Helmholtz adopts this view in essentials, although, more cautious than Wundt, he occupies himself solely with the external aspect of the matter. At all events, he admits this much: “We must diverge somewhat from the beaten track of psychological analysis, in order to satisfy ourselves, that we have here to do with the same sort of mental activity that is operative in inferences commonly so called” (Popular Scientific Lectures, ii. p. 92). He finds the difference to consist only in the external circumstance, that conscious conclusions are wrought out by means of words (which does not meet the case of animals and the deaf and dumb), whilst the unconscious inferences or inductions have only to do with sensations, images of memory, and intuitions (where it is not obvious why the latter should “never” be “expressible in the usual form of a logically analysed inference”). Helmholtz deserves especial praise for expressly pointing to the fact that conscious inferences, after the requisite material of representation has been fully supplied and elaborated, thrust themselves upon us precisely like unconscious inferences, “without any exertion on our part” (i.e., on the part of our own consciousness), with all the energy of an external natural force (p. 95). Independently of the aforementioned, Zöllner also found himself driven to the assumption of unconscious inferences for an explanation of those pseudoscopic phenomena which defy a merely physiological explanation. (Cf. Poggendorf’s Annalen, 1860, vol. ex. p. 500 ff., and his recent work, “On the Nature of Comets; Contributions to the History and Theory of Knowledge,” 2d ed., Leipzig, 1872.) Further, we are vividly reminded of Wundt’s unconscious soul, which works for us like another being, when Bastian begins his “Contributions to Comparative Psychology” (Berlin, 1868) with the words (p. I), “That it is not we who think, but that it thinks in us, is clear to him who is wont to pay attention to the internal processes.” This “it” lies, however, as appears from pp. 120, 121, in particular, in the Unconscious. However, this investigator does not attempt to do more than throw out some rather vague suggestions.
In the current treatment of History, likewise, there are indications that the achievements of Schelling and Hegel (of which we shall speak in Chap. B. x.) have not yet been quite forgotten at the present day. Thus Freitag says, in the preface to the first volume of his “Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit,” 5th ed., vol. i. pp. 23, 24: “All great creations of popular force,—ancestral religion, custom, law, polity,—are to us no longer the outcome of individual effort; they are organic products of a higher life, which in every age only attains manifestation through the medium of the individual, and in all ages gathers up into itself the spiritual wealth of individuals into a mighty whole. … Thus one may speak, without intending anything mystical, of a national soul. … But no longer conscious, not so purposive (?) and rational as the volition of the individual man, is this life of the people. All that is free and rational in history is the achievement of individuals; the national energy works untiringly with the dark compulsion of a primitive power, and its spiritual productivity sometimes corresponds in a surprising manner to the formative processes of the silently creative forces of nature, which urge stem, leaves, and blossom out of the seed-grain of the plant.” It is the same thought carried further, that underlies the works of Lazarus on “Völkerpsychologie” (cf. my essay, “Ueber das Wesen des Gesammtgeistes,” in the “Gesammelte philosophische Abhandlungen,” No. v.)
In Æsthetics, Carrière in particular has laid stress on the importance of unconscious mental activity, and, supporting himself on Schelling, shows the interposition of conscious and unconscious mental activity to be indispensable for every artistic achievement. An interesting contribution to the Unconscious in Æsthetics is made by Rötscher in an essay on the Demonic (in his “Dramaturgische und ästhetische Abhandlungen”). Of the various ways in which the conception of the Unconscious has been turned to account since the appearance of the first edition of the present work, no notice can, of course, be taken here.
1 My own opinion will be found in a monograph entitled “Ueber die dialektische Methode” (Berlin, 1864, C. Duncker).
1 The increase takes place according to the formula developed on pp. 53 and 54.
1 The astonishingly favourable reception, which the previous editions of this work have met with, seems to me to be essentially due to a recognition of the seasonableness of my efforts.
