Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  The entire ant has one, the divided ant two consciousnesses; and if one sews together the halves of two different polyps (thus two previously divided consciousnesses), one polyp will result with a single consciousness. Wealth and poverty of consciousness can make no difference in these inquiries involving matters of principle. As little as any one can deny, after the foregoing considerations, that he has as many (more or less separate) consciousnesses as he has nerve-centres, nay, even as he has vital cells, so much will every one rightly oppose the assertion that he has as many unconsciously acting souls as he has nerve-centres or cells. The unity of purpose in the organism, the right operation of each single part at the right moment, in short, the wonderful harmony of the organism, would be inexplicable, in fact, only comprehensible as pre-established harmony, unless the soul in the body were one and indivisible, acting, however, synchronously in all parts of the organism where its action is required,—unless it were one and the same soul which regulates here breathing, there excretion, which here in the brain conditions the brain-consciousness, there in the ganglia the ganglia-consciousness. If the cutting into shreds of the lower animals shows us that the same mind, which before governed the different parts in the whole animal and produced the different kinds of consciousness, continues also to be functional unaltered after division, can we then believe that the corporeal section may also have cleft the soul and divided it into two parts, can by division of a mere aggregate of atoms the non-spatial soul accidentally governing them be at all conceived as affected, save so far as the conditions of its activity are changed?

  But if the soul in two artificially separated pieces of an animal is still one, must it not remain undivided also in the spontaneous throwing-off of buds, claws, &c.? and likewise in bisexual generation, where one hermaphrodite animal begets with itself (e.g., tape-worm)? (See more particularly the ninth chapter.) If the unconscious soul in the separate portions of an insect, or in the stem and the detached buds, is still one, must it not be the same also in the insects separate by nature of a community of bees or ants, which even without union of the organisms in space still act as harmoniously on one another as the several parts of the same organism? Should not the clairvoyance, which we have found everywhere recurring in the invasions of the Unconscious, and which is so supremely astonishing in the limited individual, should not it alone invite this solution, that the apparently individual acts of clairvoyance are simply announcements of the everywhere identical Unconscious, wherewith at once everything miraculous in clairvoyance disappears, since now the seer is also the soul of the seen? And if it is possible for the unconscious soul of an animal to be simultaneously present and purposively active in all organs and cells of the animal, why should not an unconscious world-soul be simultaneously present and purposively efficient in all organisms and atoms, since indeed the one as the other must be thought as unlocalised?

  What opposes this conception is only the old prejudice that the soul is the consciousness; so long as one has not risen above this view and perfectly extirpated every obscure remnant of such a belief from his mind, so long must that all-unity of the Unconscious be certainly covered by a veil. Only when one has come to see that consciousness does not belong to the essence, but to the phenomenon, that thus the plurality of consciousness is only a plurality of the appearance of the One, only then will it be possible to emancipate oneself from the power of the practical instinct, which always cries “I, I,” and to comprehend the essential unity of all corporeal and spiritual phenomenal individuals, which Spinoza apprehended in his mystical conception and declared the One Substance. It is no contradiction to the all-unity of the Unconscious that the individual self-feeling, which at first is present only as slight practical instinct, with growing elaboration of consciousness is ever more heightened and sharpened to pure self-consciousness, that thus the appearance indestructible for conscious thought of the individual egoity only emerges the more distinctly, the keener conscious thought becomes; this, I say, is no contradiction to the Monism of the Unconscious, for all conscious thought remains indeed entangled in the conditions of consciousness, and can by its nature never be elevated above them in direct fashion, must rather be the more wrapt round by the deceptive veil of Maja, the more it displays its proper nature. The unity of the Unconscious may very well exist at the same time, of that namely, which never can come into consciousness, because it lies behind it, as the mirror can never mirror itself (at the most its own image in a second mirror). Certainly as long as one has not rigidly separated and explicated the Unconscious, so long that objection exists in full force, and so long can the idea of the all-unity not be rationally comprehended and approved, but only be mystically conceived, in spite of the opposition of consciousness.

