ss is directed towards keeping what is pleasant, and the
impulse of unpleasantness is directed towards getting rid of the
unpleasant. In indifference there is no tendency either to keep or to
be {178} rid of. These facts are so obvious as scarcely to need
mention, yet they may be the core of this whole matter of feeling.
Certainly they are the most important facts yet brought out as
relating feeling to conduct.

Putting this fact into neural terms, we say that pleasantness goes
with a neural adjustment directed towards keeping, towards letting
things stay as they are; while unpleasantness goes with an adjustment
towards riddance. Bitter is unpleasant because we are so organized, by
native constitution, as to make the riddance adjustment on receiving
this particular stimulus. In plain language, we seek, to be rid of it,
and that is the same as saying it is unpleasant. Sweet is pleasant for
a similar reason.

There is some evidence that these adjustments occur in that part of
the brain called the thalamus. [Footnote: See p. 65.]

Sources of Pleasantness and Unpleasantness

Laying aside now the difficult question of the organic and cerebral
nature of the feelings, we turn to the simpler question of the stimuli
that arouse them. A very important fact immediately arrests our
attention. There are two different kinds of stimuli for pleasantness,
and two corresponding kinds for unpleasantness. The one kind is
typified by sweet and bitter, the other by success and failure. Some
things are pleasant (or unpleasant) without regard to any already
awakened desire, while other things are pleasant (or unpleasant) only
because of such a desire. A sweet taste is pleasant even though we
were not desiring it at the moment, and a bitter taste is unpleasant
though we had no expectation of getting it and no desire awakened to
avoid it. On the other hand, the sight of our stone hitting the tree
is pleasant only because we were aiming at the tree, and {179} the
sight of the stone going to one side of the tree is unpleasant just
for the same reason.

Some things we want.
Because we like them;
Some things we like.
Because we want them.

We want candy, because we like the sweet taste; but we like a cold
drink because and when we are thirsty and not otherwise. Thirst is a
want for water, a state of the organism that impels us to drink; and
when we are in this state, we like a drink, a drink is pleasant then.
How absurd it wo