Truly man is so accustomed to find in his consciousness results of which he is quite ignorant how he has come by them, that in any particular case he is not wont to wonder at it in the least; and therefore it is also natural that an inquirer should not first reach the notion of the Unconscious from this starting-point. But as in general the reaction of the Unconscious is wont most frequently to fail when one intentionally seeks to stimulate it, so in the eager and intentional reflection on a subject this effective entrance of the Unconscious might be less easy to establish to the satisfaction of the majority, than in the so-called mental digestion and assimilation of the received nutriment, which does not occur on a conscious impulse, but at an indeterminate time, and is only announced by the results, which opportunely occur without our having been consciously occupied with the affair. (Schopenhauer calls this “unconscious rumination,” comp. above, p. 29.) Thus it regularly happens with me when I have read a work which presents new points of view essentially opposed to my previous opinions. The proofs of such ingenious ideas are often rather weak; and even if they are good and apparently irrefutable, still no human bein can be so rapidly converted from his old opinions, for he can advance just as good grounds for the latter, or, if he cannot do so himself, he confides in himself and not the new author and thinks: counter-proofs will be found, although I am not at present acquainted with them. Then there intervene other occupations; the matter is not sufficiently important to hunt for counterarguments, for which search must be made in books, often for weeks, nay, months; in short, the first impression gets weak, and the whole affair is in time forgotten. Sometimes, however, it is different. If the new ideas have made a really deep impression, they may be referred provisionally, unaccepted, as undecided questions, to the court of memory, may even be obstructed by other occupations, or, still better, intentionally laid on one side, in order to be thought of again. Nevertheless the matter is only apparently laid to rest, and after days, weeks, or months, when the wish and opportunity arise to give an opinion on the question, we find to our very great astonishment that we have undergone a mental regeneration on the point, that the old opinions which we had taken for actual conviction up to that moment have been entirely renounced, and that new ones have already become quietly lodged there. This unconscious mental process of digestion and assimilation I have several times experienced in my own case, and have always had a certain instinct not to disturb this process prematurely by conscious reflection in real questions of principle affecting the general view of the world and of the mind.
I am of opinion that even in more unimportant questions, as soon as they only awaken interest with sufficient vividness, thus in all concerns of practical life, the process described always affords the right and true decision, and that the conscious reasons will only be subsequently right when the judgment has been already formed. The ordinary understanding, however, which does not pay attention to these processes, really imagines that it is swayed in its opinion by the reasons which have been sought for, whilst an acuter self-observation would teach it that these only come in the cases alluded to when its view is already fixed, its resolution taken. In saying this, it is by no means asserted that the Unconscious is not determined by logical reasons. This is most undoubtedly the case; it is only tolerably indifferent so far as concerns the certainty of the decision, at any rate at first, whether the reasons afterwards sought for by consciousness agree with those reasons which have determined the Unconscious or not! In the case of acutely thinking brains the former, with the great majority the latter, will be prevailingly the case, and accordingly the phenomenon is explained, that people often seem to derive such firm conviction from such bad reasons, and allow themselves to be dispossessed of it with much difficulty by the best counter-arguments. It lies just in this, that the true unconscious reasons are not at all known to them, and therefore are not to be refuted. It is here indifferent whether their conviction contains truth or not; also of errors (which as said never arise from false conclusions, but from the insufficiency and falsehood of the premisses), those are most difficult to eradicate which are the result of an unconscious process of thought (e.g., in political opinion those which are unconsciously rooted in professional and class interests).
