.

CONDITIONS OF FEELING TONE

=A. Neural.=--The quality, or tone, of a feeling will vary according to
the intensity of the impression. Great heat stimulates the nerves
violently and the resultant feeling state is painful; warmth gives a
moderate stimulation and the resultant tone is pleasant. Excessive cold
also, because it stimulates violently, produces a painful feeling. Since
the intensity of a stimulus varies according to the resistance
encountered in the nervous arc, the quality of a feeling state must,
therefore, vary according to the resistance. It is for this reason that
an experience, at first very painful, may lose much of its tone by
repetition. By repetition the nerve centres are adapted to the
experience, resistance is lessened, and the accompanying pain
diminished. In this way, some work or exercise, which is at first
positively unpleasant, may at least become endurable as the organism
becomes adapted to the occupation. From this point of view, it is
sometimes said that any impressions to which we are perfectly adapted
give pleasurable feelings, while, in other cases the resultant tone will
be painful.

=B. Mental.=--The law of perfect adaptation also explains why ideal
feelings may at one time result in a pleasant, and at another time in a
painful, feeling tone. According to the principle of apperception, the
new experience must organize itself with whatever thoughts and feelings
are now occupying consciousness. It necessarily happens that a given
experience does not always equally harmonize with our present thoughts
and feelings. The recognition of a friend under ordinary circumstances
is agreeable, but amid certain associations or in a certain environment,
such recognition would be disagreeable. So, too, while an original
experience may have been agreeable, the memory of it may now be
disagreeable; and vice versa. For instance, the memory of a former
success or prosperity may, in the midst of present failure and poverty,
be disagreeable; while the recollection of former failure and defeat may
now, in the midst of success and prosperity, be agreeable. What is it
that makes a sensation, a perception, a memory, or an apprehended
relation pleasant under some circumstances and unpleasant under others?
The rule appears to be that when the experience harmonizes with our
present train of thought, when it promotes our present interests and
intentions, it is pleasant; but when, on the other hand, it d