Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  P. 71, last 1.—These remarks must suffice as a justification that no other term than “Will” has been selected for the designation of the single principle undoubtedly underlying all the manifestations of the volitional sphere. This term, rightly hit upon by Schopenhauer, only met with such violent opposition in the philosophy of the schools, because the psychology of the latter was entirely confined to the department of conscious psychical activity, and aimed at detaching this as something specifically higher and alien from its unconscious natural basis, so that the extension of a term chiefly borrowed from conscious mental life to unconscious psychical functions appeared to it a crime against the majesty of the mind already artificially disengaged from Nature. The more the doctrine of the essential identity of the conscious mind with unconscious Nature has gained acceptance, the more admirers and imitators Schopenhauer’s use of the expression “Will” has found. (Comp. Göring, “System der Kritischen Philosophie,” Leipzig, Voit & Co., 1874, part i. chap. iii., especially p. 68–71, where various objections to the conception of unconscious will are refuted.)

  P. 74, 1.34.—If recent investigations have shown that in certain parts of the cerebral hemispheres there are also found motor nerve-endings, yet the following sufficiently weighty arguments taken by themselves are not thereby affected.

  P. 77, 1.2.—In order that a movement may ensue correctly, i.e., in the right proportion of the intensity of all its components, a clear perception of the position of the particular bodily parts must not only be present at the beginning of the movement, but also during the successive moments of execution; it is, however, requisite for this that both the sense of touch as well as the muscular sense (or muscular feeling) be correctly functional. Only when the right feeling of the position of the parts is given (for the rest, this feeling need not take place in the cerebrum, but will usually have its material substratum only in the cerebellum, optic thalami, or corpora striata), only then can the degree of motor innervation be rightly estimated, and be controlled by a comparison of the perceived feeling of muscular movement during the nearly completed movement with the muscular feeling anticipated by the idea, i.e., be strengthened, or hindered, or modified during action. Thus undoubtedly the muscular feeling anticipated by the idea (but only through the controlling comparison with the muscular feeling perceived before and during movement) can serve as regulator of movement, but the regulator is something different from the producing or impelling factor, and from that which directs the impulse of innervation to definite nerve-endings and determines the quality of the movement. Maudsley calls the latter element “motor intuition or percept” distinguishing it (Physiol, of Mind, p. 465) just as much from the conscious representation of the intended movement as from the muscular feeling, and assumes that the receptive muscular feeling is indeed necessary for its origin and elaboration (in man perhaps, certainly not in animals), but that it is necessary neither for the latent existence nor for the active function of the motor intuition, inasmuch as the necessary regulation by the muscular sense may be provided for by another sense, e.g., the visual sense (comp, above in the Appendix, p. 261–262). Maudsley holds the intervention of the intuitions of movement to be just as indispensable in the reflex action following on a sense-perception as in voluntary movement after a conscious idea, and regards it as self-evident that these motor intuitions are unconscious (“Phys. and Path. of Mind,” pp. 177 and 187). By the latter, however, he understands only molecular predispositions, that are functional without consciousness, at least without coming into the consciousness of the cerebral hemispheres. That such predispositions co-operate in the production of voluntary movements at the most diverse places of the central organs of the nervous system is, of course, not to be disputed. Indeed, in the complicated action of lifting the finger, every nerve-fibre and every ganglion-cell which is irrigated by the current of innervation issuing from the cerebrum displays its special inherited or acquired molecular powers, and only by such participation of the subordinate nerve-centres does it become possible also in voluntary movements for a single impulse of innervation issuing from the cerebrum to bring about so complex a result of aptly compounded muscular actions. The main difficulty still remains, how the ideational cells in the cerebral hemispheres are to send forth, conformably to the ideal content of the particular ideas, impulses of innervation, which are distinguished not only by the intensity and quality of the innervation, but also by the different direction of the emission, so far, namely, as the terminations of the fibres to be in each case affected are to be sought at different places of the cerebrum. It is the translation of the ideal matter of representation (the words, “little finger” or “fore-finger”) into mechanical action, which will for ever render futile all mere mechanical explanations.

