Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  Further, it is well known that sedentary manual occupations without bodily effort, as tailoring, cobbling, light manufacturing, are those which produce most dreamers, religious and political fanatics; whereas severe bodily manual labour leaves the brain no force for thinking; for the body, like every machine, has only a certain stock of vital force at its disposal, and if this is converted into muscular energy, there remains nothing over for the play of the cerebral molecules for thinking. Any one can see this in his own case. No one will be able during a considerable leap to carry further a train of thought once set a-going, or simultaneously to run a race and to meditate profoundly; even in slow walking one involuntarily stops when thoughts are concentrated, and not seldom the outward man falls into complete rigidity in the profoundest meditation. All this points to a consumption of vital force in thinking, or what is the same thing, a chemical consumption of material, for this produces living force.

  7. Every disturbance of the integrity of the brain produces a disturbance of conscious mental activity, unless the function of one hemisphere is carried on by the corresponding part of the other hemisphere; for as every human being chiefly sees, hears, and smells with one eye, ear, and nostril, and after one side of the sense-organs has been rendered useless, sense-perception still continues by means of the other side, so every human being chiefly thinks with one half of the brain, as often the physiognomy, especially the forehead, allows us to see; and likewise after one half of the brain has been rendered partially useless, the other half can undertake the whole function of thought, as one half of the lungs the whole function of breathing. This substitution is always with the brain the rarer case, and only occurs when, in the first place, the morbid or injured part does not impair the functions of the rest of the brain, which, however, mostly takes place in one way or another, e.g., through propagation of pressure, and when, secondly, the injury is of such a kind that it entirely abolishes the functions of the particular part, and does not simply render them abnormal; for then there is developed just the disturbed mental activity, which renders valueless the results of the sound functions of the other parts. If now such disturbed functions of morbid parts all at once cease, or relieve the rest of the brain of the pressure which it has hitherto experienced, the normal function of the other part of the brain again appears as clear mental activity,—a case which not seldom takes place, especially in progressive destruction of morbid parts shortly before death, and then presents the phenomenon, surprising to the layman, of a last spiritual transfiguration after long mental aberration.

  In the above-mentioned experiments of Flourens on fowls with extirpated brains, the animals remained as in deep sleep, sitting on any spot where they were placed; all capability of receiving sense-impressions was completely extinguished, and they had, therefore, to be supported by artificial feeding; on the other hand, the reflex movements proceeding from the spinal cord, e.g., swallowing, flying, running, were preserved. “If one removes the two hemispheres of a mammal by slices, the mental activity sinks the lower the farther the loss of substance has proceeded. When the ventricles of the brain are reached, complete unconsciousness is wont to occur” (Valentin). “What stronger proof of the necessary connection of mind and brain will any one require than that which is afforded by the knife of the anatomist when he cuts away the soul piece by piece?” (Büchner).

  Inflammation of the brain causes delusion and madness; an effusion of blood on the brain, stupefaction and perfect loss of consciousness; a lasting pressure on the brain (e.g., hydrocephalus, children’s dropsy), weakness of understanding and idiocy; a surcharging, e.g., in the drowning and the intoxicated, or evacuation of the blood-vessels of the brain, produces swoons and loss of consciousness; the quicker blood-circulation of a simple fever produces the delirium of fever, which indeed is also a temporary insanity; pressure of blood in intoxication by alcohol introduces the mental disturbance well known as the state of drunkenness; opium, haschisch, and other narcotics, severally another state of intoxication peculiar to it, each of which is identical with certain states of frenzy.

  Parry was able to suppress attacks of madness by a compression of the cervical artery, and according to Flemming’s experiments the same procedure produces in the healthy sleep and flitting dreams. Short-necked men and animals are, on the average, more sanguine than longnecked, because, in consequence of less remoteness from the heart, a more vivid blood-circulation takes place in their brain. The so-called after-diseases of the brain, in consequence of more serious injuries or even internal diseases, also many apoplexies, affect quite specially the memory, either destroy it entirely or weaken it in general, or abolish memory for certain categories of knowledge, e.g., merely for language, without any paralysis of the organ of language, the understanding being otherwise clear (aphasia), or exclusively for all proper names, or the language of a particular country, or the events of certain years, or notions of time (especially with destruction or rendering inactive of particular parts of the brain). Many extremely striking examples of the foregoing, and of the recovery of the lost knowledge after easing the part of the brain in question, are to be read in Jessen’s “Psychology.”—Stronger proofs that memory depends on permanent changes of certain parts of the brain, which on certain stimulations contribute to the easier reproduction of former vibrations, can scarcely be desired, than that certain sets of ideas, with the becoming unserviceable of certain parts of the brain lose, and with their return to the normal state regain, the capability of re-emerging into consciousness.

