It might perhaps be thought that the cerebral vibrations answering to the conscious idea, “I will to lift the little finger,” occur in that region of the brain where the nerves have their central terminations; this is, however, anatomically incorrect, since the conscious ideas have their seat in the cerebrum, but the motor nerve-endings are found in the medulla oblongata or cerebellum. Just as little can a mechanical propagation of the vibrations of the conscious representation to the nerve-endings afford an explanation of the touching the right keys. We should then be obliged to assume that the conscious idea, “I will to move my little finger,” is localised elsewhere in the cerebrum than the other conscious idea. “I will to move my fore-finger,” and that each of the places in the cerebrum corresponding to a particular idea of any sort of movement to be executed stands, in virtue of an inherited mechanism, in intimate connection with the central ending of the motor nerves needed for realising these ideas, and with that alone. The consequences of this strange supposition would be stranger still; e.g., the conscious idea, “I will to lift the five fingers of the right hand,” would occur simultaneously in the five places of the cerebrum which are appropriated to the several ideas of the five liftings of the fingers; whereas one would be much more inclined to assume, that the ideas of willing to lift this or the other finger are distinguished in the material substratum of the brain rather by a small modification of the form of vibration than by definite localisation. Further, were it only the propagation of the molecular vibrations to the central endings of the motor nerves resulting from such a conscious idea, which sufficed for the performance of the movement, such a conscious idea as “I will to lift the little finger,” should always call forth movement. With such a mechanism of fixed and isolated channels, not only would error be impossible, but also that indescribable impulse of the will would be superfluous, which, as experience teaches, must first be added to that conscious idea before an effect takes place. Lastly, where no mistake was possible, no increase of accuracy or certainty, as result of any influence whatever, would be conceivable; practice also could have no influence on the causal link between conscious idea and executed movement. This consequence, however, contradicts experience as much as the impossibility of error, and therefore discredits the hypothesis of a mechanical communication. Suppose, however, there really did exist such a mechanism, Materialism would be obliged further to assume that it is transmitted by inheritance, and was gradually formed in our primitive ancestors by practice and habit. In this genetic theory, where a part of this mechanism comes into existence from time to time, the problem of a causal connection between conscious idea and execution of movement would again arise in the form in which we now have it—its possibility, to wit, without the help of an already existing mechanism for the given case. The theory of transmitting mechanisms would therefore only push our problem farther back, not solve it, and the solution given below would even then, if that theory were correct, be the only possible one.
Lastly, to return once more to the ascription of the muscular feeling of intended movement to the memory of earlier cases of casual association, this explanation is shown to be one-sided and insufficient, not only because at the best it could only claim to explain the possibility of exercise and perfection with an already existing causal connection, not the connection itself, but also because, in fact, it dose not even explain that, but only pushes the problem one step farther back. Before it was not clear how the striking of the right brain-keys by the volitional impulse is to be effected through the idea of the lifting of the finger; now it is not clear, how this result is to be brought about by the idea of the muscular feeling in the finger and lower arm, since the one has as little to do with the position of the motor nerve-endings in the brain as the other, yet it is these which have to be affected if the right event is to take place. Of what direct use is an idea referring to the finger for the selection of the point to be excited in the brain by the will? That there exists an idea of the muscular feeling sometimes, but comparatively rarely, I do not at all deny; that if present it may be an important link in the chain terminating with movement, I just as little deny; but this I do deny, that for the comprehension of the sought-for union anything is gained by its intercalation,—the problem is only carried a little farther back. For the rest, this intercalation has the less importance, as in the majority of cases where this muscular feeling at all exists prior to movement it exists unconsciously.
