Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  Looking now at the current which doubtless has most affinity with the nerve-currents, viz., the electrical, we must, in the first place, exclude the mode of origin by mechanical influences (as friction) or heat, because the former would be just the opposite of what we are in search of, and the latter likewise consists of vibrations with considerable mechanical oscillation of the atoms. We must in any case disregard modes of production which depend on displacement of the molecules, and keep to such as require only a rotatory motion of the same, since rotation requires infinitely less application of force than displacement. Here the results of nerve-physiology come to our aid, which show that, whilst the motor-current is traversing the nerves, all the molecules of the latter exhibit an electrical polarity in the same direction, as in the magnet, whilst in the completely indifferent state (which, it is true, does not occur during life) the polarities of the molecules have no definite arrangement, as in non-magnetic iron, and thereby neutralise one another. We learn from these experiments that the nerve-molecules possess polarity, and that the poles, by rotation of the molecules, may be brought into the same direction. As the iron rod, surrounded by a wire, becomes magnetic as soon as a galvanic current traverses the wire, so, if in any way the iron were suddenly magnetised, a galvanic current would be called forth in the wire. In an analogous way, through rotation of the molecules, so that their polarities are turned in the same direction, is a nervous current produced.

  We see in Physics that the polar oppositions of the molecules are the foundations of all the phenomena which we designate chemical, galvanic, frictional-electrical, magnetic, &c.; we have therefore no reason to doubt that many similar phenomena have the same origin, and that one of these is the nerve-current. The rotation of the molecules in the centres is thus the minimum of mechanical work, which is left to the will, and the polarity of the nerve-molecules is the reserved mechanical energy, which liberates the store of mechanical power in the muscles, which is exhausted by prolonged activity, and is again restored in repose through the chemical replacement of material. Thus every organism is comparable to a steam-engine; it is, however, also at the same time stoker and engine-driver, nay, repairer also, and, we shall subsequently see, even its own fabricator.

  As the mobility of the molecules is in all respects greater in the fluid state of matter than in the solid, nerves are semi-fluid; but as, when encountering an external shock, the molecules of fluids do not keep their places, but are subject to considerable displacement, nerves are not quite fluid; and hence structures, which carry on operations analogous to the nervous, are the better fitted for their work, the more they possess such a semi-fluid constitution as well as polarised molecules. Accordingly the gelatinous bodies of the lower aquatic animals, all animal germs, the plastron, the earlier embryonic conditions, the clotted neoplasm, once in a state of plastic fluidity, from which all new formations of the vis medicatrix proceed, and the protoplasm of the lower and higher plants, are adapted to this purpose. The first principles of nature being simple, we cannot doubt that also all other effects of conscious or unconscious will in organic nature depend on the same principle of molecular polarisation, especially as the constitution of the structures, in which the will is most directly manifested, is confirmatory of this supposition. Thus we cannot otherwise figure to ourselves the influence of the will in chemical processes, as in new formations from neoplasm or in the development of the embryo, than as a skilful use of the polarity of the existing molecules, partly in the heart of the formation itself, partly by means of currents conveyed to that quarter, which are generated elsewhere.

  We at the same time rise above the view that the nerves exclusively possess the capacity of conveying the determinations of the will, with respect to which there has been so much dispute. Both the analogies of nerveless animals, as well as the neoplasm and embryo, prove the possibility of voluntary action and sensibility without nerves; but this does not preclude the view, that the nerves are the highest kind of tissue known to us which the will has created to facilitate its action, and that the organism furnished with nerves would as little avoid the employment of the same to mediate its voluntary manifestations, as any one would drive across country instead of along the road. It is, moreover, clear from the foregoing that the power of the individual will could effect infinitely less with the same amount of effort, if the power-engine of the nervous system were not at its command. (Think of the efforts of incompletely paralysed bodily parts.) It would be, however, very hazardous to fix a limit for the exercise of will without the aid of nerves, since the intensity of volition in a certain direction and for a short time can occasionally prove a substitute for an auxiliary mechanism. I shall not point to examples of magic (turning of the magnetic needle by the mere will of the magnetiser and so forth), because they need stronger attestation for scientific purposes; but various circumstances prove clearly enough that the sphere of action of the will, as well as of sensibility, extends even in Man beyond the range of the nerves. For example, the sudden turning grey of the hair on a violent emotion; the ramification of the motor nerve-fibres in the muscles, according to which the muscular fibres themselves must be conductors of the motor current; the sensibility of the skin throughout its entire surface, whilst the tactile papillæ underlie it only here and there; the action of the nerves on the secreting membranes in their whole extent, whilst the nerves can only touch limited parts; further, the circumstance that even nerveless parts of the human body can be rendered sensitive and painful as soon as their vitality, i.e., the mobility and polarity of their molecules, is increased, owing to accelerated flow of blood and relaxation of tissue; thus, e.g., the new flesh formed in healing wounds is in the highest degree sensitive without any nerves, and inflammation of nerveless cartilage and sinews is even much more painful than inflammation of the nerves themselves. Lastly, examples of embryonic malformations show that parts may be formed without the co-operation of the nerves leading to them, e.g., skull-bones without brain, spinal nerves without spinal cord.

