e contrast
feelings and of the relativity of feelings, for instance, has points
of contact with the economic problem of how far economic progress,
with its stirring up and satisfying of continually new demands, really
adds to the quantity of human enjoyment. In other words, how far are
those sociologists right who are convinced that by the technical
complexity of modern life, with all its comforts and mechanizations,
the level of individual life is raised, but that the oscillations
about this average level remain the same and produce the same amount
of pleasure and pain? The technical advance would therefore bring no
increase of human pleasure.

We might also put into this class the meagre experimental
investigations concerning the mutual influence of feelings. When
sound, light, and touch impressions, each of which, isolated, produces
a feeling of a certain degree, are combined with one another, the
experiment can show very characteristic changes in the intensity of
pleasure and displeasure. From such routine experiments of the
laboratory it might not be difficult to come to more complex
experiments on the mutual relations of feeling values and especially
of the combinations of pleasure with displeasure. This would lead to
an insight into the processes which are involved in the fixing of
prices, as they are always dependent upon the pleasure in the
acquisition and the displeasure in the outlay. The exact psychology of
the future may thus very well determine the conditions under which the
best effects for the satisfaction of economic demands may be secured,
but our present-day science is still far from such an achievement: and
it seems hardly justifiable to propose methods to-day, as it would be
like drawing a map with detailed paths for a primeval forest which is
still inaccessible.

XX

EXPERIMENTS ON THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS

We have said that the time has not yet come for discussing from the
standpoint of experimental psychology the means to secure the ultimate
effects of economic life, namely, the satisfaction of economic
demands. If this were the only effect which had economic significance,
this whole last part of our little book would have to remain a blank,
as we wanted to deal here with the securing of the best effects after
having studied the securing of the best man and of the best work. Yet
these ultimate ends are certainly not the only mental effects which
become important in the course o