1 The criticisms and replies, whether philosophical or scientific, which have come under my notice, have not succeeded in shaking my opinions on any material point, but have rather strengthened them in several instances. In the Addenda to the earlier editions I sought as much as possible to avoid polemics, and allowed myself for the first time in the Appendix to the seventh edition somewhat greater liberty in this respect. I have permitted myself more freedom in respect to controversy in some minor writings, A fuller treatment of strictly scientific questions will be found in “Truth and Error in Darwinism,” and “Contributions to a Philosophy of Nature” (Section C. of “Gesammelte Studien und Aufsätze gemeinverständlichen Inhalts”), as well as in the Appendix to the present volume, “On the Physiology of the Nerve-Centres.” My place in the historical development of philosophy is indicated in “Das philosophische Dreigestirn des 19. Jahr-hunderts” (Section D. of the “Ges. Studien u. Aufsätze”), and the “Elucidations of the Metaphysic of the Unconscious.” The following writings give a clue to my position in respect to the problems of the theory of knowledge and methodology:—“Kritische Grundlegung des transcendentalen Realismus,” 2d ed.; “J. H. v. Kirchmann’s erkenntnisstheoretischer Realismus” and “Ueber die dialektische Methode.” On the religious questions of the present day I have expressed my opinions in the tractate “Die Selbstzersetzung des Christenthums und die Religion der Zukunft,” 2d ed., and a few excursuses in the field of Æsthetics are to be found in “Aesthe thische Studien” (Section B. of the “Gesammelte Studien und Aufsätze”).
1 Spinoza also has, besides cognition through sense-perception and abstract conception, a third kind of cognition by way of intellectual intuition or intuitive knowledge (Ethics, part ii. prop. 40, obs. 2). This has the mind, so far as it is eternal, not the finite and perishable individual mind (part v. prop. 31), for its formal cause, and it alone furnishes really adequate ideas on the nature of God and of things.
II.
HOW DO WE COME TO ASSUME AN AIM IN NATURE?
ONE of the most important and familiar manifestations of the Unconscious is Instinct, and the conception of Instinct rests on that of Purpose. An examination of the latter is therefore indispensable to our inquiry, and as it does not well fit into Section A., I have relegated it to the Introduction. It is possible that the ensuing treatment will incur the reproach of aridity; and any one with an aversion for discussions involving calculations of probability may, if already convinced of the validity of the assumption of an Aim in Nature, pass over the present chapter. But I cannot refrain from adding that the way in which this important problem is here resolved, at least on its formal side, is, so far as I know, both novel and also the only possible one.
The notion of Design has played a highly important part in the speculations of many great thinkers, and has formed the foundation of a considerable portion of their systems; as in the case of Aristotle and Leibniz. Kant was, of course, obliged to deny its reality outside conscious thought, as he did not admit the reality of time (cf. Trendelenburg, “Logische Untersuchungen,” chap. viii. 5). Modern Materialism likewise denies its reality, because it refuses to admit the existence of mind apart from an animal brain. In our modern physical science the notion of Design, chiefly through the influence of Bacon, has rightly fallen into discredit, because it had so often served as the convenient resource of indolent reasoners to avoid the arduous search after efficient causes, and because in the part of natural science concerned with matter alone, Design as a spiritual cause must necessarily be excluded. Spinoza was completely blinded to the fact of Purpose in Nature, because he believed final causality to be in contradiction with logical neces
sity, whereas it is in truth identical with it (Chap. C. xv. 3). Darwinism denies adaptation in Nature, not as fact, it is true, but as principle, and thinks itself able to comprehend the fact as result of mindless causality; as if Causality itself were anything more than a logical necessity, discernible by us only as fact (not on the side of the internal principle), and as if the adaptation, actually manifested as result at the end of a series of events, must not have been from the very first the prius of these adjustments as plan or principle! But if, on the one hand, so great and honest a spirit as Spinoza could look in Nature’s face and deny Design, if, on the other hand, Purpose seems to others to play a part so important, and even the free thinking Voltaire does not venture to explain away the evidence of an Aim in Nature, however inconvenient and incompatible with the rest of his opinions its admission might be, there must indeed be something very peculiar about the idea.