  (b.) Volitional Currents in Sensory Nerves.

  One kind of innervation current we have already become acquainted with as the Reflex Action of Attention. It may, however, be just as well called forth and strengthened voluntarily. The concentration of attention on the organs of generation may be followed by the greatest sexual excitement, and hypochondriacs sometimes feel pains in every part of the body to which they direct their attention. It is said not unfrequently to happen that persons about to be operated on imagine they feel the pain of the puncture before the operator’s instrument has actually touched them. If, when the eyes are closed, a finger be slowly brought to the tip of the nose, and the approximation be very gradual, just before actual contact the imaginary contact is experienced as a sort of itching feeling. If I earnestly concentrate my attention on my finger-tips, I become aware of a distinct sensation therein, a kind of tickling also. In all these cases manifestly the presentation in the brain of the expected sensation, combined with the attention directed to the particular nerves, produces a peripheral current, which returns from the periphery to the centre as current of sensation, whether, as in the first examples, the sensation be essentially produced only by the centrifugal current, or, as in the last example, the current only strengthens the ever-present stimuli, which are usually too weak to be perceptible.

  The first case also occurs on occasion of every sensuous perception without sense-impression. The vividness of the idea depends on the strength of the peripheral nerve-current, and this again partly on the interest (participation of the will) in the idea, partly on the individual disposition. There are persons who by voluntary effort can call up visual images, e.g., of a friend, almost with the distinctness of a vision. In others the images always remain pale. If the volitional current flows unconsciously, the recurrent stream of sensation, when sufficiently vivid, presents itself as vision, just as in every dream. I therefore believe that there is no sensuous mental representation in the brain, which is not bound
up with a current of innervation towards the particular sense-organ, although such current may not usually extend far beyond the central ending of the nerves of the organ. I think we must conclude this from the fact that the vision only differs from the actual sensuous presentation in degree, wherefore its mode of origin will likewise only differ in degree. We may also assume that the current of innervation radiates from centre to periphery, and approaches ever nearer the sense-organ itself as the sensuous perceptions are more vividly represented; for persons who perceive indistinctly and weakly feel the strain of attention (which certainly is only a reflex strain of the cutaneous muscles) in the upper part of the head. The greater the faculty of sensuous perception, the more, when attempting to form visual images, does this feeling of tension descend towards the forehead, in the extreme case reaching the eyes themselves, so that the latter feel just as fatigued after a persistent effort of imagination as after a long, steady gaze.

  (c.) The Magnetic Nerve Current.

  The fundamental phenomena of mesmerism or animal magnetism are at length to be looked upon as scientifically accredited. The electrical discharges of the electric ray and eel have long been notorious, and the perception that these effects proceeded from the grey nervous matter was in the main the occasion of the latter being regarded as the essential part of the nervous system. Nevertheless the admission of the perfectly analogous effects of the magnetisers was long resisted, because they were on the whole too weak to be distinctly perceptible to the physicist. I have, however, been repeatedly present at these experiments, and have secured myself from the risk of deception by the most careful investigation of the locality as well as of the person of the magnetiser. If the patient be placed upon an iron bedstead provided with a wire mattress, but in such a way that he is isolated from the metal by a woollen covering, a Leyden jar is in a certain measure produced, of which the bedstead forms one coating, the person lying thereon the other, and by the concurrent flow (influence) of the electricity of the bed towards the isolating surface, the electrical effect of the magnetisation is considerably enhanced. I have allowed myself to be magnetised in this way, and have distinctly perceived an emission of sparks causing a prickling sensation from the hand of the magnetiser as it gently touched my skin, as if through his touch the chain of a weak induction current or of a rotating electrical machine were closed, but more irregular, according to the fluctuating exertion of the magnetiser. Whoever is acquainted with the feeling will know that it is hardly possible to mistake it. Any one that has ever known the skin-sensation thus produced, can without further trial distinguish with certainty the contact of a magnetising hand (the agent exerting sufficient pressure) from a non-magnetising contact, as I have had occasional opportunity to observe in my own person. Apart from the artificial increase of the electrical effect, the nerve-strengthening and vivifying power of mesmerism, stimulating all the vital functions, is well known, as well as the induction of wholesome sleep, and of favourable crises during the same.

  Although the electricity in these phenomena may be only a concomitant or a peripheral conversion of the proper magnetic force, it is still in any case related to these physical forces and the motor nerve current, and probably arises, like the latter, through the alteration of the polar condition of the molecules in the centres. It is, like movement, an indirect effect of conscious will (sometimes also, in the imposition of hands of saints, miraculous cures, &c., quite unconscious), but what exactly, i.e., directly, he does, and how he does it, the magnetiser knows as little when magnetising as on lifting his arm. There intervenes then here, as in all other descriptions of movement, an unconscious will, which brings it about that a magnetic current and no other arises, and that this is concentrated in the hands, and not in any other part of the body. (In order to become acquainted with this group of phenomena in its whole extent, Reichenbach’s “Odic-Magnetic Letters,” and his larger work, “Sensitive Man,” should be consulted.)

