Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  But however many mechanical contrivances the Unconscious may employ to facilitate its labour, these can never dispense with the continual direct interposition, for they fall according to their very nature into a class of homogeneous cases, whilst in reality each case is distinct from the other; the best-contrived mechanism thus always leaves over a remnant of work, which falls afterwards as before to the direct activity of the Unconscious, and which consists in the complete adaptation to the peculiar nature of the case. As soon as the expenditure of force needed for the setting-up of a machine would become greater than the saving of force attained by the mechanism (which is the case in all combinations of circumstances which by their nature occur but seldom, or where for other reasons a mechanism can only be constructed with difficulty), there of course the direct activity of the Unconscious must display itself without hesitation. Of such a kind are, e.g., the incursions of the Unconscious in human brains, which determine and guide the course of history in all departments of civilisation in the direction of the goal intended by the Unconscious.

  If, now, according to all this, we cannot avoid ascribing to the Unconscious, first, absolute clairvoyance (which answers to the theological notion of omniscience); secondly, an infallible and indubitable logical concatenation of the included data, and the most appropriate action at the most suitable moment (in theological language, omniscience united with supreme wisdom); and, thirdly, a ceaseless intervention at every moment and at every place (theologically omnipresence; one must add omnipresence at all times); if we further consider that at the first moment when the Unconscious became active, thus at the moment of the first positing and disposing of this world, just the same ideal world of all possible conceptions, thus also of all possible worlds and world-goals and world-ends and their possible means rested in the omniscient Unconscious,—if, lastly, we take notice that the chain of final causality cannot from its very nature be conceived interminable like that of bare causality, but must terminate in a final end, because every preceding link of the chain in final causation must be conditioned by the following; thus a completed infinity of ends would have to be included in the idea, and yet all the infinitely numerous final terms would hover as impossible in the air, because they wait in vain for the true end which is to determine them,—we may with justice confide that the world is contrived and guided as wisely and well as is possible; that if, among all possible ideas, that of a better world could have lain in the omniscient Unconscious, certainly the better one would have come to pass instead of the present one; that the unerring Unconscious neither could have been deceived in positing this world as to its value, nor that in the omni-temporal omnipresence of the Unconscious a pause in its action could ever have been possible, since by such a remissness in the government of the world the better-founded world would have of itself deteriorated. Consequently, we can only regard the assertion of Leibniz as perfectly justified, “that the existing world is the best of all possible ones.” To be sure, the path by which we arrive at the preponderating probability of this assumption is an indirect one. To aim at it by a direct path is indeed a manifest impossibility, for how could we comprehend the infinitely many possible worlds, how sufficiently know the existing ones, to compare it exhaustively with these? It was certainly, however, possible for us to prove the existence of those qualities in the Unconscious in consequence of which it must overlook the possible worlds with a glance as it were, and of these worlds realise that one which attains the most rational end in the most efficient manner.

  But now, although in this respect we agree with Leibniz, we can yet by no means approve of his conception of evil, which he has adopted from Athanasius and Augustine, and which consists in explaining it as something purely privative, or a less degree of the good. Were it declared to be something negative in the true sense of the word, rightly understood, one could only approve this, for pleasure and pain, good and evil are in fact related as positive and negative, i.e., as thesis and antithesis; only it is to be remarked that the negative has exactly as much reality as the positive; that it is purely a matter of the subjective point of view, consequently, as this is self-chosen, an arbitrary affair, which of two opposites is termed positive, which negative.

  But Leibniz had also too fine and too mathematical a head to attempt, from the negativity of evil, to show its unreality. Since, however, he is only concerned to prove this in majorem Dei gloriam, he does violence to the facts, and ascribes to evil not a negative, but a merely privative, and indeed relatively privative character, i.e., he asserts: “Evil is not the contrary, but the defect of the good, and indeed only absolute evil could be the absolute defect of the good; every relative evil, however, is only a relative defect, i.e., a less degree of the good.”

  This is an actual untruth, for from the proposition it would at once follow that I must prefer the union of the evil a with the good A to the possession of the latter alone, since indeed the evil a is not by a long way absolute evil, i.e., zero-evil, but only a less degree of good, thus increases the degree of good contained in A by its own good. The non plus ultra of madness would be, however, according to this view, when somebody to avoid a great evil foregoes a good, and the man who at the same time suffers in the extremest degree all conceivable bodily and mental torments would have to be called happy even at this moment compared with the insensitive state of one under chloroform, to say nothing of the peaceful sleep of death. To such unnatural perversions does a false hypothesis lead, that is invented for the sake of certain foregone conclusions.

  If we inquire, however, concerning the motive in whose interest it was set up, it is remarkable that this proves to be mistaken, and therefore the whole hypothesis superfluous.

