This result is also suggested by comparative anatomy, which teaches that the brain is an aggregation of ganglia connected with nerve-fibres, and that the spinal cord in its central grey matter is likewise a series of ganglia which have coalesced. The Articulata are the first to show a weak analogue of the brain in the form of two nodules connected by the œsophageal ring and also of the spinal cord in the so-called ventral cord, the latter containing ganglia united by fibres, each of which answers to a segment and pair of legs. Accordingly physiologists assume as many independent centres in the spinal cord as there are pairs of spinal nerves issuing therefrom. Among the Vertebrata there are fishes, whose brain and spinal cord consist of a number of ganglia, which lie in a row behind one another. The composition of a central organ from several ganglia is positively confirmed by the metamorphosis of insects, when certain ganglia, which are separate in the larva state, appear consolidated at a more advanced stage of development.
These facts may suffice to prove the essential resemblance of brain and ganglia, brain-will and ganglia-will. But now, if the ganglia of lower animals have their independent wills, if the spinal cord of a decapitated frog has its will, why should not the so much more highly organised ganglia and spinal cord of the higher animals and of man also have their will? If in insects the will to devour lies in anterior, the will to procreate in posterior ganglia, why in man should not such a division of labour be likewise provided for his will? Or is it conceivable that the same natural phenomenon should in the less perfect form exhibit effects which are entirely wanting in the more perfect form? Or must we suppose that in man the conduction is so good, that every ganglionic volition is immediately transmitted to the brain and appears in consciousness undistinguishable from the volition generated in the brain? This may, perhaps, be true to a certain extent for the upper parts of the spinal cord, certainly not for all the rest, since the channels of sensation from the hypogastric plexus are almost imperceptible. No other course is left open, then, but to ascribe independent wills to the human ganglia and spinal cord, the manifestations of which it only remains empirically to prove. That in the case of higher animals the muscular movements which effect external actions are more and more under the control of the cerebellum, and consequently centralised, is well known. Facts, therefore, will not be forthcoming here to any great extent; and this is doubtless the reason why hitherto the independence of the ganglionic system in higher animals has been so little recognised by physiologists, although defended by the most recent investigators. Those voluntary acts, on the contrary, which are actually to be ascribed to the ganglia, have been usually regarded as reflex actions, whose stimuli are said to exist in the organism itself, which stimuli accordingly were arbitrarily assumed when they were not assignable. In part these assumptions may be justified; they then belong to the chapter on Reflex Actions. It is not a large part, however, in any case, and, moreover, it cannot do any harm, to consider here even those which are reflex actions proper from the point of view of the Will, since it will be hereafter proved that every reflex action contains an unconscious Will.
The independent movements effected by the sympathetic nervous system, i.e., without the co-operation of brain and spinal cord, are: (1.) The beating of the heart; (2.) the movements of the stomach and the intestines; (3.) the tonic contractions of the lower part of the alimentary canal and muscular coats of the arteries; (4.) an important part of the processes of organic life, so far as they depend on nervous action. The intermittent type of movement is shown in the beating of the heart, tone of the arteries, and movements of the intestines; and the persistent movements are illustrated by the other processes. The beating of the heart, as may be seen in an exposed frog’s heart, begins with the contraction of the venæ cavæ; the contraction of the auricles follows, then that of the ventricles, and finally that of the bulbus aortæ. In an excised frog’s heart sprinkled with salt water the cardiac ganglia continue to perform their function of stimulating the heart to beat for hours together. In the case of the intestines the movement begins at the lower part of the œsophagus, and progresses vermicularly from above downwards, one wave hardly completing its course before the next begins. Have not these movements of the intestines the most surprising resemblance to the creeping of a worm, with the simple difference that the worm propels itself forward on its support, whilst here the worm is fastened, and the (inner) support, the masses of food and the fæeces are pushed forward? Should the one be called Will and not the other? The “tone” is a slight muscular contraction, which is ceaselessly exhibited by all muscles during life, even in sleep or swoon. In the case of muscles subservient to volition (the cerebral will), it is maintained by the spinal cord, and there is only no movement of the limbs, because the actions of the opposing muscles (antagonists) neutralise one another. Where, therefore, there are no opposing muscles (as, e.g., in the circular sphincters), the contraction is clearly manifested, and can only be overcome by strong pressure of the fæces. The tone of the intestines, arteries, and veins depends on the sympathetic system, and the latter is absolutely necessary for the circulation of the blood. Lastly, as concerns secretion and nutrition, these can be influenced by the nerves, partly by means of dilatation and contraction of the capillary vessels, partly by tension and relaxation of the membranes concerned in osmosis, partly through the setting up of chemical, electrical, and thermal currents. All these functions are carried on exclusively by subordinate ganglia through the agency of the sympathetic fibres found in all nerve-trunks, which are chiefly distinguishable from the sensory and motor fibres by the absence of a medullary sheath.
