According to all this, we have only one certain support, which must guide us on the right way, namely, the result of the preceding chapter—the cerebral vibrations, more generally material movement, as conditio sine qua non of consciousness. Also, if we posit as many worlds as we please with other forms than space and time, yet, if the parallelism of being and thought is to be retained, something must exist in them corresponding to matter, and an activity of the same answering to motion must then likewise be condition of consciousness.—Accordingly, if we suppose the essence of consciousness to be founded in its material origin, and at the same time remember that the unconscious mental activity must of necessity be looked upon as something immaterial, on closer consideration two cases present themselves: either we adhere to “Will and Idea” as that which is common to unconscious and conscious representation, and posit the form of the Unconscious as the original, but that of consciousness as a product of the unconscious mind and the material action on the same; or we divide the whole system of mental activity between Materialism and Spiritualism in such a way that the conscious spirit belongs to the former, the unconscious to the latter, i.e., we assume that the unconscious mind indeed has a self-dependent existence independent of matter, but that the conscious mind is an exclusive product of material processes without any co-operation of unconscious mind. The alternative, after our previous inquiries on the co-operation of the Unconscious in the genesis of all and every conscious mental process, is not difficult to decide. The essential similarity of conscious and unconscious mental action alone causes a fundamentally different origin for both to appear unthinkable; at least, this cutting up of the spiritual system and the distribution of its separate parts to different fundamental conceptions would appear more arbitrary than that of Schopenhauer in respect to Will and Intellect. Add to this, that we shall, in Chapter v., resolve matter itself into Will and Idea, and thus prove the essential likeness of Mind and Matter; that thus Materialism could offer us no final resting-place. We must, therefore, make our own the former of the two assumptions.
But now it is at once evident that we again have not yet grasped the essence of consciousness, for we only know its factors—on the one side, mind in its original unconscious state; on the other side, the movement of the matter which acts upon it. In any case, the origin of consciousness can only be given in the mode and manner in which ideation comes to its object. Of matter consciousness knows nothing; thus the process producing consciousness must lie in the mind itself, if also matter gives the first impulse to it. Material movement determines the content of representation, but the nature of consciousness does not lie in this content, for the same content can indeed, the form of sensibility being abstracted, be also conceived as unconscious. But now, if consciousness can lie neither in the content, nor also, as we have seen before, in the sensuous form of the idea, it cannot at all lie in the idea as such, but must be an accident, which comes to the idea from elsewhere.
This is the first important result of our investigation, which certainly, at the first glance, may seem to conflict with the ordinary views, but on closer inspection must soon display its correctness to every observer, and shall immediately receive fuller elucidation. The common error is therefore to be ascribed to this, that we, for the most part, think of consciousness as something inhering only in the Idea, in that we forget the apperception of Pleasure and Pain; hence it is taken, without investigation, on trust and credit, as something immanent in the idea, especially as long as the unconscious idea is not more precisely known; and accordingly the question is never raised, To what then does the idea owe the accident of consciousness? who assigns it this predicate, as it were? when one would soon observe that it cannot itself give it to itself. But if the consciousness-producing process, in spite of its material occasion, must necessarily be of a spiritual nature, there remains nothing but the Will.