  It used to be thought that there lay in the existence of a real evil a contradiction to the perfect world. Much mischief has at all times been wrought by the word “perfect.” Already Plato (Timæus, 7) and Aristotle regarded the world as a sphere, and the astronomical movements as circular, because the sphere is the most perfect form, and circular movement the most perfect movement; and in old manuals of artillery, too, one may read that balls are used for shot because the ball is the most perfect shape.

  If “perfect” has any sense at all, it can only be “the best of its kind,” for nothing can of course be better than possible; and only in this sense would one have grounds for regarding the world as possible. But now another notion was substituted unperceived for that of perfect, the immaculate or faultless, representing an absolute value, filling the possessor with untroubled blessedness. For such a perfection of the world, however, not the very least particle of evidence was offered; it was a baseless supposition, the result of confusion of ideas. It was supposed the best possible must also be good, and it was not at all considered that the best possibility of a thing does not say anything whatever as to its goodness; that it therefore may be as bad as one can imagine, nay, that in certain cases the extreme of goodness and the extreme of badness is precisely identical, namely, when only one case is possible, or even when all possible cases equal one another in goodness. Thus, then, because this world is the best possible, it may still be thoroughly bad, and since the best possibility says nothing at all as to its goodness, the strongest proof of its badness can never become an objection to its being the best possible, and consequently the refutation of these objections never can become a support to the assertion of its being the best possible, are therefore in this respect quite superfluous.

  Only if the defects and worthlessness exhibited prove either the pursuing of a reprehensible purpose or an application of unsuitable means to demonstrably good ends, only then would they establish a doubt of the all-wisdom of the Unconscious, and thereby indirectly, but only indirectly, also of the best possible character of the world. This is, however, the case neither as regards evil, nor as regards the morally bad, nor as regards the pleasant life of the immoral and suffering of the virtuous; the ends to which these circumstances would be inappropriate means must be the rule of univers
al felicity, morality, and justice. As regards morality and justice in particular, both have only an importance from the point of view of individuation, i.e., they belong only to the world of appearance, not to its essence. Individuation requires as fundamental instinct for the preservation of individuals, thus as fundamental condition of their possibility, egoism; without egoism no individuation; with egoism necessarily direct injury of another for one’s own advantage, i.e., wrong, wickedness, immorality, &c. All this is therefore a necessary unavoidable evil for the sake of individuation, as I have already shown in Chap. viii. A., vol. i. p. 190, in the department of organic arrangements, that certain inevitable evil conditions must be borne in spite of their inappropriateness for certain ends, because their avoidance would be inappropriate for still more important ends.

  The wisdom of the Unconscious is therefore only to be admired, which, in the first place, has placed in the human breast as counterpoise to the necessary egoism those other instincts like compassion, benevolence, gratitude, feeling of approval and instinct of retaliation, which serve for the averting of much wrong and production of positive benefits, and of which the retaliatory instinct and the feeling of approval in conjunction with the instinct to form communities produce, after the transference of retribution to the state, the idea of justice, which now on its part makes the desistance from wrong by prospective punishment an affair of egoism, so that this annuls itself by its own excesses.

  But quite apart from this admirable arrangement morality and justice are always only ideas, which have a significance merely in regard to the behaviour of individuals to one another, or to the corporations formed of individuals, but applied to the inner being of the individuals, i.e., to the One Unconscious—apart from the form of its manifestation—become meaningless. But now, since the All-One can in the last resort only be so far interested in the world as it takes part in it, inheres in it with its essence, and since the form of the manifestation is indeed an important point of transition, but apart from its reaction on the Essential Being itself cannot possibly be a final end; so will also morality and justice as formal ideas only be capable of estimation in regard to their teleological value for the Unconscious, according to that standard which exclusively regards their effect on its essence.

  This, however, is only given by the sum of pleasure and pain produced by morality and immorality, by justice and injustice, in all the participating individuals acting or suffering, for these only are altogether real, not like morality and justice, mere ideas of consciousness, and the Unconscious is the common subject, which feels them in all the different consciousnesses. Thus not in itself can moral action have a value for the Unconscious, but only so far as it lessens the sum of the sorrow to be felt by it; not in itself, also not for the sake of morality can justice have a worth, but only so far as it diminishes the woe to be felt by diminution of immoral action. Although, therefore, morality and justice, as such, cannot be ends in the world-process, they might well be so for the sake of happiness, if this, as an object directly concerning the essence of the Unconscious, may be regarded as end, which might well be supposed. As ends in such relative sense, however, morality and justice may certainly be regarded without being contradicted by the facts, since, indeed, the already mentioned instincts, but especially the ever-improving administration of justice, must be recognised as means to the diminution of immoral and unjust action. They must, however, entirely lay aside their claims to absolute validity, and content themselves with a very subordinate relative importance, to which is to be added that, as immorality is an unavoidable evil, without which no individuation is possible, so the demand for a direct divine administration of justice is a piece of theological unreason, which for the sake of an extremely small utility would continually put the laws of the world out of joint. Of happiness, i.e., the greatest possible diminution of pain and the greatest possible enhancement of pleasure, one would certainly think that it must be something affecting the essence of the Unconscious itself, altogether real, eo ipso end, especially since there is no other subject for the feeling of pain and pleasure than the one Unconscious; in conformity with this we do also, in fact, see a number of preparations taken for the warding off of pain and the enhancement of pleasure.