  Another point which is often made use of as cheap ridicule against Monism is the paradox that the One contends with itself as a self-parted being, that, e.g., the One Existence is in conflict with itself, like two hungry wolves, each of whom endeavours to devour the other. Two problems are here intermingled: firstly, the problem of the sundering of the One into the many, and, secondly, the question how the Many, if they are indeed only realisations or objectifications or phenomena of the One can turn against one another in strife and discord. The first problem, that of individuation, will be treated of in a special chapter (C. Chap. xi.), and only under the presupposition that this will be solved in a satisfactory manner is there any sense in occupying ourselves with the second question. Here I shall only say this much, that a self-disunion would only be incomprehensible if the One surrendered its unity (and with it a piece of its essence); that, on the contrary, a self-disunion into a secondary (because phenomenal) plurality, in which unity is preserved in plurality, just brings multiplicity into the abstract unity, or, more accurately expressed, that a sundering of the One into plurality cannot be objectionable, if thereby be meant not a splitting of the one substance into many isolated substances, but manifestations of the one existing and abiding being in a plurality of functions. But if this plurality of different functions is once given, then, in consequence of the circumstance that they are functions of one being, the ideal difference of their content must necessarily exert an ideal influence on one another striving after equilibrium, which ideal compromise, however, becomes a real conflict through this, that the ideal moments compromising one another are at the same time contents of real acts of will. It is thus altogether the same process that takes place in the consciousness of the individual as a struggle between different efforts, desires, and passions; just as a contest is possible here notwithstanding the unity of the mind, whose functions are the intersecting desires, so also in the all-one Unconscious. The struggle of two passions in a human mind in fury and destructive mercilessness need not in truth shun comparison with the struggle of two hungry wolves. The only difference is this, that what takes place in the subjective field within an individual is withdrawn from the direct observation of another, whereas the struggle of different individualised acts of will of the Unconscious hereby possesses an objective phenomenal reality, that the individuals engaged in conflict directly sensuously affect one another and other unconcerned individuals.

  If, on the other hand, the question is proposed in these terms, “Why must the several functions of the One Being be so constituted that they collide with, instead of running undisturbed beside, one another?” the answer is to be sought in C. Chap. iii.: “Without collision of different acts of will no consciousness,”—and consciousness it is that is in point.

  Hitherto we have shown, on the one hand, that there is and can be no reason which tells against the unity of consciousness, and have, on the other hand, adduced various a posteriori grounds of probability for the same. We can, however, also settle the question directly by deduction from already established presuppositions, thus a priori in the Aristotelian sense of the word.

  The Unconscious is not confined to space, for it first posits space (the idea the ideal, the will by realisation of the idea the rea
l). The Unconscious is thus neither great nor small, neither here nor there, neither in the finite nor in the infinite, neither in the figure nor in the point, neither anywhere nor nowhere. Hence it follows that the Unconscious can have no difference of a spatial nature in it, save so far as it posits the same in imaging and acting. We are accordingly not permitted to say: that which acts in an atom of Sirius is something else than that which acts in an atom of the earth, but only: it acts in a different manner, namely, locally different. We have two effects without the right to suppose two beings for these effects; for the difference of the effects only allows us to conclude to a difference of the functions in the being; the difference of two functions, however, by no means to the non-identity of the functioning being. We must reiterate: we are compelled to stop short at the simplest assumption (the identity of the functioning essence) until the opponents have furnished proof of non-identity; on them, not on us, lies the burden of proof, since they suppose many, we only one. At any rate, this much has been strictly demonstrated by us, that no plurality of its essence can appertain to the Unconscious by means of space-determinations, simply because no space-determinations appertain to it. In temporal differences this is much clearer still, since we are indeed thus accustomed to acknowledge the identity of the continuously acting being despite all temporal difference, in spite of the earlier or later occurrence of the effects. But now there are, objectively speaking, none other than spatial differences; for what we else know as differences, the difference of ideas inter se and the difference of willing and thinking, are internal subjective differences of different activities of the same essence or subject, but not a difference of different essences or subjects. Of the difference of different ideas inter se this is at once clear, but it also holds good of the difference of the two fundamental activities willing and thinking, pervading all individuals of the realm of nature, for the Unconscious is one in willing as in conceiving, only that it here wills and there thinks; it is related to those activities as Spinoza’s substance to its attributes. (More in detail in C. Chap. xiv. 4.) All distinction known to us between existing things turns upon spatial and temporal determinations. Space and time are the sole principium individualionis known to us. To assert with Schopenhauer that they are the only possible principium individuationis would be to assert too much, for there might be worlds in which other forms of existence than space and time obtain. But apart from this, that the burden of proof of the existence of such falls on the shoulders of opponents, and until the impossible production of this proof we have not to trouble ourselves about such empty possibilities, yet even such forms of existence in their particular worlds, just as space and time with us, would only have phenomenal existence, i.e., it could be shown that they can just as little be determinations of the Unconscious as space and time with us, and they would accordingly be just as unsuitable as these would be for establishing a plurality of essence in the Unconscious. If, then, the Unconscious can be burdened with a plurality of being neither by spatial nor other differentiæ, it must just be a simple unity.