  P. 80, 1. 14.—In a depreciatory criticism in “Ausland,” 1872, No. 40, in which J. H. Klein, from the standpoint of natural science, breaks his staff over the Philosophy of the Unconscious, the foregoing passage is particularly cited as a glaring proof of the frivolous superficiality and worthlessness of my work (p. 939), and Darwin’s exact method of investigation held up to me as a model (p. 943). Here Herr Klein has only made the little mistake of overlooking that, precisely in the point attacked, not only Darwin entirely agrees with me, but also the most important of the examples quoted (as well as those on p. 81) are borrowed directly from Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” Herr Klein further warns every one against a philosopher who so far contradicts himself as to assert at the beginning of a chapter that different instincts appear with a like bodily constitution in DIFFERENT species, and at its close tries to prove why within THE SAME species like instincts must follow from like bodily constitutions (p. 941). “May God protect exact science from such superficiality!” (p. 939).

  P. 102, 1. 18.—The garden spider goes into the rain-corner of its web a day before change of weather, and begins a day before the return of fine weather, perhaps already in the midst of rain, to examine its web. “Fine weather, however, does not then last long. Sometimes the spider pulls its web to pieces, and then builds an entirely new one. This is a sure sign of fine weather. With more exact observation it may be discovered that the web is not always similar; its meshes are now wider, now narrower. If they are wide, it is a sign that fine weather will at the most last five days, but if they are close, one may safely reckon on eight fine days” (“Ausland,” 1875, No. 18, p. 360). One easily sees that for the catching of flies the closer web is certainly the more advantageous, but that in consideration of the destruction of the web by rain and wind there is necessary for the spider a certain frugality in the employment of the productive power of its spinning glands, which is estimated according to the future state of the weather.

  P. 131, 1. 27.—The sensation of black is, namely, the sensation of that process of chemical restitution or recomposition of nervous matter which is opposed to the process of consumption or decomposition appearing in consciousness as sensation of white (according to Hering’s physiological theory of light and colour, comp. “Naturalist,” 1875, No. 9). The chemical recomposition of all nervous matter (and especially of the conducting fibres) is, however, stimulated and guided by centrifugal currents of innervation from the particular centres, and we become partially conscious of this current of innervation in sense-nerves terminating in the cerebrum as attention (comp. above, p. 282–284). It is thus one and same thing whether we say: In nerve-fibres without terminal organs of visual perception, or in the parts of the retinal image represented by no primitive nervous fibres the corresponding recomposition is wanting, because the external occasions to decomposition are wanting; or whether we say: When centrifugal sense-stimuli are never conducted, no centrifugal current of innervation can come to pass, which, indeed, must first arise reflectorially.

  P. 139.—I can now no longer look upon the example quoted as stringent proof of what should be proved at this place; for in fact, even in the normal state, besides the one main path of reflexion (which leads by the shortest rout
e from the place of insertion of the sensory to that of the motor nerve in the grey matter of the spinal cord), there exist a number of side-paths of greater or less resistance, which are brought into requisition according to the varying amount of the stimulus and the irritability. If, now, the main path is destroyed, the branch paths become functional, when either the applied stimulus is adequate or the irritability of the spinal cord sufficiently increased. (The latter takes place partly by means of strychnine, partly by the separation of the spinal cord from the brain and its inhibitory influences.) But it is noticeable that the side-paths pass through more central places of grey matter the more circuits they make, and that every passage of the excitation through grey matter (on account of the inhibitory influences and specific stores of energy ready for liberation contained in the ganglion-cells) is no longer simple conduction, but itself again a reflexion.

  The greater circuit, therefore, a stimulus makes before it again emerges as motor reaction, the more complicated becomes the composition of the total reflexion from a whole series of simple reflexes, in each of which the problem of the inner psychical aspect and purposiveness of the reflex is repeated. Consequently, if the above example does not directly prove what it ought to prove, it yet tells far less for the opposite purely mechanical conception, but leaves the problem recurring at every moment always open. But this problem is hereby resolved, that the purposiveness of the reflex mechanisms has itself been gradually brought about, and is teleologically modifiable; that the existing dispositions or accessory mechanisms have themselves only arisen through a sum of purposive functions, which were possible without these mechanisms; and that they continue to readjust themselves by suitable modification of the functions, which with frequent repetition produce a modification in the existing molecular dispositions.

