Wundt expresses the thoughts just presented as follows:—“The union offered by colligation” (aggregation, comprehension) “is a purely external one, in which the united sensations are preserved as individual sensations. But the synthesis, in blending these intimately united sensations by the preparatory process of colligation, produces a third element, which was not yet contained in the individual sensations as such. Synthesis is, therefore, the strictly constructive element in perception; it educes from the unrelated existing sensations something new, which undoubtedly contains in itself the sensations” (but now no longer like the mere colligation as connected individual sensations), “but yet is something quite distinct from the sensations.” (“Beitr. z. Theorie d. Sinneswahr.,” p. 443.) These generally valid propositions he makes more precise on the following page, in reference to the synthesis occurring in the formation of the spatial visual perception:—“ Thus the synthesis in perception is a creative activity, in that it constructs space, but this creative activity is by no means a free one; but the impressions and the outer impulses co-operating in the synthesis necessarily compel space to be reconstructed with complete fidelity.”
That school of empiristic physiology, which endeavours to represent as indispensable a construction (or, with reference to the retinal image, reconstruction) of space consequent on the given sense-impressions by a creative synthetic function of the mind, chiefly employs the artifice of evoking the visual space-perception by help of the sense of touch, and the tactile space-perception by help of the sense of sight. Now, it is doubtless correct, that both senses, in the finer elaboration of their space-perceptions, essentially support one another; still, it would be impossible that both together should create space, unless it were already concealed in each singly. Thus, experience shows that persons born blind can acquire and elaborate, even more finely than seeing persons, the space-perceptions of the sense of touch without help of vision, and that, on the other side, persons born blind who have been operated on, on obtaining their sight, before any attempt to bring the new visual perceptions into relation with the tactile perceptions familiar to them, apprehend at once the visual space of at least two dimensions.—In the next place, the opponents of the creative production of space attempt the same sophism within each of the two senses, in the relations between the field of sight at rest (or field of touch) on the one side, and the feelings of movement of the eyeball (or the tactile members) on the other. But now it is also here at once clear that, if either the quiescent field of vision or of touch, or the feeling of muscular movement, does not possess extension, no combination, however ingenious, of these non-spatial sensations can originate space-extension without the addition of a creative constructive synthesis. Even here, these “empirics” have empiricism against them; for although, in reference to the sense of touch, the experimental separation of tactile sensation and motor feeling has not yet been accomplished, yet the fact is established, that in persons born blind, who have been operated upon, the superficial extension of the visual impressions is given from the first moment of seeing, and is by no means only gradually acquired by numerous attempts at combining the sensations of the optic nerve with the feelings of movement of the eyeball. But even supposing that it were true, that the union of passive sensation and feeling of movement offered sufficient material to the mind (in local signs) for the space-construction, yet, even then, a creative synthesis would still be required, because sensations with differences merely qualitative and intensive could never attain without it to an indivisible extensive perception. But as the feeling, excited by the vibrating molecules of the brain, can only be discriminated qualitatively and intensively (comp. p. 339), and in no case can any relations whatsoever exist between the space of their position or movement and the space of the image of perception (comp. 335, 336), the creative synthetic function must be a purely spiritual function of the Unconscious.