  We may further add an indirect proof to this direct one from admitted presuppositions. Suppose the case, namely, that the phenomenal separation of individuals did not rest merely on a plurality of functions of the existence underlying them, but on a non-identity of the essence, on a plurality of existing substances, no real relations would be possible among the individuals as they in fact exist. This is one of the greatest achievements of the great Leibniz, that in spite of its extremely fatal (and for his system even ruinous) consequences, he admitted this proposition honourably and candidly. Herbart occupies here a far inferior position, for after having made from the plurality of appearance the false inference to the plurality (instead of the many-sidedness) of existence, he posits the mutual disturbances of these many existences (simple reals) as something self-evident, instead of, like Leibniz, conceding it to be something impossible. Whoever once recognises several substances (i.e., several beings, each of which is self-subsistent, and would continue to subsist even if everything else round about were suddenly to cease to exist), must also confess that these monads can not only have no windows through which an influxus idealis could shine, but also that there is no possibility of seeing how entities, which participate in nought and have nothing in common, should be able to come into any metaphysical contact whatsoever. Each individual must rather represent an isolated world for itself. If one tried to suppose a metaphysical bond, to which would fall the part of a mediator, the difficulty to resolve would be, how this newly added substance should be able to enter into real relation with each of the existing substances. For if one tried to imagine this tie somewhat as a function of the Absolute or as the Absolute itself, it is to be remarked, on the contrary (apart from the circumstance that in many substances the discussion, strictly speaking, cannot be of One Absolute, but only of as many absolutes as substances), that a real relation between a so-called Absolute and one of several substances only appears less incomprehensible than the relation between two of the many substances, because fancy is more readily inclined to ascribe to the so-called Absolute the power of incomprehensible achievements. The influence of the Absolute on the many only, however, becomes comprehensible if the so-called Absolute is converted from a substance actually limited by the many into an unlimited, genuinely all-embracing substance, which thus contains the many as integral parts of itself. But then, in truth, the many are denuded of their independence and substantiality, and degraded to sublated moments of the one absolute. This step, which again in the last resort dissolves the intended Pluralism into Monism, both Leibniz in the all-embracing central monad, as well as Herbart in the credited god-creator, saw themselves necessitated to take, without however recognising the incompatibility of this change with the retention of the foundations of their systems, and without employing this step for the explanation of the influxus physicus, or the causality of the monads among themselves, which must necessarily miscarry without it, but results in a perfectly unforced manner from the essential identity of the many in the One.

  Although Pluralism is not able to maintain itself in its proper form as soon as it realises its own consequences, it yet tries to maintain itself in the illusory light of consciousness in a more modest form as it were within a reluctantly admitted Monism. The inherently contradictory conception of derived substance is especially employed for this purpose. Substance is that which is in itself (not in another) and subsists through itself (without the aid of another); the derived substance, however, is said not to be in itself, but in the absolute substance, and not to subsist through itself, but only through the absolute substance. Derived substance thus evinces itself as not-substance; it evinces itself as particular mode and manner (modus) of the manifestation of the Absolute, or, as we now say, as phenomenon. Now Pluralism further tries to at least raise the phenomenon of the individual mind to a higher category of phenomena, or to lower the rest of phenomena one degree, as if they were mediate results of that phenomenon. This is, however, so incorrect, that in a certain sense the contrary is true, so far, namely, as the individual mind results on the one side only from the material phenomena. The light radiating from the unconscious central sun strikes upon the concave mirror of organisms, and is reflected and united in the focus of the self-conscious mind. In this way arise the separate centres of the individual conscious minds, but with these the absolute centre does not communicate directly, but only by means of the unconscious rays (functions) affecting the organism (the brain), which are reflected from this to the focus of consciousness. None of those functions which are ascribed to the unconscious rule of the organism proceed from these separate centres; if there is in respect of the latter a separate centre still to be assumed for every individual, there must be a second beside that first one; in this second one then we must imagine the functional rays issuing from the absolute centre to be bent or broken. How such a refraction is to take place in such an imaginary centre would be here quite unintelligible, whilst
reflection on the organism or its organ of consciousness is a perfectly intelligible image. Through the accumulated difficulties of these separate centres, however, the explanation of the facts would not be in the least assisted, i.e., these mathematical points of refraction of the function-rays of the absolute centre, not to be conceived as substantial but ideal, form a merely embarrassing and uselessly interpolated hypothesis.

