Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  One sees, then, that consciousness and self-consciousness are very different things; nevertheless the confusion of the two is something quite common. For example, one says of a somnambulist that in that state he is without consciousness, whilst his performances (poems, written compositions) attest a very clear consciousness; but he is certainly without full self-consciousness, since his attention steeped in a one-sided object, is wanting to all other perceptions that do not cohere with this particular object and therefore also no remembrance of the other aims and interests arises in him which do not touch this object.

  So far as complete self-consciousness includes the memory of all ends and interests which previous Egos have ever had, we often talk of recollection; and where one may correctly say a man was at such and such moment, in such and such an action, without his senses or without self-consciousness, one often says incorrectly he was without consciousness. On the other hand, one often says, when somebody loses or has lost consciousness (e.g., in swoon, stupefaction), he is or is becoming senseless, or is losing self-consciousness; in this case the confusion of the words says too little, as in others too much. Now, however, it is clear that self-consciousness has degrees, for it is most perfect when it merely embraces the Ego of present mental activity, and is the more perfect, i.e., its degree is the higher, the more Egos of past or future action it embraces. For self-consciousness is not indeed, like consciousness, bare, empty form, but it is consciousness of a quite definite content, the self; and as this definite content already belongs to its notion, the degree of self-consciousness must also rise and fall with the degree of this content. Consciousness, on the other hand, leaves its content quite undetermined; it only requires a content at all, if it is to come to manifestation, to reality; in its essence, however, it is pure form, and therefore its notion cannot admit of differences of degree in consequence of the varying nature of the perfectly indifferent content. But if this difference between consciousness and self-consciousness is not yet, or at least not in this respect, cleared up, it is no wonder that, through the frequent confusion of the two notions, one becomes imperceptibly accustomed to believe also in gradual differences in consciousness itself. Still more pardonable becomes the illusion when attention and self-consciousness mingle; when, e.g., I listen to a signal with fullest self-consciousness, knowing that my whole life-happiness is dependent thereon, and the sound of a distant shot finally reaches the ear, I can also fall into the error that the consciousness with which I have now heard the sound is degrees higher than that with which I should have casually heard it as a passer-by. But if one conscientiously deducts the several elements: first the thought that the whole Ego of the future depends on the sense-perception of the next moment, then the thought that it is I myself who am intentionally straining my attention, then the muscular tension and the perception of the attention as such; finally, the strengthening of the sensuous perception, its greater definiteness, &c., one will be obliged to grant that the residue remaining to consciousness as such is the same in both cases, and that the differences only affect partly the content presented to consciousness by the brain, partly self-consciousness.

  After the common illusions of human introspection have been thus laid bare, the assertion will have lost its paradoxical air that the so-called highest and lowest consciousness, that of man and the lowest animals, are as consciousness quite alike, and are only distinguished by the content presented to them. We saw that the simple sensuous qualities, of which all sense-perception is compounded, are reactions of the Unconscious on the material vibrations of the central organ (brain, ganglia, animal and vegetable protoplasm); it is matter of course that the reactions take place according to the kind of the vibrations, turn out the stronger and more vivid the stronger are the vibrations, and are more definitely compounded and more clearly discriminated from other similar sensations, the more definite and varied are the vibrations, and the fewer differences of external stimuli they bring to manifestation in the central organ.

  It is accordingly obvious that the eye of the snail, which, according to exact observations, must literally compensate all the five senses without its being able to distinguish therewith more than bright and dark in general, that this eye causes vibrations in the central organ, which, neither in respect of vision, smell, taste, hearing, and touch, exhibit such great differences as in animals with distinct sense-organs, nor are capable even of considerable variety within each of these special provinces of sensation. But that which gives the power of distinguishing one perception from another confers also definiteness, and therefore perceptions are the more indefinite the lower we descend in the animal kingdom. This indefiniteness is only to be conceived in such a way that in the perception the detail is wanting which in higher organisations determines differences. If we eliminate this detail from perception, it will, however, become poorer in content, for there only remains over the universal, which is ever the same in the midst of difference. All indefiniteness of perception thus depends on poverty, whereas richness in content is the ground of definiteness and distinguishability. We can now say wherein the distinction of an apparently lower consciousness consists: in the slight intensity and the poverty of the content presented to it; in the material scantiness both of the individual perception and idea, and of the whole accessible mass of ideas. When I look at a single point of light on a dark night, I see it sharply defined as a point with a definite degree of brightness and the background in a definite degree of darkness. I also see both in quite definite colours: this is the wealth which lies in this single perception. The snail, however, does not see this point at all, or, if it is very bright, it sees a weak shimmer of light before it, and of all else it sees nothing: that is the poverty of its perception.