  P. 142, last 1.—Compare this chapter with the Appendix, especially Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, and 11.

  P. 157, 1. 6.—The conspicuous statements are taken from Burdach’s “Physiology.” If in the given form they do not appear altogether tenable before the tribunal of the physiology of the day, this does not alter the general fact under discussion. It is precisely modern physiology which sees itself more and more driven to the recognition of vicarious functions, and biology finds in the theory of descent and the gradual differentiation of the various organs from original homogeneous tissues the key to the possibility of those occurrences, which appear from this point of view as a kind of ancestral reminiscence on the part of the tissue of a phylogenetic period of development, when the division of labour in the organism had not yet progressed so far.

  P. 161, 1. 2.—The preceding passage, which already appeared in the first edition of this work, is the clearest proof how little they have understood the purport of my theory who imagine I desire in any case to supersede or set aside physico-chemical explanation employing efficient material causes by metaphysical explanations. Nothing is further from me than an undertaking so senseless and so inconsistent with the spirit of modern science. On the contrary, no speculative philosopher has ever so readily acknowledged the independent claims of Physical science and rated their value as highly as I myself, who hold it to be the undoubted and hopeful task of physical science to investigate the efficient material causes of material phenomena, and who esteem it the “duty” of the investigator of Nature, as such, not to be led astray in this search after efficient material causes by the intermixture of metaphysical, teleological, or other principles of explanation. This recognition of physical science in the department of material phenomena and their causal connection cannot, however, blind me (like some “modern” philosophers) to the perception that neither do material phenomena exhaust the phenomenon of cosmic existence, nor the causal connection, as such, the cognition of the material phenomena in their property of uniformity; that thus beyond natural science and its solutions yet other problems await solution. Now so far as a natural philosopher claims to be at the same time “homo sapiens,” i.e., a cultured and thoughtful man, one must require of him that he be conscious of the limits of his special science and their non-coincidence with the limits of human knowledge in general, and foster even a certain general human interest for more general philosophical efforts. On the other hand, it is not to be required of any man who does not claim to be a scientific specialist that, in occupying himself with certain problems, he should especially aim at extending the present field of natural scientific knowledge, i.e., search after a causal explanation of material phenomena by material causes beyond the measure of the enlightenment afforded by contemporary science. He will leave this side of the scientific physical problem of humanity to the specialists, and be by no means hindered by this renunciation, but rather placed in a better position to devote his full powers in a fruitful way to the other side of the problem, which just as little allows of neglect. But when natural philosophers so much mistake the state of affairs, that they account any application of philosophical principles of explanation and every personal renunciation of independent investigation in the sphere of natural science as a kind of sin against the Holy Ghost, one can only as much lament such a professional limitation of the field of view as the terrorism which many champions of this school exert on public opinion, not without a certain success in confusing the public mind as to what really constitutes the genuine “scientific spirit.” It seems high time to openly protest against this terrorism, and to point out earnestly and emphatically to the credulous victims of popular scientific lectures and journals, that physical science and its strict inquiry into material causes is always only one aspect (and that, too, subordinate to the mental sciences) of science in general. Otherwise there is danger lest physical science may in our own time strive after an autocracy just as unjustifiable, and, if possible, still more dangerous, than that actually possessed by theology in the Middle Ages.

  P. 181.—Maudsley says in his “Physiology of the Mind,” p. 118, “The idea that vomiting must take place when a qualmish feeling exists will certainly hasten vomiting, and there is a very remarkable instance in the Philosophical Transactions of a man who could for a time stop the motion of his heart by composing himself, and then either conceiving vividly or directly willing what was to happen. There are examples of the influence of ideas upon the involuntary muscles, and they accord with what has been previously said of the subordination of the organic nerve-centres to the cerebro-spinal system. Some people even are able, through a vivid idea of shuddering or of something creeping over their skin, to produce a cutis anserina or goose’s skin. The immediate effect of the idea in this case, however, is probably to excite the appropriate sensation, which thereupon gives rise to the sequent phenomena.

