Philosophy of the Unconscious
Page 75
If we briefly epitomise the conclusions of this chapter, there results from the principle of always attaining the proposed end with the least possible expenditure of energy the following:—
(1.) The Unconscious in the production of higher phases of organisation foregoes spontaneous generation, and prefers to employ already existing forms of organisation.
(2.) It does not directly transform the lower form into the higher, but shapes the latter from a favourably constituted germ of the lower kind.
(3.) It takes as small steps as possible, and forms the larger differences by adding together a number of small individual differences.
(4.) It makes use of the individual variations casually arising in generation, so far as such are present, in those directions which answer to its own end.
(5.) For maintaining the variations arising, no matter how, it makes use of natural selection in the struggle for existence, so far as they are of greater service to the organism.
(6.) The Unconscious must (apart from its continuous interposition in every organic formation, thus also in all generation) display a direct activity in the progressive development of the organisation: on the one hand, in order with new germs to call forth the variations that do not accidentally arise; and, on the other hand, to preserve from being again obliterated by crossing the variations that have arisen, which belong to its plan, but do not aid the competition of the organism in the struggle for existence.—
Lastly, it may be remarked that, for the same reason that no spontaneous generation takes place after sexual reproduction has been rendered possible, the development of a new species from a lower one only takes place if the species does not yet, or at least not at this locality, exist. The development of a new species would thus have to be conceived as a process occurring only once, or at least only a few times, at different localities, under similar circumstances, which is empirically confirmed by the favourable results of the most recent investigations concerning the places of origin or centres of diffusion of the species of plants and animals; whilst, on the other hand, after a new species has once arisen, the similar, or but slightly modified reproduction of the same, is the normal and ever-repeated process, till the possible destruction of the species. (According to Darwin, the process of formation of certain higher species from their lower primitive forms must be repeated as long or as often as the external conditions which called it forth the first time last or occur afresh; but this requirement can hardly be brought into harmony with the facts of experience, since it must have recourse for the purpose to the further improbable single appearance of shortly enduring and never recurring circumstances.) However long, then, one may imagine the process of developing a new species to take (hundreds or thousands of years), it will still be an inconsiderably small part of the space of the essentially similar continuation of the formed species (some hundreds of thousands to ten millions of years).
This is a second reason, in addition to those already mentioned above, why so many more similar fossil specimens with distinct specific characters are found than those, which exhibit the transitional stages between closely allied species.
1 Embryology is now one of the most important aids and sources of inquiry for the theory of descent, since we may say generally that every animal in its embryonic development briefly repeats the stages of organisation of the embryonic development of all its direct ancestors. Forms which do not lie in the direct line of descent, but only in side-lines, are never met with; but the development-series even of the direct ancestors, especially of the more remote ones, may be indicated in a form so abbreviated, nay, even proceed by such leaps, that the eye of the investigator only perceives the likeness to the remote ancestors, when he comprehends them by the light of the study of the embryology of intermediate stages of organisation (e.g., Mammal and Ascidian through Amphioxus).
1 Morphologie und Entwicke-lungsgeschichte des Pennatulidenstammes nebst allgemeinen Betrachtungen zur Descendenzlehre, von A. Kölliker. Frankfurt a M. bei Winter, 1872, pp. 26–27, and 30 ff. The whole general introduction to this memoir is a very interesting contribution to the theory of Descent and to the criticism of the theory of natural selection.
XI.
INDIVIDUATION.
1. Possibility and Manner of Effecting Individuation .—If the Essential Being that manifests itself in the world is sole and indivisible, whence comes the plurality of appearing individuals? whence the singularity of each of the same? what is its object? how is it possible?
The answer to these questions has always been a cardinal difficulty for every explicitly monistic philosophy. It was, in particular, the rejection or insufficient answering of the same that always paved the way to the relapse of Monism into a realistic polyism or pluralism (e.g., Leibnitz after Spinoza, Herbart after Schelling and Hegel, Bahnsen after Schopenhauer). Spinoza ignores the above questions as much as the ancients; he dogmatically declares individuals to be modi of the One substance, but the development of the modus from substance, or the demonstration why each modus is distinguished from another and forms a unique existence, he altogether fails to supply. Subjective idealism (Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer) imagines it has done enough when it declares plurality in the world to be subjective appearance, arising through the forms of subjective intuition—space and time—unconcerned that, in the first place, the difficulty is only transferred from the objective to the subjective sphere, but remains just as unsolved here as it was there; and that, secondly, the question remains unanswered how this unique percipient individual, which discriminates itself from every similar individual, is possible according to monistic principles, since either, if it is conceived as one among many, the incomprehensible real plurality is again inconsistently introduced, or however in the other case, on the hypothesis of Solipism, again the limitation of this whole and sole perceiving subject remains incomprehensible.
