Whenever there is experience there is the experience of cona tion. The statement is difficult to establish only when it is diffi cult to prove anything at all—in the very beginnings of mental life. But we are not dependent upon the direct observation of beginnings. Here, as in the study of cognition, we rely on the analysis of mental life in its clearest form and upon the postulate of genetic continuity. Explicit desire, directed to ideally repre sented ends, is obviously not the beginning of conation. We strive and struggle at the perceptual level. The wish to be rid of a tooth ache does not involve ideal representation of the state of affairs we aim at. In its most primitive form, the aversive attitude is 'directed to the removal of the present pain; its end is "anything but this," and need not be further defined.
It has been asserted that the development of purposive action depends, in primitive experience at least, on the aversion which goes with present pain and not with any appetition accompanying present pleasure. In positive enjoyment, it is said, there is only a tendency to maintain the pleasant situation as it already is; and fore this all that is required is attention to it and such motor adjustments as subserve attention. Aversion to a present pain, on the contrary, can be satisfied only by getting rid of the painful conditions, either by removing them or by escape from them. Its success therefore gives rise to a new state of affairs, not to a mere continuance of the pre-existing situation.
It may be doubted whether this account of the conative side i of pleasant as contrasted with painful experiences is tenable. It is by no means always true that the continuance of enjoyment depends only on the uniform continuance of certain agreeable conditions. In the most important cases, what is enjoyed is en joyed as a stage in a progressive process leading up to relatively new stages, so that, to quote Hobbes, "There is no content save in proceeding." In such experiences the end to which conation is directed is not merely "this" but "something more than this" or "this and something more." As examples at our present level of development we may refer to the pleasant excitement of reading a novel, or the pursuit of knowledge or of adventure. At a lower level, we may refer to the pleasant excitement of an animal in pursuing a prey or in courting a mate, or in other activities along the general lines of inherited instinct. If we suppose a most primitive experience in which inherited instincts as yet play no part, the experiencing individual will have to find out purely by trial and error how to treat a given situation so as to continue and enhance the enjoyment of it. But it is equally
true that under such conditions he would have to learn partly by trial and error how to get rid of pain.
If we lay exclusive stress on pain and aversion in the first development of purposive action, it is hard to see how the develop ment on the appetitive side can be accounted for at all. For if we adhere consistently to the general principle underlying this view, our only motive in seeking anew pleasures which we have enjoyed before, would be pain in their absence. Our only motive, for example, for eating a good dinner would be the pangs of hunger or at any rate some felt discomfort when we see it or think of it.
The pleasant excitement of a healthy appetite would not suffice.
If we begin only with the coercive and repressive discipline of pain it would seem that we never get beyond it. To do justice to the past we must from the outset begin with both pain and pleasure as mutually complementary. The first accounts for the development of conation, in its negative or aversive aspect, the second in its positive or appetitive aspect. Through the first we learn what to avoid, through the second what to pursue for its own sake. In one respect, however, pain is more important than pleasure. Especially in primitive experience it is frequently more intense and immediately urgent leading to more strenuous and violent action. From the biological point of view this is necessary to provide against imminent dangers which imperatively require to be met with the utmost promptness and vigour.