If now, however, any one should be led by these considerations to lightly estimate conscious ratiocination, such an one would fall into serious error. Just because, in conclusions attained at a bound, errors easily slip in, it is imperatively necessary in important questions to render the individual terms clear by discursive thought, and to descend by such small stages of thought that one may be as far as possible protected from errors in the conclusion. Just because in the opinions, whose true proof lies in the Unconscious, the perversion of the judgment by interests and inclinations is withdrawn from all control and has such free scope, it is doubly necessary to draw the subjective proof to the light, and to confront it with the results of discursive logical inferences, since only in the latter is there to be found a certain, if also always a very defective, guarantee of objectivity. If the subjective prejudices be stronger for the moment, conscious logic gains ground with time, if not in one, yet in the course of many generations. But even in this emergence of certain truths to the light of consciousness, and in their struggle and victory over dominant ideas of the time, there rules again, as we shall see hereafter, an unconscious logic, a historical providence, which has never been perceived more clearly than by Hegel.
1 I here call attention once more to the point that the expression “slumbering ideas of memory” is an improper one, since we have here to do neither with conscious nor unconscious ideas, thus not with ideas at all, but with molecular dispositions of the brain for certain vibrations, on which the Unconscious reacts in the particular instance with certain conscious ideas.
VIII.
THE UNCONSCIOUS IN THE ORIGIN OF SENSE-PERCEPTION.
KANT in his “Transcendental Æsthetic” maintained that Space was not passively received by the mind, but spontaneously produced by it,—hereby causing an entire philosophical revolution. But now, why has this correct statement been at all times so stoutly opposed by common sense, as well as, with few exceptions, by the scientific mind?
1. Because Kant, and after him Fichte and Schopenhauer, drew from a true proposition subjective-idealistic consequences, which were false and repugnant to the instinct of the healthy reason.
2. Because Kant had given faulty proofs of his correct assertion; which in truth proved nothing at all.
3. Because Kant, without giving any further account of it, speaks of an unconscious process in the mind, whilst the previous mode of treatment only knew and regarded as possible conscious mental processes, but consciousness denies a spontaneous production of Space and Time, and with perfect truth insists upon their being given in sense-perception as faits accomplis.
4. Because Kant put Time, of which this proposition does not hold good, on a level with Space.
These four points we have successively to consider, since the unconscious production of Space is the indispensable foundation of sensuous perception, with which consciousness takes its rise, and which in its turn is the foundation of all conscious thought.
Ad. I. In the first place, assuming it be proved that Space and Time can in no other way find an entrance to thought than by the spontaneous activity of the latter, it by no means follows from this that Space and Time can have real existence exclusively in thought, and not also outside thought in the real world. The overhasty nature of this conclusion, which Kant actually draws, and through which he comes to the denial of the transcendental reality of space and to the one-sided ideality of his system, has been shown by Schelling (“Exposition of the Process of Nature,” Werke, i. 10, 314–321) and Trendelenburg (“On a Gap in Kant’s Proof of the Exclusive Subjectivity of Space and Time,” in the third volume of the “Historical Contributions,” No. vii.) It is more fully discussed in my essay, “The Thing in Itself and its Constitution” (Berlin: C. Duncker, 1871), p
articularly in the last two sections: vii. “Space and Time as Forms of the Thing in Itself;” and viii. “Critique of the Transcendental Æsthetic.” Here, however, we can only consider with all brevity the reasons which render it probable that Space and Time are just as much forms of existence as of thought.
(a.) We have first to give a clear statement of the reasons for believing in the real existence of a Non-Ego, or an external world lying beyond the Ego. Only two hypotheses are logically possible. Either the Ego unconsciously fashions the world of appearance from its own essence, in which case the Ego alone really exists, and per consequentiam every reader must deny the existence not only of external things but of all other men; or there exists a Non-Ego independent of the Ego, and the representation of the external world in the Ego is the product of these two factors. Which of these hypotheses is the more probable must be decided by this; which more easily explains the phenomenal world? either is conceivable.
(α.) Sense-impressions have a degree of vividness which pure ideas produced by our own mental activity are wont only to attain in morbid states. Moreover, they often (especially in the years of childhood) bring real additions to the stock of knowledge, whereas the class to which they are opposed is always made up of familiar memories and portions of the same. This is easily explained by the assumption of an external world, hardly from the Ego alone.