  But, moreover, the snail sees with much less intensity, because with less attention. The enfeeblement of attention in all other directions, coincident with concentration in a single one, proves the limited total amount of the same for a definitely constituted being, which manifestly is related to its total nervous energy. Nothing is more obvious than that the total quantity of attention varies in the animal series with the development of the whole nervous system. Thus a snail with the utmost possible strain of attention at a point of light will hardly be able to apply as much attention as I, when I do not in the least think about that point of light at all; for the central organ of the snail stands in any case lower than my corpora quadrigemina which receive the visual impressions, and beyond which they do not reach when the brain is occupied with other matters. We have now a tolerable picture of the consciousness of the lower animals with a single perception; and yet consciousness is always the same, only the matter presented to it is so much weaker and scantier.

  The disproportion is still more increased when we take into account the whole thought-material which underlies comparison, abstraction, and combination; then we soon see that the indefiniteness and obscurity of the single idea is still more exceeded by the poverty of the whole sum of experiences which are at the command of such an animal and by the incapacity of a central organ to retain sufficiently in memory the experiences once had, or at all to work them up into more manageable partial ideas (concepts). This hardly needs further development. The result of it all is the confirmation of the proposition derived from our principle, that consciousness as such, i.e., in its form, is everywhere the same, and is only differentiated by the matter presented to it; for nowhere did we have occasion to ascribe to consciousness itself differences of degree, as we are obliged to do, e.g., in the will, even apart from its content; the principle has thus stood even this final test.

  5. The Unity of Consciousness. —At the close of this chapter the question forces itself upon us, “What is unity of consciousness?” We can, of course, agreeably to our principles, only regard the question here from the empirical side. Thus we cannot refer, for example, to the unity of the underlying individual psychical essence, because we do not yet know anything at all of this psychical existence, its individuality
, and its unity, but, on the contrary, can only learn something of it by answering this question. Moreover, the advocates of indivisible individual souls must allow that even the unity of consciousness may be resolved into a multiplicity of strictly separated and perfectly incoherent consciousnesses, whereas they must acknowledge the unity of the mind underlying these different consciousnesses. I allude only to such examples as Jessen cites in his “Psychology,” of a girl who, after an intense lethargy, had lost all her memory without enfeeblement of her mental faculties and capacity for instruction. She had to begin again to learn her alphabet. The attacks were repeated, and after each the memory of the immediately preceding portion of her life had disappeared, whilst that of the one before the last reappeared in its place unweakened, so that she always resumed her studies as if she had left them off before the last attack but one. This example only presents phenomena in a more striking and complete form, which in a weaker degree and more partial way may be observed everywhere. We can only recognise a unity of consciousness between a past and present moment where in the present there is the memory of this past moment, or where there is at least a possibility of this memory. In strictness one can speak of a real or actual unity of consciousness only in the case of actual memory, whereas with merely possible memory the unity of consciousness is merely possible or potential.

  If we further see what we have in actual memory, what is added to a representation when I know it as a well-known idea or memory, it is, according to B. Chap. vii. vol. i. pp. 305, 306, an instinctive feeling, which, analysed into its discursive moments, has the following meaning:—I have in addition to the main idea a very much weaker contignous idea excited by the former, which I know to be in causal relation with a former similar idea. Place and time of this former idea may likewise be fixed by means of the accompanying circumstances of the same surging up in memory.

  It is thus nothing but the comparison of a present and a past representation, that determines the unity of consciousness between temporally separated moments. The possibility of this comparison is attained by this: that of two present ideas the one represents the present, the other the past; and the latter again becomes possible by this: that I know the present idea to be in causal connection with a former one similar to it. While, now, of the two ideas, the one represents the past, consciousness comprehends in this indivisible act of comparison the representations of the present and past consciousness into one, and therewith becomes conscious of the unity of consciousness for that past and the present representation. To wit, if I have two conscious representations, there exists a consciousness of the one and a consciousness of the other idea; and I should never have the right of maintaining a unity of these two consciousnesses if I could not prove it. But now, when I bring together two ideas for comparison, I merge both consciousnesses in the third consciousness of the comparison, and in this way have brought their unity to immediate intuition. The comparison is thus the moment which first of all makes possible the thought of a unity of consciousness, and with the possibility of comparison the possibility of the unity of consciousness also ceases.