  “Examples of the action of ideas upon our voluntary muscles are witnessed in every hour of our waking life. Very few, in fact, of the familiar acts of a day call the will into action: when not sensori-motor, they are usually prompted by ideas.”

  The unconscious influence of fancy in dreams is very clearly manifested even in those persons who are not sufficiently nervous in the waking state to collect decided experiences in this respect in their own person, where, e.g., the dream-idea of being injured or wounded at particular parts of the body can excite clear local sensation of pain, which disappears on waking.

  Although I think I am able to give a thoroughly natural explanation of cutaneous bleedings by the influence of fancy, yet in presence of the religious vertigo which has recently again manifested itself in connection with this subject, truth requires the admission, that, according to my more exact information, no case has hitherto been established where the phenomena in a stigmatic have been scrutinised and pronounced spontaneous bleeding by physicians unprejudiced (i.e., inaccessible to Catholic sacerdotal influence) and of the first scientific rank. On the contrary, several cases have been made public where such an inquiry has proved the object of religious superstition to be the result of an illusion (comp. “Deutsche Klinik,” 1875, No. 1–3; “Louise Lateau’s Three Predecessors in Westphalia,” by
Dr. Brück, Member of the Sanitary Board). It is at the same time by no means necessary to imagine deceit in the ordinary sense, although its possibility is not excluded. The persons of whom such bleedings have been related are almost without exception hysterical women, with thoroughly ruined nervous systems and more or less deranged mental constitutions, who are swayed by perverted impulses, and in regard to the usual significance of their actions cannot be called accountable. The instinctive cunning and love of dissimulation in the female character, which in such individuals is for the most part abnormally developed previous to their illness, is in the condition of hysteria directed to apparently quite senseless objects, and often calls forth an astonishing ingenuity in order to deceive in a perfectly purposeless way even the nearest. It is quite common for the natural feminine vanity to throw itself in such cases upon the morbid condition itself, in order to arouse interest through the unusualness of its phenomena, and not rarely is united with this the perverted impulse of self-injury and physical self-torture, in order to revel and luxuriate in the imagination of an imposed martyrdom. Even the soberest and calmest spectators are usually almost impotent in presence of such hysterical derangement; one may imagine how easily a sympathetic environment may strengthen the whims of the patient, and convert them into real fixed ideas. Over and above this, there is usually found in a family where such a morbid character arises an hereditary disposition, which appears in less degree also in other members of the family. If, then, a mother or sister gives herself up to admiring and fostering the perversities of the sick person, she not only confirms her in her delusions, but probably helps the realisation of her hysterical tendencies, i.e., becomes an accomplice in the eventual delusion. Now as madness in the female sex—both real and hysterical madness—for the most part gravitates only in two directions, in the sexual or in the religious (or in both simultaneously), it is evident that nothing must be more suited to strengthen and to guide into special channels such perverted tendencies than a religious exaltation, and specially the amalgamation artfully nourished by the Catholic Church of sexual excitement, delight in cruelty, and religious ecstasy, caused by the ardent absorption of the phantasy in the tortures of the heavenly bridegroom. Add the priest, who supports the unfortunate one in her delusion, and probably declares the self-inflicted injuries, into which the spiritual revelling in martyr-agonies explodes in the state of overstrain, to be symbolic signs of divine grace, then the sick person readily enough believes she is following a direct divine behest by frequently evoking these symbolic marks, and may very easily, in spite of her objective fraud, have the firm subjective conviction of being a selected instrument of divine grace when she sees the religious effects which she exerts on the credulous who flock to her. Everywhere where priests are behind the scenes one may assume it probable at the outset that this is the true state of the case, and the probability of an objective delusion becomes certainty if, beside the stigmatisation, other phenomena are related which contradict the laws of organic life (e.g., the year-long abstinence from food in the waking state). But it is not these unfortunates who should be relegated as impostors to the house of correction, where several of them have been incarcerated, but the priests, to whose shameless love of domination even the morbid obscuration of the human mind serves as a welcome means to more surely befool the masses they have cunningly stupefied.—For the rest, these remarks are not to be taken as deliverances on the possibility of spontaneous cutaneous exudations, but only to protect myself from being quoted as sponsor for ultramontane sacerdotal craft.