We have seen in Chapter i. of the present section how Will and Idea are united in the Unconscious in an inseparable unity, and shall further see in the final chapters how the salvation of the world depends on the emancipation of the intellect from the will, the possibility of which is given in consciousness, and how the whole world-process is tending solely towards this goal. Consciousness on the one hand, and the emancipation of the idea from the will on the other, we have thus already recognised as standing in the closest connection; we only need to go one step further and to declare their identity, and we have found the answer to the riddle in harmony with the results just obtained. The essence of the consciousness of the idea is the extrication of the same from its native soil, the realising will,1 and the opposition of the will to this emancipation. We had previously found that consciousness must be a predicate which the will imparts to the idea; we can now also assign the content of this predicate; it is the stupefaction of the will at the existence of the idea not willed and yet sensibly felt by it. The idea, namely, as we have seen, has in itself no interest in its own existence, no endeavour after being; therefore, as long as there is no consciousness, it is always only called forth by the will. Thus the mind before the rise of consciousness can have according to its own nature no other ideas than those which, called into being by the will, form the content of the will. Then organised matter suddenly breaks in upon this self-contained peace of the Unconscious, and in the reaction of sensation occurring according to necessary law thrusts upon the astonished individual spirit an idea which falls upon it as from the skies, for it finds in itself no will to this idea. For the first time “the matter of intuition is given to it from without.” The great revolution has come to pass, the first step to the world’s redemption taken; the idea has been rent from the will, to confront it in future as an independent power, in order to bring under subjection to itself its former lord. This amazement of the will at the rebellion against its previously acknowledged sway, this sensation which the interloping idea produces in the Unconscious, this is Consciousness.
To speak less figuratively, I conceive the process in the following way:—There arises the idea impregnated from without. The unconscious individual mind is amazed at the unwonted circumstance that an idea exists without being willed. This amazement cannot proceed from the will alone, for the will is indeed the absolutely irrational, thus also too blind for wonderment and surprise; but it can also not proceed from the representation alone, for the idea impregnated from without is as it is, and has no reason to be surprised at itself; all the rest of the ideal sphere, however, except this one, is, as we know, fast bound in the Unconscious in inseparable unity with the will. Consequently, in the first place, the startling can only be effected by both sides of the unconscious will and idea in union, i.e., by an in-formed will, or a willed idea; and secondly, that which in the startling is idea can only exist through a will whose content it forms. Accordingly, the matter is only to be conceived in this way, that the idea impregnated from without acts on the will as motive, and, moreover, evokes such a will as has for its content to negate it; for should the now excited will be related affirmatively to it, there would again be no opposition and no consciousness. The excited will must thus be related negatively to it, and the startling is the moment of origin of this negating will, the sudden, momentary occurrence of the opposition of the will. But the word “startle” also signifies nothing further in ordinary language only that the process in our human experience is an opposition suddenly occurring between conscious moments, but here takes place between unconscious moments.
Lastly, it should be mentioned that the opposing will is too weak, with respect to the idea impregnated from without, to carry through its negating intention; it is thus an impotent will to which satisfaction is refused, which, consequently, is linked with pain. Thus every process of the becoming conscious is, eo ipso, united with a certain displeasure. This is, as it were, the vexation of the unconscious individual mind at the interloping idea which it must endure and cannot get rid of. It is the bitter medicine without which there is no healing—a medicine, to be sure, whi
ch at every moment is swallowed in such very small doses that its bitterness escapes self-perception.—
The peculiar difficulty of this exposition appears to be, how it is possible that matter in the form of the vibrating molecule should be able to plunge into the peace of the unconscious will itself, and that, too, in the double sense; how it has power, as matter, to affect the mind; and how the mind is at all able to enter into communication with anything external? This difficulty thus essentially concerns the old problem of the reciprocal influence of body and mind, which we are here neither able to evade, like Kant and Fichte, by converting the body into a subjective appearance of the mind, nor, as Materialism, by converting the mind into an external appearance resulting from objective material processes, but which we must boldly face, since the (unconscious) mind and matter both pass for real. Already, at the beginning of A. Chap. vii., this problem met us in reference to the medium whereby the will realises itself in the body, especially in the muscular movements; here it is the reverse of the question at which we have arrived, namely, how the mental idea can be conditioned by the organism. There the question reduced itself to this: how the will can influence the movements of the central nerve-molecule, here to this, how the movements of the central nerve-molecule can influence the idea? There we were obliged to assume the realisation of the unconscious will to be effected by an unconscious one (A. Chap. ii.); here we must contemplate the origin of the conscious idea as brought about by unconscious mental reactions. There the (unconscious) will, directly influencing the molecule, was to be conceived united with unconscious representation; here we must suppose, for the sake of coming to pass of the sensation, an unconscious will conceived as essential factor. The direct reciprocation thus in both cases exists between the forms of movement of central nerve-molecules on the one hand, and unconscious mental functions on the other, in which, as we quite generally know from A. Chap. iv., an union of unconscious will and unconscious idea always takes place.