We may therefore say, in direct opposition to Schopenhauer, that the sole ground for the assumption of the a-priority of the space-intuition is the impossibility of conceiving the same to have arisen by mere brain-function. If Schopenhauer were right, that space, as a form of intuition, is merely a predisposition in the organisation of the brain, which reacts on the stimulus of visual or tactile sensations in the manner peculiar to it, this cerebral predisposition might be explained according to the biological theory of descent by a transmission confirmed and perfected from generation to generation, only the genesis of the space-intuition in the lowest animals and vegetable animals (a far greater marvel than the same phenomenon in human consciousness), and the gradual expansion of this original germ being left to the direct action of the Unconscious. A predisposition for the more many-sided and finer development of the space-producing sensation, augmented by transmission, I, too, assume in the brain; but this only concerns the material which excites the unconscious mind to the position of space, and determines the How of the space-intuition in the individual—in no case can it relieve the mind of the spontaneous act of giving a space-extension to the qualitatively ordered material, i.e., the spontaneous reconstruction of space, but only facilitate it and enrich its content. We have now got to understand, I think, how it happens that only the visual and tactile senses, but not the other senses, can evoke the space-intuition; we have also comprehended the causal connection, whereby the mind is compelled to reconstruct just those space-relations which correspond to the objective space-relations in the retina or tactile retina; but why the mind at all converts the sum of qualitatively distinct feelings into an extensive space-image, for that we cannot see any reason in the physiological process; we are obliged even to question whether such exists, and can admit only a teleological reason, because through this marvellous process alone does the mind procure a basis for the cognition of an external world, whereas, without the space-intuition, it could never go beyond itself.
Ad. III. If we perceive this aim to be the sole reason, we must look upon the process in question itself as an instinctive action, as a purposive activity without purposive consciousness. We have accordingly again arrived at the sphere of the Unconscious, and must recognise the position of space in the perception of the individual consciousness (just as the position of space in creation of the real world), as an action of the Unconscious, since this process is by so much anterior to the possibility of any consciousness that it can never be looked upon as anything conscious. Kant, however, has nowhere so expressed himself, and considering the usual clearness and fearlessness of this great thinker, one must conclude that he never distinctly realised the complete unconsciousness of this same process. From this defect of his exposition arose, however, the opposition of sober common sense to his doctrine, which knew that Space was given as a fact independent of the individual consciousness, and, indeed, in the space-relations from which only a protracted effort of abstraction detached the concept of Space, which last of all the negation of limit determined as infinite, whilst, according to Kant, the one infinite space stands as the original product of thought, in virtue of which spatial relations alone become possible. In all this, then, common sense was right, and Kant wrong, but in one point, and that the chief, Kant was right, that the form of space does not stalk into the mind from outside by means of physiological processes, but is spontaneously produced by it. But whereas Kant looks upon Space as an almost accidental form of sensibility due to the organisation of our nature, which might have been altogether different, and which has no prototype beyond subjectivity, we assert that Space has been given us as a real form of existence, so that the Unconscious formally performs one and the same function, when there planning in its unconscious representation the plurality of individuals to be created in space-relations, in order thereby to give to the will a spatially-realisable content, or here extending the sensations given in qualitatively-ordered series (mathematical dimensions) into the spatial intuition. Contingency and caprice would now have to be sought merely in a possible deviation from the path once entered upon, not in the c
arrying out of the form of individuation of space adopted once for all for this world (whether from logical necessity or from choice).
Ad. IV. Time has so much analogy with Space as a form of Thought and Being that they have ever been treated of together, and a thinker has always held similar opinions concerning both. This circumstance also tempted Kant to subject them to a common treatment in his “Transcendental Æsthetic.” Yet, the differences between Space and Time, familiar to everybody, are important enough to call for a difference of treatment. If Time were not directly transferable from the physiological process into the perception, it would, without doubt, be just as independently produced by the mind as Space. Perception, however, does not require this; for when we assumed that the mind reacts with a definite sensation on cerebral vibrations of a definite form, it was already implied that, if the stimulus is repeated, the reaction is also repeated, whether the stimuli follow one another in constant unbroken order, or intermittently. From this it further follows that sensation must last as long as these forms of the vibrations last, and another sensation only follows with change of the mode of vibration, for which, again, another is substituted after a certain interval. But the succession of unlike or diverse sensations is hereby immediately given without our needing to have recourse, as in the case of Space, to a spontaneous instinctive creation of the mind, no matter whether the affair is conceived materialistically or spiritualistically, for in both cases the objective succession of vibrations is translated into a subjective succession of sensations.
