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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
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ness and satisfaction which arises on the successful perforinance of some task imposed on our will, ego, on the successful passing of a University examination. The question is whence does this feeling of joy arise ?
Obviously, it is not an affection of the soul like pleasure, for pleasure arises on the real or imaginary contact between an external object and it sense-organ. But in the instance under consideration there is no such contact between the ego and any object real or imaginary, though the eye is undoubtedly deemed to have fallen on a scrap of pink paper containing the telegraphic message relating to success.
Observation shows that neither the scrap of paper, nor its peculiar colour, nor even the writing on it has anything to do with the state of joy which arises on a perusal of its contents. If you do not agree with me on this point, then you may put down the words of the message on the same or a similar piece of paper and read it as often as you please. This would suffice to convince you that there is nothing in the communication or the paper on which it is written to cause an effervescence of joy. Analysis makes it clear, on the contrary, that the feeling of de-light arises, like the effervescence of sparkling vintage, from within the soul itself, the message being the occasion, but not the cause, of its display. What seems to happen in such cases is this that the communication, is believed to be true, removes something of the load of worries and anxieties that lay heavy on the soul, thus enabling the natural
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