Let us once more gather up what we know concerning the problem, and the solution will press on us of itself. A will is given whose content is the conscious idea of the lifting of a finger, indispensable as means for executing a voluntary impulse at the fixed point P in the brain; required a method by which the voluntary impulse may strike precisely the point P and no other. The mechanical solution of a transmission of vibrations appeared impossible; practice before the problem was solved an empty, meaningless word; the interpolation of the muscular feeling as conscious causal middle term one-sided and no explanation. From the impossibility of a mechanical material solution it follows that the intermediate link must be of a spiritual nature; from the decided absence of a sufficient conscious link it follows that the same must be unconscious. From the necessity of a voluntary impulse at the point P it follows that the conscious will to lift the finger produces an unconscious will to excite the point P, in order, by means of the excitation of P, to attain the object, lifting the finger; and the content of the will to excite P, again, presupposes the unconscious idea of the point P (cf. Chap. iv. A.) The idea of the point P can, however, only consist in the idea of its position with reference to the other points of the brain, and herewith the problem is solved: “Every involuntary movement presupposes the unconscious idea of the position of the corresponding nerve-endings in the brain.” Now also is it comprehensible how their dexterity is innate in the animals, the knowledge just spoken of and the skill to apply it being born with them, whilst man, in consequence of the immature and pulpy state of his brain at birth, only gradually, by long practice, succeeds in turning to good account his innate unconscious knowledge in accurate and powerful muscular innervation. It is now also intelligible how muscular feeling can sometimes appear as the connecting link. The excitation of this muscular feeling is related to the lifting of the finger as means to end, in such a way, however, that it is one step nearer to the idea of the excitation of the point P than the idea of the lifting of the finger. It is thus a medium which can be interpolated, but is better overleaped.
We may then regard it as established that every, even the slightest movement, whether due to conscious or unconscious intention, presupposes the unconscious idea of the appropriate central nerve-endings and the unconscious will to stimulate the same. We have accordingly made a great advance beyond the results of the first chapter. There (cf. pp. 68, 69) we only spoke of the relatively unconscious; there the reader was only to be accustomed to the thought that mental processes go on within him (as an indivisible spiritual-corporeal organism) of which his consciousness (i.e., his cerebral consciousness) does not dream; here, however, we have come across mental events which, if they do not attain to consciousness in the brain, cannot certainly be conscious for the other nerve-centres of the organism: we have thus found something unconscious for the entire individual.
III.
THE UNCONSCIOUS IN INSTINCT.
Instinct is purposive action without consciousness of the purpose. No one would call Instinct purposive action accompanied by consciousness of the purpose, where therefore the action is a result of reflection; just as little a purposeless blind action, such as the furious outbursts of rabid or irritated animals. I do not think that the above definition can be objected to by those who assume the existence of instinct; but whoever thinks it possible to refer all actions usually called instinctive to conscious reflection does, in fact, deny instinct altogether, and ought accordingly to strike the word “instinct” out of his vocabulary. But of this later on.
First of all, assu
ming the existence of instinctive actions in the sense of the definition, they might be explained: (1.) As a mere consequence of corporeal organisation; (2.) as a cerebral or mental mechanism contrived by Nature; (3.) as a result of unconscious mental activity. In the first two cases the idea of purpose lies far back; in the last it immediately precedes action. In the first two an arrangement given once for all is used as means, and purpose is only once concerned in constituting this arrangement; in the latter, the end is imagined in every single case. Let us take the three cases in order.
Instinct is not the mere result of bodily organisation, for: (a.) Instincts are quite different with similar bodily structures. All spiders have the same spinning apparatus, but one kind constructs its web radially, another in an irregular manner; a third does not construct a web at all, but lives in hollows, over the walls of which it spins, closing the entrance with a door. Almost all birds have essentially the same organisation for building nests (beak and feet), and how infinitely diverse are their nests in form, architecture, mode of fastening (standing, clinging, hanging), locality (caves, holes, corners, forked branches, shrubs, the ground), and excellence, how different often in the species of the same genus, e.g., Parus (titmouse) Several birds do not build nests at all. Most birds with webbed feet swim, but some not, e.g., upland geese, which seldom or never enter the water, or the frigate-bird, which is always hovering in the air, and which no one except Audubon has ever seen alight on the surface of the sea. Just as little do the different varieties of the song of birds depend on the difference in their vocal organs, or the peculiar architecture of bees and ants on their bodily organisation; in all these cases the organisation only capacitates for singing or building in general, but has nothing to do with the mode of execution. Sexual selection, likewise, has nothing to do with organisation, since the disposition of the sexual organs in any animal would be as well adapted for the members of numberless foreign species as for an individual of its own species. The nurture, protection, and training of the young can still less be considered dependent on the bodily structure. The same may be said of the place where the insect lays its eggs, or the selection of the spawn of their own kind on which the male fish discharge their seed. The rabbit burrows, but not the hare with similar organs for digging, but it less needs a subterranean place of refuge on account of its greater speed. Some birds that fly remarkably well are stationary birds (e.g., kites and other birds of prey), and many moderate flyers (e.g., swallows) take the longest journeys.
