Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  A second point is, that the notion of necessitation or of the necessity of events is only to be maintained against the subjectivist deniers of an objective-real necessity, if the purely external event is regarded as determined and brought about by an inner logical compulsion, which, moreover, can be the only sense of a regularity of nature conformable with that of logic (cf. the conclusion of No. 3 of Chap. xv. C.) But if all necessity is logical, this (unconscious) logic can only penetrate the manifestation of the blind and intrinsically alogical Will, if its content is not again itself alogical Will, but logical Idea.

  The third point, which I wished to mention, leads us into the province of the theory of cognition. Thought cannot throw off the nature of thought; it may perhaps deny itself as conscious thought, but it thereby attains so little positivity, that even the right to this negation of itself is lacking, so long as it is powerless to make any positive statement beyond the sphere of its own consciousness. Thought thus either never goes beyond itself, or the true positive content of what is beyond its sphere of consciousness must itself again be thought, representation, ideal content. Now since the causality which evokes the act of sensation is the sole direct bond of union between consciousness and its otherness, the content of this causal affection which sensation follows must be an ideal one, Here we come, through want of an explanation to satisfy the demands of the theory of cognition, to the same truth as we reached before from metaphysical considerations, namely, that the causal necessitation or real causality must have an ideal content, although this is here demonstrated merely for the act of sense-impression (cf. Das Ding an Sich und seine Beschaffenheit: Berlin, C. Duncker, 1871, especially pp. 74–76).

  We now then know that, wherever we meet with a volition, a representation must be united with it, at the very least that which ideally represents the goal, object, or content of the volition; the other idea, the starting-point, might possibly become equal to zero, if the will takes its rise in pure nothingness. However, we have nothing to do with this case in empirical phenomena; on the contrary, the starting-point is here given once for all as the positive feeling of a present condition. Accordingly every unconscious volition also which actually exists must be united with ideas, for in our former examination nothing cropped out in reference to the distinction of conscious and unconscious will. The positive feeling of the present state must even in conscious volition always be conscious to the nerve-centre to which the volition is referred, since a materially excited sensation, if it is present, must always be conscious; on the other hand, in unconscious volition the idea of the aim or object of volition must also, of course, be unconscious. Thus even in subordinate nerve-centres an idea must be united with every actual volition, and one, moreover, according to the nature of the will either relatively to the brain, or absolutely unconscious. For when the ganglionic will wills to contract the cardiac muscle in a particular manner, it must first of all possess the idea of this contraction, for otherwise God only knows what could be contracted, but not the cardiac muscle. This idea is in any case unconscious in respect of the brain, but in respect of the ganglia probably conscious. But now, as we saw in the second chapter in the case of voluntary movements of the cerebral will, the contraction must be effected by the arising of a will to excite the appropriate central endings of the motor nerve-fibres in the ganglia. That again implies an idea of the position of these central nerve-endings, and this idea, analogous to the unconscious idea of the position of the motor nerve-endings in the brain, must be conceived as absolutely unconscious. In correspondence with these ideas the will to contract the cardiac muscle will also have to be thought as a relatively unconscious one, the will to excite the appropriate nerve-endings in the cardiac ganglia which effects its realisation as absolutely unconscious.

  We have seen that volition is an empty form, which only finds in the idea a content giving it actuality, but that this form itself is something heterogeneous to the idea, and therefore not to be defined by concepts, sui generis, namely, that which, being, it is true, in itself still unreal, in its operation causes the passage from the ideal to the actual or real. Volition is thus the form of the causality of the ideal with respect to the real; it is nothing but operation or activity, pure going-out-of-self, whilst the idea is pure being-with-self and abiding-in-self. But if the fundamental distinction of the form of the will from that of the idea consists in the outwardly efficient causality and the going out of self, the latter, as a something self-enclosed, must be without external causality, if the just stated difference is not again to be abolished. For ideation always accompanies volition, and if the idea also possessed an external causality, the distinction between will and idea would in fact be abolished, whilst we should have again to find and to characterise afresh the two different moments within each. Therefore we prefer to retain for these polar moments the words Will and Idea, and assume a connection between the two when we find them united. We have already done this in the case of Will; it still remains in future to recognise Will in the Idea wherever the latter displays an outward causality. Aristotle has expressed this too (De. An. iii. 10, 433, a. 9): , i.e., “but the presentative faculty, when it acts externally, does not act without a will.”