  However we may try to save for the individuals a reality and independence exceeding that of simple phenomenality, it is love’s labour lost if intended to favour the unphilosophical partiality of the consciousness doting upon its own ego. As all plurality of individuation belongs to the sphere of phenomenality, everything placed beyond phenomenality also falls outside the plurality of the individuals into the all-one Unconscious and its direct activity. Only in this way has the absolute central monad of Leibniz the power to strip off the contradiction which clings to it, namely, by identifying itself again with Spinoza’s One substance, in which the many individuals or monads are reduced to dependent phenomenal forms or modes.

  This going back of Leibniz on Spinoza is, however, as little a retrogression as the falling back of modern physical science: in both cases, through the progress of experience and induction, one is enabled to comprehend and to prove a posteriori the mystical conceptions of genius of an elder mind. Such a falling back upon great predecessors is thus a genuine progress and a permanent gain, for it may be allowed me once more to mention that the course of philosophy is the transformation of the mystical conceptions of genius into rational cognition. (Conf. B. Chap. ix.)

  Wherever we may look among the original philosophical or religious systems of the first rank, everywhere do we meet with the tendency to Monism, and it is only stars of second or third magnitude which find satisfaction in an external dualism or still greater division. Even in declared polytheistic religions, as the Greek and the different Northern mythologies, one perceives this tendency to Monism, both in the oldest conceptions, and in the later modes of feeling of deeper religious minds; and even in the more philosophical ways of thinking of Christian Monism, the world is only a phenomenon posited by God, which has only continuance (subsistence) so long as it is preserved, i.e., is being continually renewed. All systems tending to Monism have not succeeded in really reaching it, yet one feels the unmistakable need of a unitarian world-conception, and only the shallowest religions and philosophical systems have rested contented with an external dualism (e.g., Ormuzd and Ahriman, God and World, World-Orderer and Chaos, Force and Matter, &c.), or any sort of plurality. There is no conception which the impressionable mystic mind more readily adopts than this—to apprehend the world as an indivisible Being, to feel oneself as part of this Being, but a part in which, at the same time, indwells the whole, and penetrated by this contrast to indulge the religious feeling of the sublimity of this vast Being and the sense of the ego’s participation herein. Owing to Christianity this one existence has been called in the Teutonic languages God, and the view which asserts that this one existence is the all or the whole has been accordingly entitled Pantheism (in the widest sense of the term). Eightly understood, one may certainly let the word pass. I prefer, however, on account of the misunderstandings to which it is exposed, the synonymous term Monism, according to our explanation of Pantheism. Orthodox Catholicism and shallow rationalistic Protestantism, both of which thought to exalt God while they lowered him (attributing to him human passions), have undoubtedly always condemned and burnt as heretics the deeper minds in the Christian Church who perceived and declared the need of this Monism (e.g., Eckhard, Giordano Bruno), but out of all such persecutions the tendency to the monistic purifying of Christianity has always emerged in greater strength, and has been ever gaining in influence over discerning minds. Schelling says: “That in God alone is being, and therefore all being is only the being of God; this thought neither reason nor feeling can take away. It is the thought to which alone all hearts beat” (Werke, Abth. ii. vol. ii. p. 39); and “That everything is from God has been at all times felt, as it were; nay, one may say: just this is the true primitive feeling of humanity” (Werke, Abth. ii. vol. iii. p. 280). This mystic primitive feeling of mankind in the form of a tendency to Monism often indeed only realised in an extremely defective manner, but with the exception of the sceptics always perceptible, runs like a red streak through all philosophy from the oldest Indian traditions down to the present day. Since a survey, however hurried, of the whole period would be impracticable with our space, I limit myself to sketching with a few strokes the most recent epoch in this respect.