If, now, matter and unconscious mind were really heterogeneous departments of existence, as the dualistic view prevailing since Descartes in the consciousness of European culture assumes, it would in fact not be apparent how the influxus physicus presupposed in these processes could be possible. Fortunately, however, it will turn out in C. Chap. v. that matter itself is in its essence nothing else whatever but unconscious mind, whose representations are only limited to spatial attraction and repulsion of uniformly varying intensity, and whose volitional manifestations consist in the realising of this limited ideational province. If we at this place anticipate this identity of being subsequently to be demonstrated, it is immediately comprehensible that the reciprocal action of body and soul can no longer, as before, be frustrated by the incapability of bridging the gulf between heterogeneous substances. The psychical will can just as well include in itself in the ideas, which form its content, spatial relations and change of existing spatial relations, as can the atomic will of a cerebral atom. Both can accordingly just as easily collide with one another and conclude their collision by a compromise as two opposing atomic wills. In both cases the weaker will must in the compromise yield the more the weaker it is than its opponent. When, e.g., there exists the will to a special bodily movement, it will, for the most part, considerably surpass in intensity the single cerebral atomic wills, which would per se follow only their own mechanical laws, and therefore usually sufficiently carry its point. When, on the other hand, such a special will is not aroused and concentrated, there the cerebral atomic wills excited by the propagated stimulus of the sense-organs produce a relatively considerable effect on the psychical will directed to the organism, i.e., in the compromise resulting from this conflict of will it will now also, on its part, have a relatively considerable share in concession and accommodation, only that this share, on its side, is not, as on the side of matter, presented spatially as objective phenomenon (which merely arises from the difference to be hereafter mentioned in C. Chap. xi., that the directions of the will in the atomic wills exclusively intersect at a single point when prolonged backwards, and thereby produce the appearance of a localisation of the seat of force).
As matter, as objective real phenomenon (i.e., independent of every intelligence intuiting it), could not at all come to be without two or more atomic wills intersecting and falling into conflict with one another in their volitional manifestations, so also the primitive conscious representation of sensation as subjective ideal phenomenon only becomes possible through precisely the same conflict. An atomic will existing isolated and alone in the world would have no objective existence at all, because the possibility would be wanting to it of self-objectivation, i.e., of bringing its essence to external manifestation. An isolated and sole-existing incorporeal individual mind (assumed per impossibile) would, even if it should display ever so much unconscious will and idea, yet never attain to the subjective manifestation of consciousness. An ad libitum number of atomic wills and of individual minds. which were, however, isolated from one another, and incapable of thrusting against one another and clashing with their wills, would be altogether in the same position as one existing solitary and alone. Only when the radiating will meets with a resistance by which it is checked or broken can it lead to objective manifestation of existence, to the subjective phenomenon of consciousness. Such a resistance it can, however, only find in its like, in another will with which it has a certain common sphere of action, whilst the tendency and goal of the latter is, in a certain sense, opposed to its own. The common sphere of action makes contact possible; the opposite tendency and goal condition the collision in encounter, which finds its solution in the compromise determined by the content of both. The yielding of each of the colliding wills is now, however, no longer willed by it, but forced, pressed upon it by the other will, which is for it mainly only resistance, and the compromise as result does not correspond to the goal of volition on either side, so that a contrast between the willed and attained arises, just as between the centrifugal function, as it were, of the volition itself and the centripetal rebound on collision. Now, the breaking of the will on the resistance of a foreign will crossing it, or the centripetal rebound, is sensation, and, moreover, as non-satisfaction of the will, pain-sensation. As non-satisfaction of a definite will, i.e., one filled with a definite ideational content, sensation is also qualitatively determined, i.e., sensation characterised by a (here unconscious) ideational content. (Comp. B. Chap. iii.) As qualitatively definite sensation, however, it is element of the conscious idea, and in so far it may even be described as elementary conscious representation. The predicate of consciousness enters into the sensation just through the exhibited contrast, and this contradiction between volition and impression of the resistance answers to what I have above named by an expression transferred from the conscious mental life to the unconscious, the startling of the will at the intruding idea not willed by itself. Perhaps the more general mode of treatment here entered upon may contribute to the comprehension of the matter, and allow it to be more clearly perceived that the figures there employed were, in fact, only employed as figures.
