An objection might here be raised, namely, that the Unconscious wills only the final results, but must think the whole thought-pro cess leading to these results; but whoever has attentively read No. 4 of this chapter will have already found there the answer to this objection. Unconscious thought embraces all the terms of a process, reason and consequent, cause and effect, means and end, &c., in a single moment, and thinks them, not before, beside, or beyond, but in the result itself; it never thinks them except through the result. Therefore, this thinking cannot be regarded as a special thinking outside the result; it is rather implicitly contained in the thinking of the result, without ever being explicated; consequently the result is that which is alone thought in our ordinary sense, and the proposition holds that only that can be unconsciously thought which is willed.—Moreover, even in the ordinary category of unconscious thought, in means and end, one may say that the end implicitly thought in the idea of the willed means is also implicitly willed.
According to the foregoing, the sole activity of the Unconscious consists in willing, and the unconscious representation filling the will is only a non-temporal content, merely dragged along with it, as it were, into time. Volition and activity are accordingly identical or reciprocal notions. Only through them is Time posited; only through them is the idea hurled from potential into actual being, from being in the essence into being in the phenomenon, and therewith into time. Quite otherwise is it with the conscious idea, which is a product of different factors, of which one, the cerebral vibrations, is from the first subject to duration.
II.
BRAIN AND GANGLIA AS CONDITIONS OF ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
ALMOST all naturalists, physiologists, and physicians are materialists, and the more the knowledge and method of physics and physiology is diffused among the educated public, the more does the materialistic view of the world gain ground. What is the cause of this? The simplicity and impressive evidentness of the facts on which the materialistic conception of the animal and human soul, the only spiritual being known to us, is supported. Only those unacquainted with these facts, as the unscientific multitude, or the learned world without physical and physiological knowledge, or those who approach these facts with the preconceived opinions of religious or philosophic systems, can alone remain outside their influence; they must absolutely convince every unprejudiced thinking man, because they need only to be taken just as they are; they declare their meaning with such naive plainness that it is not at all necessary to look for it. And this naive clearness and directness, this forcible selfevidence, which can only be denied with violence, this it is which secures for the materialistic conception of the mind so great a superiority over the difficult and subtle deductions and probabilities, over the arbitrary assumptions and often distorted consequences, of the spiritualistic psychology, which induces all clear heads averse to mystiphilosophic speculation to enrol themselves under the banner of Materialism, which is simple as the Nature that teaches it, and clear and precise in all its correct consequences as this its august mother. That Materialism thereby offends the religious systems can in our time only gain it the more adherents; but that it contradicts speculative philosophy, that does not trouble it at all; for how few men have a speculative need; how far fewer still philosophical culture? Accordingly Materialism has neither the need nor the capacity to investigate the not-understood abstractions, such as force, matter, &c., of which its system consists, and it comports itself to the higher questions of philosophy partly sceptically, in that it denies that their solution lies on this side the limits of the human understanding, partly it denies the title of these questions altogether. Thus it feels quite comfortable in its skin in all directions, and is perfectly contented with the daily progressive discoveries of the natural sciences, in the good faith that everything which man calls experience must be derived from the pursuit of the special sciences. It is, accordingly, no wonder that Materialism gains whereas Philosophy loses ground; for only a philosophy which takes full account of all the results of the natural sciences, and accepts without reservation the perfectly legitimate point of departure of Materialism, only such a philosophy can hope to make a stand against Materialism, if at the same time it fulfils the condition of being universally intelligible, which the philosophy of Identity and absolute Idealism unfortunately is not.
The first attempt to receive Materialism into Philosophy in an intelligible fashion was made by Schopenhauer, and not the least part both of his merit and of his growing popularity is due to this attempt. But his compromise was unsatisfactory; it allowed Materialism the intellect, and reserved to speculation the will. This violent dismembering is his weak point; for if once conscious ideation and thought is handed over to Materialism, it has full right to claim also conscious feeling, and therewith conscious desire and volition, since the physiological phenomena have the same expression for all conscious activities of mind. It is entirely inconsequent of Schopenhauer to refer the stores of memory, together with the intellectual foundations, talents, and aptitudes of the individual, to the constitution of the brain, and to exclude from the same and to hypostatise as an individual metaphysical essence, in defiance of his fundamental monistic principle, the character of the individual, which just as easily, if not more easily, is capable of such an explanation. In fact, there are no means of overturning the first fundamental proposition of Materialism, “All conscious mental activity can only come to pass by normal function of the brain,” but by the ignoring or subtle explaining away of facts. But now, as long as any one knows or will know no other than conscious mental activity, this proposition asserts, “All mental activity can only come to pass through brain function.” The conclusion is obvious: “Either all mental activity is pure function of the brain, or a product of brain function and something else, which is inherently incapable of expression, but is purely potential, and only attains expression in and by the normal brain function, which now appears as mental activity.” It is evident that a decision between these alternatives, all others being laid aside as useless, meaningless ballast, is hardly to be evaded. Quite otherwise does the matter appear as soon as one already recognises unconscious mental action as the original and primary form, without whose assistance conscious mental activity would be paralysed. Then the proposition only says, “Conscious mental activity can only take place through the function of the brain.” With respect to unconscious mental activity, on the other hand, it says nothing at all; it remains, therefore, since all the phenomena demonstrate their independence of brain functions, as something self-dependent, and only the form of consciousness appears conditioned by matter.