  Just as little can we deny that on the supposition of individuation and of the egoism connected therewith, the inevitable necessity of pain in the struggle for existence and in the death of the individual is given; yet we find a number of facts that appear inappropriate as regards happiness, and only become intelligible when the other ends which they serve, e.g., perfection of consciousness, &c., are more important than happiness; nay, this is even the case with individuation itself. But now we cannot at all understand how there should be an end that could take precedence of happiness, since nothing could more immediately affect the essence of the Unconscious than this. We cannot comprehend how there could be anything that would reward a sacrifice of happiness except the prospect of a higher happiness, or that could repay the taking on oneself of a pain except the prospect and avoidance of a greater pain; otherwise it would only be driving the teeth into one’s own flesh. If then happiness is actually to be the supreme end, there can be only such sufferings as are unavoidable, in order to attain on another side, or in a later stage of the process, a so much higher happiness, or at least to obviate still greater, more extensive, or more protracted sufferings. But if there were no prospect of this, the existence of a world-process, or of a world at all, would not be rationally intelligible, and the attainment of God knows what other ends could afford no rational ground for the assumption of a pain exceeding the pleasure.

  Here now is the point where we again come back to Leibniz, for it would indeed be too surprising if the confusion of ideas between the perfect world as best possible, and the perfect world as altogether good and faultless, had not, in the case of so fine a mind as Leibniz, a hidden support justifying the drift of the “Theodicy” in a certain fashion. This, however, is certainly discoverable; for not, as is asserted, to show the supreme excellence of the world did Leibniz seek to enhance its worth by the privative character of evil and the bad, but to justify the Creator on account of his creation.

  To wit, under all possible worlds the case is not included that no world be created, just because no world is also no world, thus also no one of possible worlds; should it now turn out that the existing world is worse than none, the reproach would fall on the Creator why he at all created it, since it would indeed have been more rational to create none. Then would the creation as such, altogether apart from how it turned out, owe its origin to an irrational act, and one would have then the choice either to assume that the Reason of the Creator had no part in this irrational act, and that only the task fell to it to continue and carry out in the best possible manner the original decision made without its participation; or, however, to grant that the Wisdom of the Creator, unquestionable in details, committed on the large scale a fundamental error, and consequently became perfectly unfaithful to itself, namely, if one wishes to sustain the assertion that in that original act the totality of the Creator participated, thus also his reason. The second hypothesis is too monstrous; how could the Supreme Wisdom be so faithless to itself as just to be guilty of the greatest unreason at the most important moment? But Leibniz would and could just as little have adopted the first supposition, because he recognised no plurality of attributes in God. Consequently it only remained for him to secure himself in advance against the possibility that this world could have turned out worse than none, and for this purpose he invented the theory of the privative character of evil.

  We, who seek before all to maintain an unprejudiced attitude in this inquiry, shall in the next chapter try to solve the question empirically whether this world is to be preferred or postponed to its non-existence. Should then the latter be the result, we shall not seek to evade the consequence that the existence of the world owes its origin to an irrational act, shall however not assume that Reason itself has sudden
ly become irrational in this one point, but that this act was only consummated without reason, because Reason had no part in it. This is possible to us, because we recognise two activities in the Unconscious, of which the one, the will, is just the inherently illogical (not antilogical, but α-logical), irrational. As we have already found that all real existence owes its origin to the will, it would, even a priori, be only wonderful if this existence were not as such irrational.

  But whatever the decision may be, in no case can an objection be drawn from it to the all-wisdom of the Unconscious, and to the proposition that of all possible worlds the existing one is the best.

  END OF VOL. II.

  PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS.

  METAPHYSIC OF THE UNCONSCIOUS–Continued.

  XIII.

  THE IRRATIONALITY OF VOLITION AND THE MISERY OF EXISTENCE.

  NATURE OF THE PROBLEM.

  THE object of this chapter is to inquire whether the being or the non-being of this present world deserves the preference. And here, more than at any other stage of our inquiry, must we crave the reader’s indulgence, since a tolerably exhaustive treatment of the subject would require a book to itself. In this place our exposition must be rather of the nature of an episode, both on external grounds and more particularly because the result of this inquiry, although important for the clearing up of the ultimate principles of Philosophy, has no direct bearing on the main theme of the work as proclaimed in its title, “The Unconscious.” Nevertheless, in a short examination, presenting many new points of view, I hope to afford suggestions even to the opponents of the opinions here advanced, which may to a certain extent compensate them for the perusal of this digression.