On the other hand, one might seem to be able to sustain the assertion that Time is not immediately imported into perception from the cerebral vibrations, by appealing to the fact that we regard every single feeling as a momentary, consequently timeless reaction of the mind, in which case certainly from a series of such momentary timeless psychical acts no temporal perception could directly arise, since the intervals between these moments would be absolutely void, and consequently could not be estimated. On closer examination the impossibility is immediately apparent; for only two cases are possible if sensation is to be something instantaneous. Either it springs from the momentary state of the brain, or it occurs only at the close of a certain period of cerebral movement. The former is intrinsically impossible, for the moment contains no movement, consequently nothing that can act upon the mind; the latter, however, may just as easily lead to absurdity, because the reason for the mind reacting with sensation just after a definite period of time and not before and not after, while the movement calmly continues in the same manner, is by no means evident. If one arbitrarily chose to assume a complete period of oscillation as this time, it is not clear where the oscillation begins and ends, the starting-point being something arbitrarily chosen by us; or it is not obvious why a semi-oscillation, or a quarter or other smaller portion, should not accomplish the same, since, indeed, the law of the whole vibration is completely contained in the smallest portion of the whole vibration. As the conceivably smallest portion already contains the law of the whole vibration, it, too, must contribute its quota, and thus we come again to the continuity of sensation. That these differentials of sensation, so to speak, do not become conscious—that rather a not inconsiderable fragment of a second is requisite before a sensation can be individually taken note of by consciousness as a definite integral of these differential effects might, perhaps, be due to the circumstance—firstly, that a change in the form of vibration which produces change of sensation is physically not to be comprehended “from the fragment of a vibration, not even after a single entire vibration, but after several vibrations, by gradual passage of one form of vibration into another; and, secondly, that, as in a string caused to move sympathetically by a resonant note, every single vibration taken alone accomplishes too little, and that only the effects of many similar vibrations gradually added can gain a perceptible influence, which rises above the threshold of stimulation (see Introductory I. c, p. 34 ff.) This temporal addition, combined with the spatial addition of the effects of many molecules simultaneously vibrating in the same manner, makes it comprehensible how movements so minute as those in the brain call forth in the mind such powerful impressions, as, e.g., a cannon-shot or thunder-clap.
We have now reviewed the four points above indicated, and I hope to have herewith not unessentially contributed to an understanding between philosophy and physical science, between which a wide gulf has yawned since the time of Kant. Our result is this: Space and Time are forms both of Being and of (conscious) Thought. Time is immediately translated into sensation from being, from the vibrations in the brain, because it is contained in the form of the single cerebral molecular vibration in the same way as in the external impulse. Space, as form of perception, must be created by an act of the Unconscious, because neither the space-relations of the single cerebral molecular vibration, nor the space-relations of the different vibrating parts of the brain, have any similarity or direct relation to the spatial figures and the spatial relations of position either of the real things or of the objects presented; but the spatial determinations of perceptions are probably governed by the system of local signs in the senses of Sight and Touch. Determinations of time, as well as of space, accordingly, are presented to consciousness as something ready-formed, given, are thus also rightly accepted as empirical facts, since consciousness has no idea of the producing processes of the same. From these given concrete determinations of Space and Time more general ones are afterwards abstracted, and the concepts Space and Time are gained as final abstractions, to which as subjective ideas infinity is justly ascribed as a negative predicate, because no conditions exist in the subject to place a limit to the possible extension of these ideas.