We pass on now briefly to present the facts, the theoretical expression for which is the above proposition.
1. The brain is in formal and material respects the highest product of organic formative activity.
“We find in the brain mountains and valleys, bridges and aqueducts, beams and arches, vices and hoes, claws and Ammon’s horns, trees and sheaves, harps and sounding staves, &c., &c. Nobody has perceived the significance of these strange forms” (Huschke in “Skull, Brain, and Soul of Man”).
There is no animal organ which has tenderer, more wonderful, more varied forms, finer and more peculiar structure. The ganglionic cells of the brain send off primitive fibres, and are in part mutually connected and in part surrounded by the same. These primitive fibres, hollow tubes filled with an oily, coagulable content, about line in thickness, again intertwine and cross one another in the strangest fashion. Unfortunately the difficult anatomy of the brain is still as backward as its chemical investigation; but even from the latter we already know this much, that the chemical composition of the brain is by no means as simple as was formerly believed; that it is exceedingly different at different places; that the peculiar cerebral fats with their phosphorus content play a great part in it, and find other matters there which occur in no other tissue in the same way, e.g., cerebrin and lecithin. For the rest, how backward our chemistry still is in regard
to such investigations, one may infer from the fact that it cannot distinguish blood or pus which is infected with contagious matter from healthy blood; that the differences between isomeric substances (of the same composition, but of unlike qualities owing to different atomic position, as is shown by the different refraction of light and rotation) frequently vanish on analysis, so that it is only now beginning to discover a number of finely distributed metals by means of spectrum analysis, minute quantities of which in organic substances may be of the greatest importance. All these things acquire the more importance the higher the organic tissues with which one is concerned.
2. In the brain the change of material is more rapid than in any other part of the body, wherefore also the flow of blood is disproportionately much stronger. This points to a concentration of vital activity in the brain, such as takes place in no other part of the body.
3. The brain (by which in this section the cerebrum is always alone to be understood) has no direct importance for the organic functions of bodily life. This is proved by the experiments of Flourens, who showed that animals from which the brain had been removed can live and thrive for months and years. Care must certainly be taken that the operation itself and the accompanying loss of blood be not too violent, and does not reduce too much the force of the animal; wherefore the experiment can only perfectly succeed in those animals from which the brain may be removed without too much difficulty, e.g., fowls. From these first three points it may be concluded that the brain, the flower of the organism and the seat of the most vital activity, must have a mental destination, since it has no corporeal one.
4. With increasing perfection of the brain or of the ganglia representing it increases the mental capacity in the animal kingdom, whereas the corporeal functions of all animals, clever or stupid, may, as a rule, be performed equally well. As low down as the Insects it is strikingly manifest how the size of the cephalic ganglia is proportional to the intelligence of the orders and species. The Hymen-optera have in general larger ganglia than the stupid beetles, and they are particularly large in the clever ants. In the case of the vertebrates, one must make the inner space within the skull the ground of comparison, as this includes the central organs of motion, which of course must correspond in size to the mass of nerve and muscle of the animal, in order to be able to expend the requisite energy on its motor impulses. If we now merely consider the cerebrum proper, there appears in animals of not too different size a clear parallelism between quantity of brain and intelligence. So far, however, as in animals of very different size (e.g., very small and very large dogs, canary birds and ostrich), this parallelism appears disturbed, a qualitative compensation of the cerebrum is distinctly perceptible, especially by abundant and deep convolutions and furrows.