  As we have seen above that the strict followers of Schopenhauer are willing, indeed, partially to recognise the unconscious will, but not the necessity of its being filled with unconscious representation or idea, so the Hegelians and Herbartians, if they rightly understand their masters, may perhaps readily recognise the unconscious idea or representation, but will not grant the necessity of the unconscious will. As the former, without being aware of it, implicitly think the idea in the matter of volition, so the latter think the Will in the impulse and faculty of self-realisation of the Idea, or in the conflicting energies of the psychological mental representations, without making explicitly clear to themselves this important implicit thought. Misled perhaps by Herbartian influences, some of our recent physiologists also make the idea, as such, without more ado, produce physiological effects in the body.

  The first application we would make of the proposition here maintained is to confirm the statement, that the unconscious idea of the position of the central endings of motor nerve-fibres cannot operate without the will to excite those places, and that the mere unconscious idea of an instinctive purpose can be of no avail if the end is not also willed; for only by willing the end can the willing of the means be evoked, and only by the willing of the means these means themselves. What is here said of the instinctive purpose of course holds equally good of every other unconscious idea of an end which will present itself in the following chapters.

  In conclusion, we can now more closely consider the question of the difference between the conscious and the unconscious will. A will, the content of which is formed by an unconscious idea, could at the most be consciously perceived according to its empty form of volition, and acts of will of that kind could then at the most only be discriminated by consciousness as different in degree; on the other hand, it can no longer be perceived by consciousness as this specific will, since its specific nature is only determined by its content. Accordingly, for such a will the application of the word “conscious” is unconditionally excluded, as in no case can more be said than that this specific will becomes conscious. Moreover, experience also teaches us that we know so much the less of a will the fewer the ideas or feelings accompanying it which reach the cerebral consciousness. Accordingly, it almost seems as if will as such were not generally accessible to consciousness, but became so only through its marriage with the idea. (This is proved, in fact, in Chap. iii. C.) However that may be, we can now assert that an unconscious will is a will with unconscious idea as content, for a will with conscious idea as content will always be conscious to us. If, in saying this, the distinction between conscious and unconscious will is only traced back to the equally difficult distinction between conscious and unconscious idea, yet an essential simplification of the problem is thereby obtained.

/>   1 When Dr. J. Frauenstädt assents to my explanations (Sunday supplement of the Voss. Ztg., 1870, No. 8, and “Unsere Zeit,” Nov. 1869. p. 705), and thereby admits defective in the manner specified, he is contradicted by the facts of the case; and historically those followers of Schopenhauer are more in the right, who think they remain that the system of Schopenhauer is only tenable after a revision in the sense of the text, I can only express my satisfaction; but when he maintains that the system is not faithful to the doctrine of their master by rejecting as impossible the unconscious ideation for which I contend.

  V.

  THE UNCONSCIOUS IN REFLEX ACTIONS.

  “AT the present time those actions are called reflex in which the existing stimulus does not directly affect either a contractile tissue or a motor nerve, but a nerve which imparts its state of excitement to a central organ, whereupon, through the mediation of the latter, the stimulus overflows on to motor nerves, and then for the first time is made apparent by muscular movements.”1 This explanation seems to me as good a one as the physiologists are able to give, and no qualification of the same can be found which does not exclude certain classes of reflex action generally recognised by this name; and yet it is easy to see that it is much wider than physiology intends, since all movements and actions find a place among them, whose antecedent is not a thought which has arisen spontaneously in the brain, but is directly or indirectly a sense-impression. To pursue further this gradual passage of the lowest reflex movements into conscious voluntary actions, we must examine various examples.

