The idea that human behaviour is governed by the search for pleasure may have been first broached by Epicurus (341-270 BCE) who held that freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind is the primary motivation in human conduct. The idea was re-formulated in 1848 as the Lustprinzip by the influential theorist of psychic behaviour Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-87) in an essay that influenced Sigmund Freud. Fechner’s thought was inspired by a general nineteenth-century aim of extending the general psychological principles of physics to areas such as psychology and physiology, hence the title of his major study Elemente der Psychophysik [Elements of Psychophysics, 1860]. Fechner extends the thoughts of the epicureans in proposing that our acts are determined by the pleasure or unpleasure procured by the thought of an...
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Citation: Clark, Robert. "The Pleasure Principle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1602, accessed 15 December 2025.]