(β.) For the origination of a sense-impression the feeling of the open sense is requisite; on the other hand, the feeling of the open sense does not necessarily produce a sense-impression, e.g., in darkness, anosmia. This is easily explained by the influence of an external world, hardly from the Ego alone.
(γ.) Sensuous representations arise according to the law of the succession of thought from antecedent representations in accordance with the particular mood, &c—Sensuous impressions for the most part appear suddenly and unexpectedly, and always disconnected with the internal train of thoughts. This phenomenon is only possible without action of an external world if the law of mental succession holds good at one time and not at another, strictly explicable it is not even on this assumption from the Ego alone.
(δ.) Most impressions have this peculiarity, that their assumed object is also simultaneously inferred from another impression of another sense (e.g., a dish of food may be simultaneously seen, smelt, tasted, touched). This is easily explained by the action of an external world, hardly by mere internal mental processes. For if one should assume that the co-existent sense-impressions mutually arouse one another, e.g., the visual impression of a dish of food brings with it the odorous impressions, the olfactory sense being open, he would be refuted by the fact that the sense of smell and sight may be alternately opened and closed, and yet each time receive the appropriate sense-impression of the food. Should any one in reply to this make the further assumption, that not merely the simultaneous, but also the antecedent visual impression of the viands have power to produce the odorous impression of the same and conversely, he would be met by the circumstance that on the alternate opening and closing of the two senses, the visual impression can be had at one time but not at another, namely, when the viands are removed, so that the odorous impression under otherwise similar circumstances would call forth the visual impression at one time but not at another, which contradicts the principle, “Like causes, like effects.” (See further Wiener, “Grund-züge der Weltordnung,” Band 3, under “Proof of the Reality of the External World.”)
(ɛ.) Things, i.e., the causes of the impressions of sense, act on one another according to laws strictly definite. Now, if the impressions of sense are to be explained from the Ego alone, these laws must be transferable to the inner mental processes. But this is not so; for only in the rarest cases do the sense-impresaions of cause and effect follow one another as cause and effect in the outward world. Often, on the contrary, the effect is perceived at one time and the cause at another and later time; but a later sense-impression cannot be the cause of an earlier one.
(ζ) Every Ego, besides the idea of its own body, receives also ideas of a great number of extraneous bodies similar to its own, in which reside mental faculties similar to its own. It finds that all these existences announce the same representations concerning Ego and Non-Ego, and that their declarations concerning the constitution of the external world partly agree with one another in a surprising manner, partly check one another, and lead to the conviction of error. Each Ego sees these existences born, grow, die like itself; it receives from them protection, help, and instruction during the age of childhood, when its own force and knowledge is insufficient; and receives at every period of its life, directly or indirectly (through books) instruction from others, in which thoughts occur which it is compelled to confess itself unable to grasp. It learns by the aid of teachers to follow backwards the succession of its fellow-beings, and to perceive a plan in history in which it is obliged to look upon itself as a link. All this is almost impossible with the sole existence of the Ego, but easily to be explained by the existence of one external world common to all Ego’s, which includes within it the bodies of these reciprocally acting Ego’s. As other Ego’s can only act on me through their bodies, every inference to the transcendent reality of other Ego’s is illegitimate if it is not mediated by the inference to the transcendent reality of my own and other bodies, and founded thereon.
(η.) The internal ideas can be called forth, retained, and repeated at pleasure by the conscious will, the impressions of sense—the sense-organ being open—are entirely independent of the conscious will. This is easily to be explained by the action of an external world, hardly from the Ego alone. An unconscious will would in that case have to produce things, and then mirror to the consciousness of the solitary Ego the semblance of an external world—a piece of juggling in which there would be no rhyme or reason at all, and, as the preceding paragraphs prove, the wildest whim and caprice would have to be united with the strictest regularity in an incomprehensible fashion, and the highest wisdom would be wasted on a bubble, a lunatic dream.