The latter side of the question was certainly seen by Schelling (Werke, i. 3, p. 683): “But now the problem is just this, How from an action of the absolute Ego the absolute Intelligence, and how again from an action of the absolute Intelligence the whole system of limitation, which constitutes every individuality, may be explained.” The answer follows on the next page: “If now the intelligence remained one with the absolute synthesis, there would indeed be a universe, but there would be no intelligence. If there is to be an intelligence, it must emerge from that synthesis in order to produce it again with consciousness; but this again is impossible without the addition of a special or second to that first limitation, which now no longer can consist in this, that the intelligence in general perceives a universe, but that it perceives the universe precisely from this fixed point.”
I confess that I should envy that man who was able to pick out the truth from this passage and its connections, if he did not already possess it.
As for the Hegelian system, our question unmasks one of its weakest points. According to Hegel, the concept is the sole substance; it is nothing but the concept, and the process of Nature is an objective notional dialectic. On the other side, he himself confesses that the Notion just as little as the word is able to grasp the simple This in its singleness—this individual, which as such one can only show, but not describe. Individual singleness stands outside the range of the concept, and therewith outside that of the Hegelian system, if this will be consistent with itself. Plurality as real phenomenon cannot explain the same, for one can see no reason why, on the dismission of the absolute Idea into Nature, every phase of development of the logical process should have more than a corresponding phase of development of the process of Nature. The dialectical self-splitting of the one into the many yields indeed plurality as pure concept, but not plurality as accident of real phenomena; for Hegel would never have maintained the self-disintegration of a half-crown into many half-crowns or sixpences, and as little as in this real instance would the self-division of the one be applicable to a self-splitting of a world-soul into many real individuals. Real plurality is mo
re than the idea of plurality; it is a sum of individuals, none of which resembles the others, each of which is a This, nameless, sole (as I am nameless, sole), each of which is attainable by no conception, but only by perception.
Whoever has not felt the need and the difficulty of comprehending individuation from the point of view of Monism may securely pass over the first half of this chapter; he would find no interest in it. For him, on the other hand, who hitherto has kept aloof from Monism precisely on account of this more or less distinctly conscious difficulty, and has put up with the pluralism of the real phenomenal world as an ultimate, for him lies in this chapter, taken in conjunction with Chap. vii. C., the centre of gravity of the present book. In fact, pluralism and individualism have a warrant which cannot be under-estimated with impunity; as every improperly neglected moment always revenges itself by a reaction exceeding a justifiable limit. With Fichte the conscious individual still occupies the foreground, but its significance is not that of a characteristic sui generis, but that of the type of a limited absolute intelligence, which is revealed still more distinctly in Schelling; whilst with Hegel even this type is volatilised into the abstract category of the subjective spirit. As concerns the other side of individuality as separate natural existence, with Fichte there is no mention of it at all, since Nature is to him only subjective illusion; with Schelling and Hegel, however, there is plenty of reflection and speculation about abstract natural potencies and their dialectical play, but the significance and the right of the natural individual as such is perfectly ignored, when it is not expressly denied. In the reaction against this one-sidedness of abstract idealism and in the re-erecting of the standard of a realism recognising the plurality of things-in-themselves lies the historical authorisation of the Herbartian pluralism; its truth lies in the assertion that the right of plurality and individuality reaches just as far as reality of existence in general; its untruth lies in failing to perceive the phenomenality of all reality and all existence. Subjective idealism had had the right inkling that reality is only phenomenality, but it had distorted and disfigured this thought by recognising no other than subjective phenomenality, so that plurality sank to only subjective illusion. When, however, one has perceived the existing to be objective appearance or manifestation of the super-existent (i.e., independent of the apprehending conscious subject), or existence of the subsisting, then are reality and (objective) phenomenality perceived to be identical notions; then one, however, also knows that the plurality, whose right reaches as far as the reality of the existing world, has just as this only a phenomenal, not transcendent-metaphysical validity. Schopenhauer obviously steers towards this standpoint, but his adhesion to subjective idealism prevents him from clearing up his notion of the individual objectification of the Will and developing it into that of objective phenomenality; and the want of this latter notion leads him again, in contradiction with his own principles, to allow plurality and individuality to reach also into the transcendent-metaphysical (intelligible individual character and individual negation of the will). From this point it was possible for Bahnsen to set up a system of ethological individualism or metaphysical will-pluralism and to reject Schopenhauer’s Monism, because he saw through the contradictions of Schopenhauer’s system, and yet did not see how otherwise to save the right of individuality. The notion of objective phenomenality introduced by Schelling and Hegel into philosophy, and emphasised especially by Frauenstadt amongst the adherents of Schopenhauer, explains, however, everything that has to be explained in a more satisfactory