5. The mental tendencies and executive capacity of mankind are in proportion to quantity of brain, so far as the quality of the same does not give rise to exceptions. “According to the exact measurements of Peacock, the weight of the human brain gradually and very rapidly increases up to the twenty-fifth year, remains at this normal weight up to the fiftieth, and thenceforward gradually diminishes. According to Sims, the brain, which increases in bulk till the thirtieth or fortieth year, only attains the maximum of its volume between the fortieth and fiftieth year. The brain of old people becomes atrophied, i.e., smaller; it shrivels, and there arise hollow spaces between the several convolutions, which before were firmly attached to one another. By this the substance of the brain becomes tougher, the colour greyer, the blood-content less, the convolutions narrower, and the chemical constitution of the brain of the old man, according to Schlossberger, again approaches that of the earliest life-period” (Büchner, Force and Matter, 5th edit., p. 109). The average weight of the brain, according to Peacock, amounts in the man to fifty, in the woman to forty-four ounces; according to Hoffmann, the difference amounts only to two ounces. Lauret drew from the measurements of two thousand heads the result, that both the circumference as well as the diameter, measured at different places, is always less in women than in men. Whilst the normal weight amounts to three to three and a half pounds, the brain of Cuvier weighed over four pounds. Inherited mental imbecility always shows a surprisingly small brain; conversely abnormal smallness of brain is always combined with imbecility. Panhappe proves from 782 cases the gradual diminution of the brain’s weight in correspondence with the decrease of intelligence in madness or with the depth of mental disturbance. In all cretins brain and skull are surprisingly small, the latter exhibiting assymmetry and deformity; the hemispheres in particular are wasted. The brain of the negro is much smaller than that of the European, the forehead retreating, the skull less in circumference, generally more animal; the natives of New Holland lack the higher parts of the brain in a surprising degree. Also the structure of the European skull has made no slight advance in historic times. Especially with the progress of civilisation the anterior region of the head becomes prominent at the expense of the posterior, as is proved by excavations relating to widely different times. The same relation also occurs in general between the rude and cultured classes of the present day, as, among other things, the experiences of hatmakers confirm. That here not isolated cases, but only average numbers are decisive, is matter of course; individual exceptions, e.g., of clever people having a small, stupid people a large skull, must be referred partly to the thickness of the skull, partly to the difference of plan and finish, partly to the form of the convolutions and the quality of the brain.
What we know of the influence of quality is but little, but still something; e.g., the child’s brain is more pulpy, richer in water, poorer in fat than that of the adult; the differences between grey and white matter, the microscopic peculiarities, are only gradually formed; the so-called fibrillation of the brain, very distinct in the adult, is imperceptible in the child’s brain; the plainer this fibrillation becomes, the more decided appears also the mental activity; the brain of the fœtus has very little fat, consequently little phosphorus, but the fatty matter increases until birth, and after birth tolerably rapidly. In animals also the brain has, on the average, more fat the higher they are in the scale, and the smaller the brain in proportion to the intelligence of the animal, e.g., in the horse. This fat seems to be very important, for in animals caused to starve the brain does not, like other organs, lose a part of its fatty matter.—On the number, depth, and form of the actions of the brain depends, with equal volume, the size of its surface,—a highly important factor, which may neutralise a less weight. On the average, the convolutions and furrows are the more numerous, deeper, and more complicated the higher the species of animals or race of man.
It would now be comprehensible if an exception were formed to the law of the proportion of brain mass and mental endowment by some few animals, the largest of the present day, exceeding the human brain in bulk. Nevertheless, even this apparent deviation only depends on a preponderance of those parts of the brain which serve the nervous system of the body as central organs of voluntary motion and sensation, and which, partly on account of the larger number and thickness of the nervous strands concurring in them, partly on account of the greater mechanical development of energy needful for the motion of a greater mass, cannot but show a larger volume. On the other hand, the anterior parts of the brain, which especially preside over the functions of thought, in no animal attain, even in respect of quantity, the same perfection as in man.
6. Conscious thinking strengthens the brain, as all activity its organs, and the manifested energy of thought is always accompanied by consumption of material. As any muscle, if it is considerably exercised, becomes stronger and increases in bulk (e.g., the calves of dancers), so, too, the brain becomes more capable of thinking through exercise of thought, and increases in quality and quantity.
Albers in Bonn relates that he dissected the brains of several persons who had been exceeding mentally active for several years; in all he found the brain substance very firm, the grey matter and the convolutions striki
ngly developed. The increase in bulk is proved partly by the difference in the cultivated and lower ranks, partly by the increment due to the progressive civilisation of Europe, both of which certainly only reaching an amount capable of measurement in virtue of hereditary transmission.
That all thought is connected with the consumption of the materials of the brain follows from the simple phenomenon of the fatigue of thought, which without it would be incomprehensible. Mental just as much as bodily labour not only increases the desire for food in order to replace the waste of tissue, but according to Davy’s measurements even animal heat also, as is announced by accelerated breathing, which takes place in order to again decarbonise the blood, whose carbonisation is more freely induced by the quicker interchange of material.
Philosophy of the Unconscious Page 47