  The well-known experience that no class of diseases depends to so great an extent on transmission as that of mental diseases, points tolerably clearly by itself to the circumstance that all mental disturbances depend upon (direct or indirect) disturbances of brain function; for we can well conceive anomalies of the central organs of the nervous system to be inherited by way of material generation (just as tuberculosis, scrofula, cancer, and other diseases), but never immaterial psychical anomalies, of the possibility of which we can frame no conception at all (comp. vol. i. pp. 164, 165).

  8. There is no conscious mental activity outside or behind the cerebral function; for if, in conformity with the foregoing, we may assume it proved that every disturbance of the normal functions of the brain disturbs the activity of consciousness, we may well assume it as certain that, with the complete abolition of the cerebral function, the activity of consciousness is likewise actually abolished, and not merely its manifestation prevented.

  Were there not this progressive derangement of consciousness running parallel to the degree of disturbance of brain function, and passing quite gradually through all stages of idiocy into the loss of all consciousness (except that which manifests itself in the reflex instincts of the spinal cord), the supposition would, of course, be possible that a withdrawal of consciousness upon itself might take place, in which merely every manifestation of the same is suppressed; but, as the case stands, this possibility, to which one can only have recourse at all as a desperate attempt to save one’s prepossessions in favour of a preconceived system, has too low a probability for it to deserve the notice of an unprejudiced inquirer. In addition to the parallelism above mentioned, and the circumstance that the entire apparatus of nature would be superfluous for the setting up of consciousness, if consciousness could exist without it, the want of memory tells against it; for if consciousness during the inactivity of the brain withdrew upon itself, yet a memory thereof should remain behind. Others think to evade this circumstance when they assume a double individual consciousness (thus also double personality [!] in everybody), namely, one free from the body and a brain-consciousness, whereby the former is to be unconscious for the latter. Whatever cogency there is in the argument for this double-sidedness of the mind refers entirely to the spiritual background of the brain-consciousness distinguished by us as the Unconcious, which certainly those who only know conscious mental activity must hold to be a second consciousness; what, however, is adduced expressly for the d
uality of consciousness is very unfortunately chosen. First of all, the consciousness of the magnetic sleep is claimed as non-embodied consciousness, which, however, is only differentiated from the consciousness of dreams in the ordinary sleep by this, that the communication with the external senses is somewhat less impeded, and the functioning part of the brain is found in a state of artificial hyperæsthesia (over-irritation, over-sensibility), which has for its consequence that, firstly, the influence of the Unconscious can more easily find an entrance into consciousness, and that, secondly, the amplitude of the cerebral vibrations with equal vividness of the presentation is less than at other times, and consequently leaves behind fewer impressions of memory, which in most ordinary dreams undoubtedly remain after the disappearance of the hyperæsthesia of the brain, but are too weak to return into conscious memory upon the usual stimuli.

  Accordingly it is no wonder that the dream-consciousness can just as well include the memories of the waking state as its own, but not conversely. In general, the somnambulistic is so closely allied to the ordinary dream through the movements of sleep and the different stages of night-walking and spontaneous somnambulism, that it is quite impossible to see in it an unembodied consciousness. And then also one does not get far with the consciousness of these states; they are rather to be called a dreamy semi-consciousness than an enhanced consciousness. So the heightened mental performances which are sometimes observed, always only resembling brief flashes of light, are to be reckoned partly to the facilitated suggestion of the Unconscious, partly to cerebral hyperæsthesia, which has for consequence an easier revival of ideas, as then in such states memories from early times of apparently long - forgotten things make their appearance, which were so weak that in the normal state of the brain no stimuli of sufficient intensity to arouse them had made their appearance. Thus all is naturally explained by familiar laws, without that ambiguous hypothesis being anywhere useful.

  A still more unfortunate instance for the disembodied consciousness is the already mentioned recurrence of consciousness which sometimes occurs before death. Here again, too, an inner hyperæsthesia of the brain co-operates with outward anæsthesia, which sometimes produces that transfiguration of the spirit which has its prophecies and sharpness of memory in common with the somnambulistic state, its joyful rest and calm painless cheerfulness in common with the same nervous state (analgesia) in the highest degree of torture and certain narcotic intoxications. The external anæsthesia is there only the natural counterpoise to the inner hyperæsthesia; we find the same likewise in the ecstasy of mystic ascetics, in somnambulists, after slight administrations of chloroform, and many other narcotics, e.g., haschisch; also in several states of frenzy it is sometimes exhibited. Thus this feeling of freedom from the body by no means proves a diminution, but rather a heightening of the irritability of the brain, and anything but the disembodiment of consciousness. States entirely similar induce similar phenomena just before drowning. Lastly, if the criterion of the disembodied consciousness is maintained to be the abolition of time in the sequence of thought, this would be equivalent to the intuitive, timeless, momentary, implicit thinking, which contradicts all discursive consciousness, as a something requiring the comparing of explicit ideas. But in the examples only the more rapid course of thought is specified, as it occurs in states of the highest cerebral irritation, in narcotic poisonings, before drowning, and the like, and has always been familiar as “flight of ideas” in certain forms of frenzy. What wonder that in an over-stimulated brain the ideas follow one another much more rapidly than usual? Altogether, so long as the ideas follow one another in time, they prove the action of matter, through the vibrations of which time first comes into thought; so far, however, as thought is disembodied, it is timeless, and therewith unconscious.