Having in this way made sure of the origin of the determinations of space and time as the foundation of all perceptions, we must return to the question of the connection of cerebral vibration and sensation—to the question, why the mind reacts on this form of vibration with this particular sensation. That there prevails here a perfect regularity we cannot doubt, considering the general uniformity of Nature. We see the same sensations always follow with the same individual on the same external stimuli unless a demonstrable change of the bodily disposition takes place, which must, of course, announce itself in modified cerebral vibrations. That also in different individuals, so far as there is bodily agreement, the same stimuli call forth similar sensations, it is true we can never directly establish; but as all demonstrable variations certainly depend on varying structure of the sense-organs and nerves, we have no ground to suppose in this point an exception to the general uniformity of Nature, and accordingly assume that like cerebral vibrations call forth in all individuals like sensations. As this regular causal connection between this form of vibration and this sensation is in itself not more wonderful than any other incomprehensible uniform causal connection in the material world, e.g., electricity and heat, is tolerably clear. On the other side, however, we incline without much hesitation to the opinion, ‘that here, as there, causal links are present, which refer the hitherto existing complication of these events to simple laws, whose manifold interweaving brings to pass the majority of observed phenomena. Accordingly, if we cannot bring ourselves to stop at the result thus gained as a final one, but must suppose in these processes different connected links, yet this much is clear, that, so far as they belong to the psychical domain, they must exclusively belong to the province of the Unconscious. It is thus an unconscious process by which the acid appears to us sour, sugar sweet, this light red, that blue, these aerial vibrations as the note A, those as C. This is all that can be said about the origin of the quality of sensation, so far as our present knowledge extends.
With all this qualitative, intensively and extensively quantitative determination of sensation, we can, however never get beyond the sphere of the subject. For the sense of sight represents locally extended images superficially, but without any determination with respect to the third dimension, so that the area lies, so far, purely w
ithin the mind—is purely subjective; so that the mind is not at all aware of the eye as organ of vision, thus knows the visual image neither before the eye nor in the eye, but merely possesses it internally, just as a faint idea of memory can only be conceived in the interior space of the mind, and without reference to external space. Similarly is it with the perceptions of the sense of touch. Here, too, there is only superficial extension, which corresponds to the surface of the body, only much vaguer than in vision. Here only by means of the simultaneity of the same perception at several places, united with certain feelings of muscular movement, do experiences occur, with whose help the mind can effect the fixation of the tactile perceptions on the epidermis by other processes, so that these can now be fixed in respect to the third dimension, as it were. Many physiologists assert, indeed, that this is immediately the case, according to the law of the eccentric phenomenon, and I shall not dispute it; this much is settled, that when this point is reached, when the internal sensations are so fixed in respect of the third dimension that they coincide objectively with the epidermis of the body, and, according to my view, in the case of the eye with the retina—that then it is still by no means apparent how the step is to be taken outwards from the subjective in virtue of perception or of conscious thought. For perception, at the most, never points beyond the limit of one’s own body—in my view even remaining within the mind without pointing to one’s own body at all. No conscious process of thought developing itself by means of the preceding experiences, moreover, leads to the supposition of an external object; here, again, instinct, or the Unconscious, must lend a helping hand in order to fulfil the purpose of perception, the cognition of the external world. Accordingly, the animal and the child instinctively projects its sense-perceptions as objects outside itself; and, accordingly, to this day, every uninstructed human being thinks he perceives the things themselves, because his perceptions, with the determination of ex-ternality, instinctively become objects to him. Thus only is it possible that the world of objects stands there ready for any being, without the idea of the subject occurring to it, whilst in conscious thought subject and object must necessarily spring simultaneously from the ideational process. It is, therefore, wrong to posit the concept of causality as mediator for a conscious segregation of the object, for objects are there long before the causal concept has arisen; and even were this not the case, yet, even then, the subject must be simultaneously gained with the object. Undoubtedly, from the philosophic point of view, causality is the sole means of getting beyond the mere ideational process to the subject and object; undoubtedly for the consciousness of the cultivated understanding, the object is only contained in perception as its external cause; undoubtedly the unconscious process, which lies at the bottom of the first apperception of the object, may be analogous to this philosophic conscious process,—thus much is certain, that the process, as whose result the external object confronts consciousness ready formed, is a thoroughly unconscious one, and consequently, if causality plays a part in it—which for the rest we can never directly determine,—it can yet by no means be said, as by Schopenhauer, that the a priori given concept of causality produces the external object, because, in this mode of expression, the action must be conceived as a conscious one, which it decidedly cannot be, because it is formed much later, and, moreover, at first from reciprocal relations of the already formed objects.
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