The difficulty which occasioned this digression is, however, not yet exhausted by the foregoing. In spite of the admitted essential identity of mind and matter, the second question always remains open—how the psychical individual will can at all come in contact with any other will than, in fact, with the atomic will of the brain, since, e.g., it is indeed not able decidedly to touch and to collide with other psychical individual wills? We must here, too, anticipate and acknowledge the future course of the inquiry—that the possibility of such a contact and collision would not be visible if the individual mind on the one hand and the atoms of matter on the other were discrete substances. It only becomes comprehensible on the assumption that they are merely different functions of one and the same essence, and, moreover, of an unconscious essence; for were it conscious, there would be the common consciousness in all functions, and through the conflict anticipated by the commo
n consciousness, and brought to conclusion in it, as it were, it could no more attain to special consciousness, whereas in the root of one unconscious essence the separated functions have just only the necessary common bond for reciprocal influence, but yet still room enough for the establishment of separated consciousnesses, as it were, on their broken points or jolted peripheral endings. Now it is true a reciprocal influence in general is made possible through the common metaphysical root of the substance, but the latter does not of itself suffice to introduce this coincidence of certain functions at their separated peripheral ends. For that there is also necessary, as a second condition, that the ideational contents of these wills should contain in themselves the common sphere of their contact, just as well as the opposite tendency; and this second condition is simply not fulfilled between the different individual minds, but doubtless between the atomic wills, which, in their ideal content, contain also the spatiality of their relations (creating in its realisation the one objective space). This is the metaphysical reason why minds only communicate through their bodies. The bodies move and act in the one objective space as in their common sphere in which they may collide; minds, however, have neither a direct relation to this general space of matter (for the subjective consciousness-space is, for every mind, a different one, unapproachably self-enclosed), nor do they possess another analogous sphere of direct spiritual encounter, as the bodies (or rather their atoms) possess them in space.
The conditions of a mutual sphere for the contact of different wills are, however, also given between the mind and the body connected with it. In C. Chap. ix., namely, we shall see that the individual mind or the soul of a body is nothing more than the sum of the functions of the All-one Unconscious directed to this corporeal organism. This organism, i.e., this then and there ordered aggregate of atoms, is thus the goal expressly included in the unconscious ideal content of the total will-functions of this individual mind. There cannot be in this individual mind a single function which does not unconsciously refer to this organism, and which does not include even quite definite parts of this organism or quite definite spatial changes of position of such parts in its ideal content (say, e.g., the excitation of certain cerebral vibrations of a metaphysical thought). Each individual mind accordingly possesses the possibility of colliding with the atomic wills of its organism, but only with those of its own, not with those of any other, because its organism alone is included, conformably to its spatial relations, in the (unconscious) content of representation of its functions, but not any other. Every function of the All-one Unconscious, namely, which is related to another organism, truly belongs to the sum of the functions directed to this other organism, i.e., to its soul or individual mind.1—We hardly need remind the reader that the possibility of a collision of wills for both kinds of reciprocation between body and mind holds good not merely for that where the mind is the preponderating determining part of the compromise, but also where it is the prevailingly yielding or receptive part, i.e., not merely for the influence of the will on the body, but also for the arousing of ideas by means of impressions of sense and brain. If the function of the individual mind rightly affects the atomic wills of the brain, conversely also, as a matter of course, must the atomic wills of the brain just as correctly affect this same individual mind.
Philosophy of the Unconscious Page 49