  (d.) The Vegetative Functions.

  Sympathetic nerve-fibres probably regulate all the vegetative functions of the organism. Conscious will has no direct influence upon them, but we have seen that this is not the case even with the motor and sensory fibres, but that the direct agent is always an unconscious will. If now the conscious will has any influence at all on vegetative functions, the cases are parallel, and the difference can only lie in the degree of facility with which, through the conscious willing of any effect, the unconscious will is evoked to institute means to bring about this effect. Thus, e.g., if I will a stronger salivary secretion, the conscious willing of this effect excites the unconscious will to institute the necessary means, namely, it generates such currents in the sympathetic fibres which lead from the ganglionic endings to the salivary glands as produce the intended effect. This experiment will succeed pretty well with anybody. In like manner the formation of the secretions in the organs of generation is subject to the conscious will, which, when combined with the above-mentioned voluntary excitement of the related sensory nerves, may even lead, in the case of irritable persons, to ejaculation without mechanical stimulation. Mothers are said to be able to produce through this will a more copious lacteal secretion, if the sight of the child arouses in them the will to suckle. The ability of many persons to blush and to grow pale voluntarily is well known, especially in the case of coquettish women, who make a study of it; and there are, likewise, people who can perspire voluntarily. I now possess the power of instantaneously reducing the severest hiccough to silence by my mere will, whilst it formerly was a source of great inconvenience to me, and frequently would not yield to all the ordinary means. That a pain, e.g., toothache, may sometimes, through an energetic effort to subdue it, be soothed or put an end to, is well known, notwithstanding that, through the requisite attention, the pain is in the first instance increased. In the same way an irritation to cough, which has no mechanical cause, may be permanently suppressed. There have always been people, who have exercised a remarkable power over their bodies, professed jugglers, and such as have cultivated their will-force in other directions, philosophers, magicians, and penitents. From the evidence of these phenomena, I believe that we might possess a far greater voluntary power over our bodily functions, if we had only as much occasion from childhood upwards to institute experiments and to practise ourselves therein as is necessary in the case of muscular movements and mental images; for as children we know as little how to set about bringing the spoon to the mouth as how to increase the salivary secretion. At the same time, however, it is evident that the connecting of the conscious and the unconscious will has been purposely made difficult in this department, because the intervention of the conscious will would generally only be injurious to the vegetative functions and not make matters better, and by such occupation would be uselessly diverted from its proper sphere of thought and external action.

  2. THE INFLUENCE OF CONSCIOUS IDEATION.

  The conscious idea of a definite effect can often, without the conscious will, excite the unconscious will to employ the requisite means, so that the realisation of the conscious idea then appears involuntary. Physiology, which is obliged to take notice of these facts, but does not possess the conception of the unconscious will, sees itself driven to make the absurd assertion, that mere idea without will can be cause of an external event. But if one reflects upon it, one finds that nothing more is in fact thereby affirmed than that the notion “Idea” is in these cases imperceptibly widened to the conception “unconscious will,” as discussed in Chap. iv. A. pp. 124, 125. I therefore do nothing more than call this unobserved extension of the general notion Idea by its right name, and represent it as an independent link in the process, since it must be manifestly inadmissible to introduce into a notion already established the marks of another equally fixed notion in addition to its own.

  In the first line are ranged gestures and looks taken in the widest sense. In the idea which calls forth the look the effect is not at all included, to say nothing of the means for its p
roduction; but the gestures entirely present the appearance of reflex actions, so invariably and uniformly do they follow in all individuals. How conformable to a purpose they are is certainly clear, since without the necessity and universality of the gestures nobody would understand them, and without previous understanding by gestures a word-language would never have become possible, and dumb animals would be deprived of every means of understanding one another; even by far the largest part of those endowed with voice would be deprived of their language. But even among men, wherever we mistrust the speech, we still hold to the expression of the speaker. I dispense myself from an enumeration of the phenomena in question, which may be gleaned from many sources.

  Mimetic movements, which are manifestly likewise reflex actions, form the second group of the phenomena. When we see an orator hotly declaiming, or when we look on at a duel, a fencing-match, a bold leap, or a dance, and are greatly interested in the affair, we make similar movements ourselves, so far as our attitude allows, or at least feel the impulse to make similar movements, even if we suppress it. In the same way the natural man is prone to sing the melody which he hears played. If we see anybody yawning, it is very difficult to avoid yawning ourselves; and even more extensive convulsions, as St. Vitus’s dance, epilepsy, often act infectiously on susceptible persons through the mere view of them; nay, they can even become complete epidemics of a sect or a tribe. Since in all these cases it is no material influence which forms the bridge, it can only be the idea of these movements which is so vividly excited by the spectacle that it rouses the unconscious will to execute them. Inasmuch as this process takes place within a nerve-centre, and the last effective act of will probably also becomes conscious in this centre, it comes under the notion reflex movement.