  If a freshly excised frog’s heart, which pulsates slowly, be irritated by the prick of a needle, there arises independently of the rhythm of the beat a systole (contraction) in the normal succession of the parts. Before the complete extinction of irritability a time occurs when the irritation is only succeeded by a local contraction of decreasing extent. If the heart be divided when it is still powerful, but in such a way that there remain connecting portions between the parts, stimulation of the one part, in which a ganglion is contained in the muscular substance, produces contraction of both parts; on the other hand, irritation of the other part, which contains no ganglion, is only succeeded by local contraction. It follows from this, that the normal systole sequent on stimulation is no simple phenomenon of the stimulus of a contractile tissue, but a reflex movement mediated by the embedded ganglia. Other experiments, e.g., the division of the spinal cord by small cross sections, &c., render it probable that any nerve-centre may effect reflex actions. The more this nerve-centre is developed the higher is the degree of propriety and adroitness in complicated movements exhibited in its reflex actions. Volkmann says (Hwb. ii. 545): “When different muscles are combined to produce a reflex movement, whether synchronous or successive, the combination is always mechanically appropriate. I mean, the simultaneously active muscles support one another, e.g., in producing a flexure, and those which are active in succession unite in the judicious continuation and completion of the already commenced movement. If a decapitated frog in an extended position be stimulated in the hind leg sufficiently powerfully, the flexors and adductors of both legs first of all act in combination, next the legs are drawn towards the body, the extensors are combined for joint extension, and the total result is a more or less regular actual movement, whether of swimming or leaping.

  “In many cases the reflectorial movements have not only the character of fitness, but even a certain dash of intention. Young dogs whose cerebrum and cerebellum I had destroyed, sparing the medulla oblongata, when I took them roughly by the ears tried to get rid of my hand with the fore-paw. One often sees decapitated frogs rub a violently filliped part of the skin (only possible by an alternating play of the antagonists), and tortoises, which are injured after decapitation, withdraw into their carapace.” The medulla oblongata, as the most developed nerve-centre after the brain, is also that which effects the most complicated reflex movements, as, e.g., respiration with its modifications: sobbing, sighing, laughing, crying, coughing; also sneezing on irritation of the nasal membrane, swallowing, and vomiting on gentle pressure (by a morsel) or tickling of the throat and palate; laughing ensues on tickling the external skin, coughing on irritation of the larynx.

  Very important for the whole life of man, and indicative of much more complicated events in the central organs, are the reflex movements called forth by sense-perceptions; certainly a class of phenomena to which physiology has not yet given sufficient attention, because they can only be studied with the whole living body, and partly only psychologically in one’s own person. It is, however, manifest that this mode of investigation has great advantages over that on mutilated corpses or animals with their brains removed, since in organisms which have just suffered death, or undergone the severest operations, or have been treated with strychnine, one can by no means assume a normal capacity of reacting on the part of the lower central organs, which stand in such direct correspondence with the destroyed parts. Moreover, in decapitated animals the medulla oblongata and the large cerebral ganglia, which probably should be reckoned to the spinal cord, or at least not to the brain, have also been removed. All this sufficiently explains the purposeless character of the reflex movements in some of these experiments, where one is unable to eliminate the pathological elements.

  The proximate reflex movements called forth by a sense-impression consist in this, that the particular sense-organ is brought into the position, tension, &c., requisite for clear perception. In touch there arises a movement to and fro of the finger; in taste, secretion of saliva and movement to and fro of the sapid matter in the mouth; in smelling, dilatation of the nostrils and short, quick inspirations; in hearing, tension of the tympanic membrane and movements of the ears and head; in vision, convergence of both optic axes towards the point of greatest stimulation, accommodation of the lens for distance, and of the iris to the intensity of light. All these movements, with the exception of the last named, can also be executed voluntarily, but only by means of the idea of the altered sense-impression; only with difficulty or not at all by the direct idea of the movements. E.g., when the investigating oculist holds up his finger as a mark for the patient and bids him look up towards the right, there frequently occur the most distorted movements of the eyes and eyelids, but not the one desired. With enhanced vividness of the impression, the head, arms, and whole body not seldom take involuntary part in these reflex actions. Further, through the medium of the ear reflex movements are set up in the organs of speech, for, as is well known, children and animals learn to talk in consequence of the involuntary impulse which compels them to reproduce what has been heard. The like occurs in the catching of melodies, where the phenomenon is more easily observed, and in adults also. Without this reflexion it would be impossible to train birds to whistle tunes. The reflex compulsion to utter words one is accustomed to hear spoken may even be observed in our own thinking. Here, according to a process exemplified in a still higher degree in the production of dream-images and hallucinations, the thought of the word which is not yet an object of sense causes a centrifugal current of innervation towards the auditory nerve, as the reflex consequence of which a centripetal current brings back the auditory sensation of the word, and this calls forth in the organs of speech the reflex movements of the loud or subdued utterance. The undisciplined man, e.g., the uneducated or passionately excited man, thinks aloud. It requires the constraint of education to think silently, and even then one will almost always, if on the watch for it, detect a muscular feeling in the organ of speech, which is a weaker form of that which would arise in the utterance of the words, and thus manifestly represents a tendency to action. In reading it is just the same.