The surest proofs of the independence of the ganglionic system are derived from Bidder’s experiments on frogs. The spinal cord having been completely destroyed, the animals lived often six, sometimes ten weeks (with gradually slackening heart-beat). On destruction of the brain and spinal cord, the medulla oblongata alone being spared (for breathing), they lived six days; when this also was destroyed, the beating of the heart and circulation of the blood could be still observed even on the second day. The frogs whose medulla oblongata had been preserved ate and digested their worms after six-and-twenty days, whilst micturition took place regularly.
Besides the above-mentioned tone of the voluntary muscles, the spinal cord (including the medulla oblongata) regulates all involuntary movements of the voluntary muscles (reflex movements, see Chap. V.) and the respiratory movements. The latter have their central organ in the medulla oblongata; and not merely a large number of the spinal nerves, but also the N. phrenicus, accessorius, Willisii, vagus, and facialis, co-operate in the production of these highly complicated movements. Although the cerebral will is able for a short time to strengthen or to suppress the respiratory movements, it can never entirely abolish them, since, after a little pause, the will of the spinal cord regains the upper hand.
The independence of the spinal cord on the brain is likewise proved by many beautiful physiological experiments. A hen, from which Flourens had removed the entire cerebrum, sat indeed motionless as a rule; but on going to sleep it tucked its head under its wings; on waking, it shook itself and preened its feathers. When pushed, it ran forward in a straight line; when thrown into the air, it flew. It did not eat spontaneously, but only swallowed the food thrust into its bill. Voit repeated these experiments with pigeons. They first fell into a deep sleep, from which they only awoke after a few weeks; then, however, they flew and moved of their own accord, and comported themselves in such a manner as to leave no doubt of the existence of their sensations; only intelligence was lacking, and they did not spontaneously take food. Thus a pigeon, having thrust its beak against a suspended wooden pendulum, caused it to swing for upwards of an hour till Voit’s return, so that the pendent spool over and over again struck its beak. On the other hand, such a brainless pigeon endeavours to evade a hand trying to grasp it, to carefully avoid obstacles in its flight, and can settle cleverly on narrow supports. Rabbits and guinea-pigs, whose cerebrum has been remov
ed, run freely about after the operation; the behaviour of a decapitated frog has been already mentioned. All these movements, as the preening of its feathers by the hen the leaping of rabbits and frogs, take place without noticeable external stimulus, and are so like the same movements in uninjured animals that it is impossible to assume a difference in the underlying principle in the two cases: in the one case as in the other, there is a manifestation of will. Now we know that the higher animal consciousness is conditional on the integrity of the cerebrum (see Chap. ii. C.), and when this is destroyed, it is said these animals are without consciousness, and accordingly act and will unconsciously. But the cerebral consciousness is by no means the sole, but merely the highest consciousness of the animal, the only one which in higher animals and in man attains to self-consciousness, to the ego, therefore also the only one which I can call my consciousness. That, however, the subordinate nerve-centres must also have a consciousness, if of a vaguer description, plainly follows from the continuity of the animal series, and a comparison of the ganglionic consciousness of the Invertebrata with that of the independent ganglia and central parts of the spinal cord of the higher animals.