and less one-sided fashion. Whilst I defend and uphold the uniqueness of the individual and its right within the real world as against abstract Idealism and Monism as energetically as Herbart, I just as decidedly dispute every claim of the individual to a transcendent-metaphysical validity extending beyond the world of objective appearance as unfounded, unwarranted, and presumptuous, and deem even that Pluralism which flatly denies all transcendent-metaphysic behind the real world to be more endurable and philosophical than that which inflates the individual to an eternal transcendent essentiality or substance; for the former merely foregoes all metaphysic in favour of physics, but the latter has a false metaphysic, and that is far worse. As certainly, however, as the former Pluralism satisfies all the justifiable claims of individuality, so certainly does the philosophy of the Unconscious also do this, which accords to the individual precisely the same authority as that unmetaphysical Pluralism, only that it adds to this theory of the real world and its plurality a metaphysic (and indeed, what is here indifferent, monistic metaphysic). The philosophy of the Unconscious is thus the genuine reconciliation of monism and pluralistic individualism, in that it recognises each of the two aspects as authorised, assigns each the sphere appertaining to it (metaphysical or physical-real), and unites both in itself as sublated moments.—
From the previous results of the foregoing chapters the solution of the question placed at the head of this chapter follows without difficulty. We will, however, leave the question, Why is there individuation? for the present undiscussed, and consider only the other, How is it possible on monistic principles?
Stated in general terms the answer runs: “Individuals are objectively posited phenomena, i.e., they are willed thoughts of the Unconscious or particular will-acts of the same; the unity of the essence remains unaffected by the plurality of individuals, which are only activities (or combinations of certain activities) of the one Essential Being.” But to render this very general answer plausible, we must enter into details, and once more picture to ourselves by what combination of what activities an individual arises, and how far each individual must necessarily be different from every other, or unique.
The individuals of higher order arise, as we saw (C. Chap. vi.), by composition from individuals of lower order, with the addition of new activities of the Unconscious directed upon the resulting compound; one must therefore begin with understanding individuation in the individuals of lowest order, i.e., the atoms. Here, according to the present state of the scientific hypotheses, only two different kinds of individuals, repulsive and attractive forces, are to be distinguished; within each of these groups there obtains perfect resemblance between the individuals, with the sole exception of their place.
Only because the atomic forces A and B act differently on the same atoms are they different, and because the lines of action of A and the lines of action of B have distinct foci, this difference is shortly expressed as A and B occupy different places, whilst in strictness force occupies no place at all, but only its effects are locally discriminated. But if one imagined two equal atoms united in a mathematical point, they would not only cease to be distinguishable, but even to be different, for they would cease to be two forces, and would be one force with double the strength.
Here then the application of the answer given above in general terms is in itself clear and intelligible: the Unconscious has at the same time different will-acts, which are distinguished by their content so far as the space relations of their effects are differently represented. But when the will realises its content, these many will-acts enter into objective reality as so many force-individuals; they are the first primitive manifestation of Essential Being. Since every effect of atomic force is represented by the Unconscious as different from every other, thus single, its realisation is of course different from that of every other atomic force, thus likewise single, without prejudice to the circumstance that it is in its nature indistinguishable; the intuitive imagination of the Unconscious distinguishes it, however, without thought in its space relations, as well as one recognises by perception the right glove as right, which no notion and no combination of concepts is ever able to do.
Here we may also remember what was said (C. Chap. i. 3 and 4) on the way in which the Unconscious forms representations. The concept is a result of a process of separation or abstraction, but the Unconscious always apprehends the totality of its matter of representation without condescending to a separation of parts within the s
ame. The concept is a product of discursive thought, a sorry make-shift due to its weakness; but the Unconscious thinks not discursively but intuitively; it thinks concepts only so far as they are contained in intuition as integral and undifferentiated elements, consequently it cannot be surprising if among the intuitions of the Unconscious there are such from which, even for discursive thinking, no concepts can be abstracted; as, e.g., the perception that the actions of the atomic force A must be so directed that their lines of direction should intersect in this point here, those of the atom B, in that point there. Consequently, in the case of atoms, the difference and singleness of the individuals is, in fact, reduced in the most direct manner to the difference and singleness of the ideas which form the content of the acts of will of which the individuals consist, in such wise that to each individual there corresponds a single act of will.
Unfortunately Matter has never been comprehended as a combination of will-acts of the Unconscious, so that the sole example where the comprehension of individuation is really simple was not available. In all other cases, however, where we have to do with individuals of higher order, the comprehension of individuation is rendered difficult by a complicated combination of will-acts, changing every moment, forming the individual.