  As we have here seen the act of comparison to be the judge of the unity of consciousness of a past and a present, i.e., temporally separate representations, so does it also decide in respect of spatially separated ideas, i.e., such as are excited by different material parts. A human brain has a certain magnitude, and the representations which arise at one end of it are many inches removed from those arising at the other end; nevertheless we do not doubt the unity of the cerebral consciousness. The reason is simply this: that in the healthy waking state every idea arising anywhere in the brain may be compared with any one arising anywhere else. On the other hand, the ideas of the spinal cord and the ganglia, as they must of necessity exist in reflex movements, &c., in injuries of the viscera and the like, have in general no unity of consciousness along with the cerebral representation; they have rather each their separate conscious existence, since they cannot be taken up into a common conscious act of comparison. Only a few strong sensations of the lower nerve-centres are comparable, and a unity of consciousness possible so far as it is exhibited in common feeling. Whilst for the different nerve-centres of an organism this unity of consciousness is established with stronger stimulation of the one or the other, it is in no way to be established for the nerve-centres of different individuals, unless with partial coalescence of two organisms by abortion, or between mother and fœtus, where echoes of such unity of consciousness are found for strong stimulations.

  The cause of these phenomena is obvious. In the brain, beside the special commissures, innumerable nerve-fibres traverse the whole mass and establish a manifold intimate union of every particle with the rest; the spinal cord has already a much more imperfect union with the brain; the sympathetic nervous system is only connected with it by the single nervus vagus. In individuals which have grown together only more or less casual concrescence of subordinate nerve-strands can take place; in the case of separate individuals all union is wanting. The more perfect is the path between the functional part of the central nerves, the less stimulus it needs to propagate the stimulus of the one to the other unenfeebled and undisturbed; the more imperfect and longer the paths of conduction, the greater the resistances, the stronger must be the stimuli, if they are to be propagated to the other central spot, and the more obscure and more effaced are they on arrival. For him who is accustomed to the endless intermingling of the phenomena of physical vibrations without any mutual disturbance, this mode of viewing the nervous processes, according to which each thought at one spot of the brain is simultaneously telegraphed to all other spots, will not appear strange; it is impossible to interpret the anatomical construction of the brain with its numerous connecting fibres in any other manner. The capability of conduction it is then, in fact, which physically conditions the unity of consciousness, and with which this is proportional. We lay down, then, as a principle: Separate material parts give separate consciousness, a proposition which is as much recommended à priori as the distinct individuals confirm it empirically. As long as the Australian ant is an animal, its fore and after body acts with undivided consciousness; as soon as one has cut it in pieces, the unity of consciousness is abolished, and both parts turn against one another.—We further assume: the comparison of two ideas produced at different places only becomes possible by the vibrations of the one place being carried over to the other unenfeebled and undisturbed; only by the comparison of the two representations is the abolition of their two consciousnesses in the indivisible consciousness of the act of comparison possible; with it, however, we may add, it is also eo ipso given. (The metaphysical condition of the identity of the psychical unconscious substance, which will be discussed in Sect. C. Chap. vii., is here, of course, tacitly assumed. Without it the physical condition of nerve-conduction would be just as vague as the former without the latter.) The Siamese twins refused to play draughts with one another, thinking that this would be as if the right hand should play with the left. The negresses coadjunct at the lower part of the back, who allowed themselves to be exhibited at the beginning of 1873 in Berlin, under the name of the two-headed nightingale, are said to have sympathetic feelings of their mutual sensations in the lower extremities, i.e., possess a unity of consciousness with respect to a certain sensitive area in spite of the duality of their persons. But if one imagined the union of the brains of two men possible by a bridge as capable of conduction as is that between the two hemispheres of the same brain, a mutual and indivisible consciousness, including the thoughts of both brains, would immediately embrace the hitherto separate consciousnesses of both persons; each would no longer be able to distinguish his own thoughts from those of the other; i.e., they would no longer know themselves as two Egoes, but only as one Ego, as my two cerebral hemispheres also only know themselves as one Ego.

  1 This emancipation must not, however, be understood as if the conscious idea hovered, as it were, in the pure ether of the ideal out of al
l relation to the will. This is already sufficiently refuted by the previous expositions of the present book, and will be directly still more evident, if it turns out that the predication of consciousness issuing from the will itself is, at the same time, non-satisfaction of the will, i.e., feeling of pain; that the conscious idea consists of sensuous elementary sensations, and every such sensuous elementary sensation is, at the same time, non-satisfaction of a definite volition. This only is meant by the emancipation of the idea from the will, that the conscious idea, unlike the unconscious idea, alone possible as content of a will realising it (comp. above, p. 58), can and does exist without its being directly evoked by a will which possesses it as a content to be realised; that it is idea pre-eminently free from every effort at self-realisation, but without prejudice to all other possible relations to the will, nay, even without prejudice to the possibility of afterwords becoming itself again content of will.

  1 Through this consequence of the doctrine of the Unconscious, Spinoza’s proposition, that the soul is the idea or representation of the body, receives for the first time a comprehensible signification.