It is beyond a doubt that a mammal deprived of its brain is always capable of clearer feeling than an uninjured insect, because the consciousness of its spinal cord stands in any case higher than that of the ganglia of the insect. Accordingly this will, which gives evidence of itself in the independent functions of the spinal cord and the ganglia, is by no means to be at once declared to be in itself unconscious; we must rather provisionally assume that for the nerve-centres from which it proceeds it certainly may become more or less clearly conscious. On the other hand, compared with the cerebral consciousness which a man exclusively recognises as his consciousness, it is certainly unconscious, and it is accordingly shown that there exists in us an unconscious will, since these nerve-centres are all contained in our corporeal organism, therefore in us.
It seems requisite to add, in conclusion, a remark with respect to the sense in which the word Will is here taken. We started with understanding by this word a conscious intention, which is the ordinary signification. We have found, however, in the course of our investigation, that in a single individual, but in different nerve-centres, there may exist consciousnesses and wills more or less independent of one another, each of which can at the most be conscious for the nerve-centre through which it is expressed. In saying this, the usual limited meaning of Will is necessarily abandoned; for I must now recognise another will in me than that which has been exerted through my brain, and has thereby become conscious to me. After these limitations of meaning have fallen away, we can no longer avoid understanding by Will the immanent cause of every movement in animals, which is not produced reflectorially. This may also be taken as the sole characteristic and infallible mark of the will of which we are conscious, that it is a cause of preconceived action. It is now seen, that it is somewhat accidental to the will, whether it passes through the cerebral consciousness or not; its essence remains thereby unaffected. What then in the present work is deuoted by the word “Will” is no other than the same essential principle in both cases. If, however, it is particularly desired to distinguish the two kinds of will, for conscious will language already offers a term exactly covering this conception—Freewill—whilst the word Will must be retained for the general principle. Will, we know, is the resultant of all contemporaneous desires; if this struggle of desire is consciously waged, it appears as choice of the result, or freewill, whilst the origin of the unconscious will is withdrawn from consciousness, consequently even the semblance of choice among desires cannot here occur. One sees from the existence of this term Freewill, that the idea of a more general will with non-selected content or aim, whose actions thus appear to consciousness not as free, but as inward compulsion, has long been in the popular consciousness.
I do not merely rely upon the precedent of Schopenhauer and the wide-spread acceptance (even abroad) that this use of the word Will has already found, but upon the fact, that no other word in general use in the Teutonic languages is more appropriate to designate the broad principle which is treated of in the present and following chapter. “Desire” is volition still incomplete, in the making, as it were, one-sided as not having yet stood the test of resisting other desires. It is only an unfinished product of the psychological laboratory of Volition, not the final collective expression of the activity of the whole individual (be it of higher or of lower order). It is only a component of the will, which, in consequence of being paralysed by other opposite desires, may be condemned to remain velleity. If “desiring” cannot be substituted for “willing,” still less can “Impulse;” since it not only suffers from the same one-sidedness and limitation as desire, but does not even include the notion of actuality. It rather only represents the latent disposition to certain one-sided tendencies to action, which, if they become actual in consequence of some motive, are no longer called impulse but desire. Every impulse thus denotes a definite aspect, not of volition, but of the character, i.e., the tendency of the latter to react on certain classes of motives with desires of a fixed direction (e.g., sexual impulse, migratory impulse, acquisitive impulse, &c; cf. the phrenological “instincts” or “primitive faculties”). As specific predispositions the impulses rightly stand for inner springs of action, just as motives represent the outer ones. Impulse then, as such, has necessarily a definite concrete content, which is conditioned by the physical predispositions of the general bodily constitution and the molecular constitution of the central nervous system. Will, on the other hand, as universal formal principle of movement and change, stands altogether behind the concrete dispositions, which, when conceived as informed by the will, are called impulses, and is realised in the resulting volition, which receives its particular content through the psychological mechanism of motives, impulses, and desires (cf. Chap. iv. B.) Although in the lower animals and in the subordinate central organs of man this mechanism is simple in comparison with that of the human brain, it is none the less present, and easily reveals itself in reflex movements. Even in the case of the independent functions of the spinal cord and ganglia the inherited innate material predisposition of the medulla oblongata to effect the respiratory movements may very well be called a “respiratory impulse,” if only it be not forgotten that behind this material arrangement stands the principle of the will, without which it could as little be functional as, say, the innate cerebral disposition for compassion, and that the exercise of the respiratory movements themselves is an actual willing, whose direction and content is conditioned by such predisposition.