The notion of a purposed End is derived in the first instance from the experience of our own conscious mental activity. My end is a future event imagined and willed by me, the realisation of which I am not in a position to bring about directly, but only through a chain of causation (means). If I do not imagine the future occurrence, it does not exist for me; if I do not will it, I do not purpose it; it is indifferent or repugnant, to me. If I can directly realise it, the causal link, the means, falls away, and along with it disappears also the notion of a designed end (which is only the term of a relation the other member of which is the concept, means), for action then follows immediately upon volition. When I see that I am not able to realise my will directly, and recognise the means as efficient cause of the end, the willing of the end becomes to me a motive, i.e., efficient cause for the willing of the means; this in its turn becomes efficient cause for the realisation of the means through my act, and the realised means becomes efficient cause of the realisation of the end. Thus we have a triple causality with the four terms: Willing of the end, willing of the means, realising of the means, realising of the end. Only in rare cases is all this confined to the purely subjective mental sphere, e.g., in the composition of a poem, the elaboration in the mind of any artistic conception, or other mental effort. More commonly we find three of the four different modes of causality immediately presented, namely, causality between mental and mental event (willing of the end, willing of the means), mental and material event (willing and realisation of the means), and between material and material event (means and end). The fourth kind of causality too, that between material and mental event, also often occurs; it lies then, however, before the beginning of our reflection in the motivation of the willing of the end through impressions of sense. It is, therefore, evident that the union of willed and realised end, or final causation, is by no means something existing by the side of or even despite causality, but that it is only a particular combination of different kinds of causality, such that the first and last terms are identical, only the one ideal and the other real, the one presented in the willed idea, the other in reality. Far from destroying the exceptionless character of the law of causation, it rather presupposes it, and that too not only between matter and matter, but also between mind and matter, and mind and mind. It denies freedom to the single empirical mental act, and brings it too under the necessity of the law of causality. This may be the first word towards coming to an understanding with the opponents of the doctrine of final causes.
Let us assume that M has been observed to be an efficient cause of Z. and let all the material circumstances n.n. existing at the moment of the occurrence of M have been ascertained. Further, let the proposition be admitted that M must have a sufficient efficient cause. Now three cases are possible: either the sufficient cause of M is contained in n.n., or certain other circumstances, but those material, which have escaped observation, are still wanting, or, lastly, the sufficient cause of M is not to be found on the material plane, consequently must be sought in the spiritual sphere. The second case contradicts the assumption, that all the material circumstances, which immediately preceded the occurrence of M, are contained in n.n. If such a condition is, strictly speaking, incapable of being satisfied, since the whole position of the system of the world would have to be taken into account, yet it is easy to see that the cases are very rare, where conditions essential to the occurrence can lie outside a well-defined region, and no unessential circumstance need be taken note of; e.g., the circumstances essential to the spider’s spinning nobody will look for outside the spider, (say) in the moon. If we then assume the probability, that any material circumstance essential to the event has not been taken note of, and therefore not contained in n.n., to be so small that it may be neglected,1 there remain only the two cases, that the sufficient cause is contained in n.n., or is of a spiritual nature. That the one or the other case must occur is their certainty, i.e., the sum of their probabilities is equal to 1 (which signifies certainty). If now the probability that M is caused by n.n. = , then the probability that it has a mental cause = ; the smaller becomes, the larger x becomes, the more approaches to 1, i.e., to certainty. The probability would become equal to 0, if we had the direct proof in our hands that M is not caused by n.n.; if, for instance, a case could be established where n.n. is present and M has not occurred. This is certainly impossible with the whole of n.n., since every spiritual cause must have material connections, but we shall often succeed in eliminating at least one or more of the circumstances n.n., and the fewer the number of the circumstances n.n. to be regarded, which being present the event M at any time occurs, the easier becomes the determination of the probability that they do not contain the sufficient cause of M.