  One of the most important reflex actions of the cerebrum, especially in respect to sense-perception, is that centrifugal current of innervation which we call Attention, and which is essential for all tolerably clear perception. It arises as reflex action on a stimulus, which affects the sensory nerve of the organs of sense. If the brain is ot
herwise too much occupied to react on such stimuli, this action does not take place, and then the sense-impression escapes us without becoming perception. This current of innervation can be directed to the several parts of a sense-perception (e.g., to any part of the field of vision or an instrument in the orchestra), which explains the fact that one often sees and hears just that for which the present state of the brain has a particular susceptibility, which is also in accordance with many of the phenomena of somnambulism. It is also the partial failure of this current of innervation, which renders comprehensible the otherwise inexplicable difference between the absent and black parts of the field of vision. We may also voluntarily direct this stream of innervation to certain parts of the body, and thereby bring into consciousness as perceptions the usually unobserved sensations which all parts of the body are continually producing; e.g., I can feel my fingertips if I carefully attend to them; (think also of the hypochondriacal). A boundary-line between such currents of innervation as are produced by conscious will, and those which follow as reflex action on impressions of sense when the interest of the brain is fully gained, can no more be discovered and drawn here than in any other department of these phenomena. Very remarkable are many of the reflex movements which are effected by the eye and the sense of touch. The eye not only protects itself reflectorially from injuries, which it sees approaching, by closure, bending of the head and body, or the holding up of the arm, but it also protects other threatened bodily parts in the same way, nay, even other things. For example, if a glass falls from the table, the sudden catching at it is just as much reflex movement as the ducking of the head when a stone is coming towards us, or the parrying of the thrusts in fencing; for in the one as in the other case the resolution after conscious reflection would come much too late. Must one really pronounce that a different principle which, in the one case, causes the young dog deprived of its brain to thrust aside with its paw a hand nipping its ear, and in the other causes the human being to ward off by the sudden raising of the arm a threatening blow perceived by the eye? The most wonderful reflectorial performances of the combined senses of sight and touch consist, however, in the complicated movements involved in preserving one’s balance, as in sliding, walking, riding, dancing, leaping, performing gymnastic exercises, skating, &c., in part spontaneous (especially in the case of animals), in part acquired by practice, an original capacity being always presupposed. If one leaps a ditch, it is not easy to leap beyond the farther brink, although one may be able to leap much farther on level ground; but the eye, through an unconscious reflection, brings it about that just sufficient muscular force is applied to reach the opposite side, and this unconscious will is often stronger than the conscious one to leap farther. It is remarkable that all the afore-mentioned functions are executed much more easily, more certainly, and even more gracefully, if they are performed without conscious volition as simple reflex movements of the sensations of sight and touch. Every intervention of the cerebral consciousness operates only inhibitively and disturbingly; hence mules walk more surely than men in dangerous paths, because they are not disturbed by conscious reflection, and somnambulists go and climb in the unconscious state where, if conscious, they would infallibly meet with an accident. For conscious reflection always brings along with it doubt and hesitation, and this frequently a fatal tardiness; the unconscious intelligence, on the other hand, is always beyond a doubt more certain to seize the right course, or rather doubt never occurs to it, and therefore it almost always does the right thing at the right moment. Even prelection and playing from notes, if consciousness be otherwise occupied or asleep, can take the form of mere reflex movements following on impressions of feeling, as cases have been observed where reading aloud has been continued a certain time after falling asleep, or pieces of music have been better played in dreamy unconscious states than when wide awake. That reading or playing from notes can often be continued quite unconsciously and without the slightest after-memory of the subject-matter, when consciousness is occupied with other fascinating thoughts, any one can observe for himself. Nay, even sudden curt answers to quick questions have often something reflectorially unconscious about them, when they drop out unawares like a pistol-shot, and afterwards one is often astonished or ashamed if they have been unsuitable to the occasion and the company.