II.
UNCONSCIOUS IDEATION IN THE EXECUTION OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT.
I WILL to lift my little finger, and the finger is lifted. Does, then, my will directly move my finger? No; for if the brachial nerve be divided the will cannot move it. Experience teaches that for every movement there is only one part, namely, the central ending of the nerve-fibres concerned, which is able to carry into effect the volitional impulse for this particular movement of this particular member. Should this one part be injured, the will would have just as little power over the member, as it would have if the nervous communication between that place and the muscles were interrupted. The motor impulse itself we cannot, intensity apart, imagine to be different for different nerves; for since the excitation in all motor nerves is to be looked upon as homogeneous, it cannot be otherwise with the excitation at the centre, whence the current issues; consequently movements only differ in this, that the central endings of different motor nerves are affected by the volitional impulse, and thereby different muscles are constrained to contract. We may thus picture to ourselves the central termination of motor fibres in the brain as a kind of keyboard. The touch is, intensity apart, always the same; the touched keys alone are different. If, then, I intend a specific movement, e.g., the lifting of the little finger, what is required is to compel those muscles to contract which by their combination produce thi
s movement, and for that purpose to strike with the will that chord in the keyboard of the brain, the single keys of which set the related muscles in motion. If in framing the chord one or more false keys are struck, there occurs a movement which does not correspond with the one intended; e.g., in making a slip in speaking, miswriting, tripping, in the awkward handling of children, &c. It is true the number of the central endings of fibres in the brain is considerably smaller than that of the motor fibres in the nerves, provision being made through the intervention of a peculiar mechanism, to be further mentioned in Chap. V., for the simultaneous excitation of many peripheral fibres by means of one central fibre. However, the number of different movements within the power of the conscious will, consequently dirigible by the brain, is, by means of a thousand little modifications of direction and combination, for each single limb sufficiently large—for the whole body, indeed, simply immeasurable; so that the probability would be infinitely small that the conscious idea of the lifting of the little finger should, without causal connection, coincide with the actual elevation. The mere mental representation of the lifting of the little finger cannot act on the central nerve-endings, since they have nothing to do with one another; the mere will, however, as motor impulse, would be absolutely blind, and therefore the striking of the right key would be left to pure chance. If there were no causal connection at all, practice could avail nothing; for nobody finds in his consciousness an idea or a feeling of this infinite number of central endings. Thus, if accidentally once or twice the conscious idea of the lifting of the finger should coincide with the executed movement, experience would have nothing to go upon; and on the third occasion when the man willed to raise his finger, the touch of the right key would be as much left to chance as in the former cases. It is, then, clear that practice can aid the linking of intention and execution only if there be a causal nexus between the two, in which case certainly the passage from one to the other is facilitated by repetition of the process. The problem placed before us, then, is to find the causal nexus; without it practice would be an empty word. It is, besides, in most cases not at all necessary, namely, in the case of almost all animals, which run and leap just as well at the first attempt as after long practice. From this it follows, in the second place, that all attempts at explanation are unsatisfactory, which intercalate such a causal link as can only be perceived by the accidental association of idea and movement. The conscious muscular feeling preceding the intended movement, for example, which can only be acquired and imprinted on the memory by repetition, might perhaps suffice for explanation in the case of man, but not for the far larger part of natural existences, the animals, since before any experience of muscular feeling they execute with marvellous accuracy the most extensive combined movements agreeably to the conscious idea of the end. For instance, an insect just born correctly alternates its six legs, as if locomotion were nothing new to it, and a young brood of partridges, hatched by a domestic hen in the stable, invariably, in spite of all precautions, immediately and correctly employ the motor muscles of their legs to reconquer freedom for their parents, and know how to use their beaks for picking up and crushing any insect they meet with, as if they had already performed the operation a hundred times.
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