  What we have proved in this chapter of the human consciousness, as the highest known to us, in which one might soonest suppose an independence from the body, holds of course also of the ganglia of the lower animals, which are the equivalents of the brain of the Vertebrata; and it holds just as much of the special consciousness of every independent ganglion in man and the higher and lower animals; and it holds, finally, also of the substances which, in the lower animals, form the central nervous system; and likewise, if a consciousness should be made out in the plants or inorganic substances, it holds also for this.

  As conclusion to this chapter, a passage of Schelling may find a fitting place (Werke, i. 3, 497), which sums up the contents of the same in a few words, although the assertion in Schelling’s mouth has a somewhat different turn owing to the background of transcendental idealism: “Not the presentation itself, but rather the consciousness thereof is conditioned by the affection of the organism; and if empirism limits its assertion to the latter, nothing can be alleged against it.”

  III.

  THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

  1. The Becoming-Conscious of the Idea. —Consciousness is not a quiescent state, but a process—a continual becoming-conscious. That this mental process, to which consciousness owes its origin, cannot be immediately apprehended by the consciousness of the observer, is a matter of course; for that which first produces consciousness must of course lie behind consciousness, and be inaccessible to conscious introspection. We can thus only hope to attain to our goal by an indirect path.

  The first condition is that we define the notion of consciousness more sharply than was hitherto necessary.—In the first place, it must be distinguished from self-consciousness. My self-consciousness is the consciousness of myself, i.e., the consciousness of the subject of my mental activity. By subject of my mental activity, however, I understand that part of the whole cause of my mental activity which is not external, and accordingly the inner cause of the same. Self-consciousness is thus only a special case of the application of consciousness to a definite object, namely, to the supposed inner cause of mental activity which is denoted by the name Subject. It is not the active subject itself which becomes in the act of self-consciousness the content of consciousness or object of consciousness, but it is only the idea of the subject, regressively inferred by means of the category of causality from the activity of the subject, that becomes the object of consciousness. The active subject itself remains just as inaccessible to consciousness as the external thing in itself, to which it corresponds as internal thing. All belief in an immediate self-apprehension of the Ego in the act of self-consciousness depends on the same self-delusion as the naive realistic belief in the immediate conscious apprehension of the thing in itself that exists independently of consciousness. Consciousness as such is, consequently, according to its own notion, free from conscious reference to the subject, in that in and for itself it refers only to the object (i.e., not to the external correlate of the object of ideation or the thing in itself, but merely to the represented object which results from the ideational process, and presents itself as content of consciousness), and only becomes self-consciousness by the idea of the subject becoming accidentally object to it. It follows from this that no self-consciousness can be conceived without consciousness, but undoubtedly consciousness without self-consciousness. Only for conscious reflection as it takes place in the brain of the philosopher, who stands in thought outside the process and objectively regards it, but not for the subject of the process itself, must object and subject be simultaneously given, and in the same degree. For it lies in the conceptions themselves that subject and object require each other as correlatives; but this correlation is patent only to the consciousness of the philosopher, not to the unreflecting feeling of the natural man, and therefore to the latter in the intuitive apprehension of the concrete object the relation of the concept of the object to the concept of the subject, and especially the latter remains unconscious. (See more particularly below, pp. 56–58.)—Still less than with self-consciousness has consciousness to do with the notion of personality, or the identity of all the subjects of very different mental activities—a notion which is for the most part comprehende
d in the word self-consciousness, a practice which we shall also in future follow for the sake of simplicity.

  But now, what is consciousness? Does it merely consist in the form of sensibility, so that the two conceptions are identical? No; for the Unconscious also must have conceived the form of sensibility, otherwise it could not so aptly have furnished the same. We could, however, also conceive a consciousness as possible with quite other forms, if a world were otherwise fashioned, or if, besides and beyond our space-time world, yet other worlds exist in other forms of being and consciousness, which contains no inherent contradiction, since these worlds, however numerous, could not at all disturb or affect one another, and the One Unconscious, free of all these forms, would be the same for all. The form of sensibility can thus only be regarded as something added to consciousness, accidental, not as something necessary, essential.—Or shall we say that consciousness consists in memory? Memory is certainly no bad criterion of consciousness, for the more vivid consciousness is, the stronger must the cerebral vibrations be, and the stronger these are, the stronger must be the permanent impression they leave behind in the brain, i.e., the easier, and with equal stimulus the stronger, memory becomes. One easily overlooks, however, the circumstance that memory is only an indirect consequence of the essence of consciousness; it cannot possibly, therefore, form its essence itself. Just as little can the nature of consciousness consist in the possibility of the comparison of ideas, for this again is only a consequence of the form of sensibility, especially of time; and, moreover, consciousness may be present in the greatest intensity if only a single idea fill the mind without any object of comparison.