One sees from what has been adduced that the probability of the existence of a Non-Ego existing independently over against the Ego, and causally influencing the Ego, is as great as it could possibly be, and that here again natural instinct is justified by scientific reflection. From this necessity of having an external transcendent causality for the origination of sense-impressions even Kant and Fichte could not free themselves, although they deny it in words; for, with Kant, the content of intuition is absolutely given; and although he thereby contradicts his own doctrine of the merely immanent import of Causality, he yet says repeatedly and expressly that that whereby this content is given is the thing in itself (comp. “The Thing in Itself,” sect iv., “The Transcendent Cause,” and v. “Transcendent and Immanent Causality”). Fichte, again, after all his unsuccessful attempts to weave the Non-Ego entirely from the Ego, cannot do without an external impulse for this activity of the Ego, and this impulse stands with Fichte for the true Non-Ego. Berkeley, too, suggests a transcendent cause for every perception, referring everything, however (overleaping the world of things in themselves), without distinction, directly to the Absolute, i.e., foregoes the attempt to explain our perceptions, and every attempt to penetrate the mystery of the real connections of their special originating causes.
If it is now established that even the most consistent Idealists have not had the courage to be consistent to the extent of denying an independent Non-Ego, if the feeling is not to be got rid of that perception, on the whole, is something thrust upon one from without in opposition to one’s own will, it results with the same certainty, from what has been stated, that the distinctions also in sensuous perceptions are not produced by the Ego, but are thrust upon it by the Non-Ego. For insight would not at all be enlarged if the Non-Ego were always one and the same, and consequently always acted in one and the same way, supplying merely an external shock. For then it would again be left to the Ego, in strange caprice to suspend on the ever-identical impulse of
the Non-Ego now this, now that spatial or temporal determination or category of thought as an indifferent cloak, and in this way itself to construct the whole How and What of the external world, the impulse only guaranteeing the That. In this all the before-mentioned difficulties repeat themselves unchanged. Thus even Schopenhauer lets the distinctions in the intuitions of the world of representation be altogether conditioned by corresponding modifications in the essential will of the things-in-themselves, which through them become representable in thought (Parerga, § 103 b). By this, however, he, in fact, again leaves room for the transcendent causality which he has expressly rejected in words, for how are the things-in-themselves of this horse or this rose to set about determining my representations of either according to the modifications of their nature, unless by a transcendent causality, which is immediately manifested as definite affection of my sense-organs?
Every single determination in perception must then be conceived as effect of the Non-Ego; and as different effects presuppose different causes, we obtain a system of as many differences in the Non-Ego as there exist distinctions in perception. Now, certainly these differences in the Non-Ego might be of a non-spatial and non-temporal character, and Space and Time forms belonging to thought alone; but then these differences must have place in the other objective forms, which would have to run parallel to the objective forms of Space and Time, since, without other forms of being replacing Space and Time in the Non-Ego, no corresponding difference could have place therein. This assumption of other but corresponding forms in the Non-Ego, which seems to have hovered before Reinhold and afterwards Herbart in their intelligible Space and Time, would, quite apart from the fact that it excludes the possibility of any objective knowledge of things, contradict, without offering any equivalent advantage, the generally observed law that Nature always chooses the simplest means to its ends. Why should it make use of four forms when it could get along quite as well and even better with two? The parallelism of these pairs of forms in Existence and Thought, and their reciprocity, which, in fact, exists in perception and action, would require a pre-established harmony, which, on our assumption, would resolve itself into the identity of the forms. Hegel likewise says (Larger Logic, Introd., p. 8): “If they (the forms of the Understanding) cannot be determinations of the thing-in-itself, still less can they be determinations of the Understanding, to which at least the dignity of a thing-in-itself should be assigned.”
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