To make the matter clearer let us take an example. That brooding on the egg is the cause of the young bird being hatched is an observed fact. The material circumstances (n.n.) immediately preceding the brooding (M) are the existence and the constitution of the egg, the existence and the bodily constitution of the bird, and the temperature of the place where the egg lies; further material circumstances are inconceivable. The probability is in the highest degree small, that these circumstances are sufficient to cause the cheerful and lively bird to abandon its customary and instinctive way of life and to prompt it to a wearisome brooding over its eggs; for though the increased pressure of blood in the abdomen may produce a heightened feeling of warmth, this is not diminished, but increased, through the quiet sitting in the warm nest on the blood-hot eggs. We already see that the probability is very small, and approaches 1. If we, however, put the question the other way, viz., whether a case is known to us where bird and eggs are the same and yet incubation does not take place, we are met by the case of birds which have made their nests in hot forcing-houses and have omitted to brood, just as the ostrich hatches its eggs only in the night—in hot Nigritia not at all. Accordingly of the circumstances n.n., bird and eggs are obviously not sufficient causes of the brooding (M), and there remains as the only material circumstance, which could avail to make the cause sufficient or complete, the temperature of the nest. No one will think it probable that the lower temperature is the direct occasion of the incubation, consequently for the particular event the existence of a spiritual cause, through which alone the ascertained influence of temperature on the event can be thought to be brought about, becomes as good as certain, although at the same time the question of the precise nature of this spiritual cause still remains open.
The estimation of the probability is not always as easy as in this instance, and very rarely when M is simple will it approach so near to certainty. In lieu thereof we are usually helped by the circumstance that M, the observed cause of Z, for the most part is not simple, but consists of different independent1 events, P1, P2, P3, P4, &c. If we now, again, in the first instance, leave on one side the question whether all the essential material circumstances have been taken into account, we have to ascertain:
The probability,
Hence the probability, that M has its sufficient cause in ; for M is the sum of the events P1, P2, P3, P4; consequently,
if M is to be produced by n.n., both P1, and P2, also P3, P4, must at the same time be produced by n.n. This probability is, however, the product of the several probabilities. (If, e.g., on the first throw of a die, the probability of throwing , on the second likewise = , the probability of throwing 2 with both dice at once = ) Consequently, the probability that M is not sufficiently accounted for by n.n., that it accordingly still requires a spiritual cause
Here, then, p1 p2 p3 p4 is what x was before, and it appears from this that p1 p2 p3 p4 only need to be individually a little greater than , consequently and each a little less than 0.84, for p1 p2 p3 p4 as product of the four factors to become greater than 2, and greater than . In other words, if, for the several events P1, P2, P3, P4, the probability of a spiritual cause is only small (< 0.16), yet for their sum M its value rises as the number of distinct events which go to make up M becomes larger. E.g., let the probability of a spiritual cause be for each on the average only , then , consequently and , a very respectable probability of about . One easily sees that those parts of M, which undoubtedly result merely from n.n., are self-eliminated from the calculation, since their probability enters as 1 into the product of the rest, i.e., leaves it unchanged.
Let us consider an example of this case also. As cause of vision (Z) a multitude (M) of conditions (P1, P2, P3, P4) have been observed, the most important of which are the following:—(1.) Special bundles of nerves issue from the brain, which are of such a nature that each stimulus affecting them is perceived in the brain as a sensation of light; (2.) They terminate in a peculiarly formed very sensitive nervous tissue (retina); (3.) Before the latter is placed a camera-obscura; (4.) The focal distance of this camera is in general adapted to the indices of refraction from air into the ocular humours (except in the case of aquatic animals); (5.) By means of various contractions the focal distance is capable of being changed for longsighted persons from a few inches to infinity; (6.) The quantity of light to be admitted is regulated by the contraction and dilatation of the iris, whereby an additional aid to clear vision is afforded by the cutting off of the peripheral rays; (7.) The segments of the rods or cones continuous with the nerve-endings form a mosaic, so contrived, that each segment changes lightwaves of definite wave-lengths (colour) into stationary waves, and thus produces in the appropriate primitive nerve-fibre the physiological colour-vibrations; (8.) Binocular vision conditions the perception of solidity and reveals the third dimension of space; (9.) The two eyes may be simultaneously moved by means of special nerve-bundles and muscles, but only in the same direction, thus unsymmetrically in reference to the muscles; (10.) The clearness of the visual pictures increasing from periphery to centre prevents the otherwise unavoidable distraction of the attention; (11.) The reflex turning of the visual axis to the brightest point of the field of vision facilitates education by the medium of sight and the formation of the ideas of space; (12.) The constant flow of tears keeps the surface of the cornea transparent and removes the dust; (13.) The secluded position in the bony socket, the lids which close reflectorially on the approach of danger, the eyelashes and eyebrows, protect the organ from being rendered useless by external influences.
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