(b.) The same instincts appear with different organisations. Birds with and without climbing feet, monkeys with and without prehensile tails, squirrel, sloth, puma, &c., live on trees. The Mole-Cricket burrows with the prominent fossorial organs of its anterior extremities, the Burying Beetle digs without any arrangement for the purpose. The Hamster carries in its winter stores with its cheek-pouches, 3 centim. long and centim. broad, the field-mouse does the same without any special apparatus. Birds live in the water just as well without as with web feet; at any rate, Divers (Podiceps) and Waders (Fulica) are excellent aquatic birds, although their toes are only fringed by a web. Birds with elongated tarsus and long unconnected toes are for the most part marsh-birds, but with the same structure of the feet the Moor-hen (Ortygometra) is almost as much an aquatic bird as the Water-hen, and the Crake (crex) is almost as much a land-bird as the quail or the partridge. The migratory impulse is manifested with equal intensity by animals of the most different orders, and irrespective of the outfit with which they undertake their journey by water, land, or air.
It must accordingly be admitted that Instinct is in a high degree independent of bodily organisation. That a certain kind of bodily organisation is conditio sine qua non of its manifestation is a matter of course; for without sexual parts no procreation, without certain appropriate organs no artificial construction, without spinnerets no spinning; but in spite of this no one can say that organisation is the cause of instinct. The mere existence of an organ does not furnish the slightest motive for the exercise of a corresponding activity; for that there must be at least a feeling of pleasure in the use of the organ; this may then serve as motive to action. But even then, if the agreeable feeling affords an incentive to action, only the that, not the how, of this activity is determined by the organisation. The law of action, however, is precisely that which constitutes the problem to be solved. Nobody would call it instinct if the spider caused the secretion to flow from its over-filled spinning-glands in order to procure the satisfaction of the discharge, or if the fish for the same reason simply discharged its seed into the water. The instinct and the marvel consist in this, that the spider spins threads and makes the threads into a web, and that the fish discharges its seed only on the eggs of its own species. Lastly, the agreeable sensation in the use of the organs is an altogether insufficient motive for the activity itself; for what is at once grand and awe-inspiring in instinct is, that its behests are obeyed with utter disregard of all personal well-being, even at the cost of life itself. Were merely the pleasant feeling of the emptying of the spinning glands the motive why the caterpillar spins, it would only continue to spin till its glandular sac was emptied, but it would not perpetually repair a continually destroyed web till it died of exhaustion. It is just the same with all other instincts, the causes of which are apparently personal pleasure. As soon as the circumstances are altered, so that in place of individual weal individual sacrifice occurs, their higher origin is unmistakably shown. Thus, e.g., it might be said that birds tread for the sake of sexual enjoyment, but why then do they no longer repeat the treading when the proper number of eggs is laid? The sexual impulse indeed still exists, for, if an egg be taken from the nest, they recommence treading and the hen lays another egg, or, if they belong to the cleverer birds, they quit the nest and rear a fresh brood. A hen of Ignex torquilla (Wryneck), whose deposited egg was continually removed from the nest, kept on laying, each egg being smaller than the preceding, until at the twenty-ninth egg the bird was found dead in the nest. If an instinct does not stand the test of a sacrifice imposed at the cost of individual well-being, if it really merely proceeds from the endeavour after bodily pleasure, it is not true instinct, and can only be so deemed by mistake.
Philosophy of the Unconscious Page 11
