________________
150
the thing which produces the sensation Another characteristic of sensations is that we can have images corresponding to them at the time when they are past. Judged by such criteria, it is very doubtful if we can legitimately speak of a sensation of pain or of kinæsthetic and organic sensations. While touch, warmth and cold are qualities of things, pain cannot be referred to anything as its quality. We feel pain indeed, but do not perceive anything as painful, just as we perceive a rose as red when it produces the sensation of red in us. We can hardly form an image of a pain previously felt in the same way in which we can image a previously experienced colour or sound Hence pain is better characterised as a feeling, rather than as a sensation Similarly the so-called organic sensations may be shown to be feelings aroused by certain states of the vital organs, or by the ordinary sensations of pressure, warmth, etc. Thus according to Titchener,'' the sense of satiety, of a full stomach would come from an upward pressure against the diaphragm. Thirst appears as a diffuse pressure or as a blend of pressure and warmth. There are times when the separate heart-beats are clearly sensed as dull throbbing pressure' Titchener says further that the special sensations of the genital system appear first as an excitement, then as gratification and thirdly as relief. But all these are plainly feelings, and not sensations in the proper sense Lastly, what are called kinæsthetic sensations are analysable into certain feelings and ordinary sensations produced by different kinds of bodily activity. A muscular sensation is ordinarily a dull and diffuse pressure upon the skin. With increasing intensity it takes on a dragging character and sometimes passes into dull pain.' The articular sensation is said to be a massive complex of sensations in the wrist-joint whose quality is not distinguishable from that of cutaneous pressure.' The per
6
C
NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
1 Vide Text-Book of Psychology, pp 160-92