spending our brain and heart's blood. Experience probably justifies us in saying that the narcotic stimulants are, in general, a more extravagant expenditure than the stimulation of food, society, and fine art. One of the safest of delights, if not very acute, is the delight of abounding physical vigor; for, from the very supposition, the supply to the brain is not such as to interfere with the general interests of the system. But the theory of pleasure is incomplete without the theory of pain.
As a rule, pain is a more costly experience than pleasure, although sometimes economical as a check to the spendthrift pleasures. Pain is physically accompanied by an excess of blood in the brain, from at least two causes—extreme intensity of nervous action, and conflicting currents, both being sources of waste. The sleeplessness of the pained condition means that the circulation is never allowed to subside from the brain; the irritation maintains energetic currents, which bring the blood copiously to the parts affected.
There is a possibility of excitement, of considerable amount, without either pleasure or pain; the cost here is simply as the excitement: mere surprises may be of this nature. Such excitement has no value, except intellectually; it may detain the thoughts, and impress the memory, but it is not a final end of our being, as pleasure is; and it does not waste power to the extent
