Philosophy of the Unconscious
Page 112
P. 331, 1. 11.—To be sure, Schopenhauer submitted to these realistic concessions only in his later period. In the earlier period of his productivity, when he subscribes to a more consistent idealism, he most decidedly denies all causal influence of things in themselves on our faculty of representation (W. as W. and I., 3d ed., i. 516, 581), and thereby logically arrives at a conception of the subjective phenomenal world of waking life, which is distinguished from that of the dream by no essential mark, but only by the accidental one, that a continuity of connected memory exists between the divisions of the day of the waking life, which is entirely wanting between the nocturnal segments of the dream-life (ibid., i. 21, and Volkelt’s “Dream-Phantasy,” p. 194–203). In fact, if the transcendent causality of things in themselves on our presentative faculty be denied, all assignable distinction between the objects of the dream and those of waking perception ceases; for the difference of the two kinds of subjective appearance only consists in this, that the instinctive necessitation to the transcendental reference of the matter of consciousness to an existence independent on consciousness is in the dream a deceptive illusion, in the waking state, however, an instinctive truth, which has its real correlate in the transcendent causal action on perception of that which exists per se so far as the quality of the objects of perception is conditioned by the nature of that which exists per se.
P. 332, 1 5.—Modern Physical Science acknowledges very decidedly a view of the world in which the forms of existence and of movement, Space and Time, have transcendent validity. It assumes (just as Kant and Schopenhauer in his later period) that our sense-perception is certainly in general subjectively conditioned, but that in the special concrete case its occurrence and constitution is determined by the causal action of things, whose existence is supposed to be independent of our perception of the same, i.e., of things in themselves in the Kantian sense. Physical Science knows that all our sense-qualities (Light, Colour, Sound, Heat, Odour, Sweetness, &c.) only come to pass through the co-operation of these things acting on us and our subjectivity; that thus these cannot appertain to the world of things in themselves; nevertheless it asserts that the mode and manner of our concrete sensation may be dependent on the mode of the arrangement of the constituent elements of things in themselves and the forms of their motion. This hypothesis, which in Physical Science does not pass for hypothesis, but as certainty, however involves the assumption that Space and Time are the forms of existence of this world of things in themselves transcending consciousness. For a definite order or grouping of atoms presupposes the existence-form of Space; causal action on the sense-organ at a definite point of time of the subjective flow of ideas the form of Time as transcendent real form of the action of things in themselves; and the forms of (mechanical and molecular) motion, from which arises the grouping of the atoms at any point of time, and on which depends the mode of action of the complex of atoms on our sense-organs, can manifestly only be conceived as real processes transcending consciousness if the forms of which they are compounded, i.e., Space and Time, have transcendent validity. Thus the scientific world of the self-moving atoms, on the one hand, is, in fact, a world of things in themselves in the Kantian sense, and, on the other hand, a world in the forms of Space and Time. It is not a subjective phenomenal world, for atoms have never manifested themselves to any physicist. It is intelligible in the Kantian sense, so far as it lies beyond the possibility of all experience, and is a world existing in and for itself, whose existence and inner movement is assumed to be thoroughly independent of any representation of a consciousness. It is thus in every respect only to be styled a world of things in themselves, and as such it can indeed only be justified if the object of its supposition be to explain the transcendental objectivity of our phenomenal objects and the transcendent conditionality of our perception. But, nevertheless, it is a world of space and time, and can only be such if anything is to be at all explained by its assumption. Let the atom be denuded of its materiality and deprived of extension, thus be spiritualised into the immaterial monad, it yet always retains its punctual place in relation to other atoms, its distance from them, its direction and velocity in approximation and removal from them, thus purely spatial and temporal determinations. Should Physical Science try to make the attempt to denude the atoms of these determinations also, all possibility of an explanation of subjective phenomena would be cut away, thus the hypothesis of a real world of atoms would have all scientific ground withdrawn from under its feet A spaceless and timeless world of spiritual monads would ab initio render any Physical Science impossible, and all scientific explanations based on the opposite assumption would then not only be valueless, but even vicious in principle. In fact, a world of spiritual mouads without Space and Time (or vicarious forms of existence and motion) is also metaphysically impossible, since the Absolute Spirit before its outward action in Space and Time is unfolded neither actually nor plurally. Space and Time are the forms in which the All-Spirit realises itself in manifold existence from its essential unity and ideality; they are the forms of its self-individualising manifestation, in which its essence is revealed or appears.
It is accordingly no wonder that the investigators of Nature themselves, with their confused perception of the problems of the theory of cognition, should regard the scientific view of the world now in a realistic, now in an idealistic sense. If one starts with the view that the transcendent real world is devoid of light, colourless, soundless, &c., nay, even non-material, and consists merely in a magical play of imaginary points, one may well be inclined with Kant to seek reality in empirical perception as subjective phenomenon, and to regard things in themselves as a transcendent province of intelligible things of thought and properly unapproachable. Conversely, if one starts from this, that the predicate of reality can only be assigned to a thing existing in and for itself, i.e., independently of every consciousness representing it, there is no doubt that not the ever-shifting subjective phenomenal world of consciousness, but the world of the complex of atoms existing of themselves or the world of the objective phenomenon of the world-essence is to be styled real, the more so as it (just as the subjective phenomenal world) subsists in the forms of space and time, and the phenomenal objects of consciousness only receive a real objectivity by being transcendentally referred to the immediately real things in themselves, and have a practical and epistemological meaning for consciousness simply as representatives of these latter. Thus the scientific cosmic theory, when looked at more closely, wears indeed the air of a transcendental realism, which has as much risen above subjective idealism (which in strictness declares the thing in itself to be a mere negative limiting notion, an indestructible illusion of our waking as of our dreaming consciousness) as naïve realism (which converts uncritically the objects of the subjective phenomenal world into absolute things in themselves). The same consequence of a transcendental realism results from a critical development of the philosophical theory of cognition, as I have shown in my writings, “Kritische Grundlegung des transcendentalen Realismus,” and “J. H. v. Kirchmann’s erkenntnisstheoretischer Realismus,” so that in this department also the full agreement and union of Philosophy and Physical Science, here too so long at variance, is now restored.
P. 341, 1. 36.—Compare with this statement and that on p. 309, 1. 13, vol. i., the similar view of Lotze on the a priori in his “Logik,” book iii. chap. 3, particularly p. 520.
VOL. II.
P. 50, 1. 23.—(Comp, also vol. i. pp. 98 and 133.) Time, as we saw, vol. i. p. 346, first enters into the psychical processes through the continuance of the molecular vibrations. When, e.g., a stimulus is propagated by a sensory nerve to some point in a centre, there felt, translated into will and propagated as motor impulse by motor paths to the muscles, the time of conduction in the sensory nerve as in the motor nerve is to be deducted from the total duration of the reflex process. There still remains the time which is required in the ganglion-cells of the centre, first, to extinguish the conveyed stimul
us by the inhibitory influences (period of latent stimulation), and, secondly, to allow the exciting forces to increase until they have reached a degree sufficient to innervate the motor nerves (this degree might be termed the threshold of motor innervation). The sum of the two latter times constitutes in physiological language the central period of reaction. It is considerably augmented by the circumstance that a single ganglion-cell does not suffice for a reflexion, but several always participate, so that in each extinction of the stimulus and discharge of the stored-up energies is repeated. The reaction-time becomes a minimum when the places of insertion of the sensory and motor nerve (as in the spinal reflexes) lie very close to one another; it is augmented in proportion as more ganglion-cells are traversed by the stimulus before the same is outwardly discharged as motor impulse. The latter retardation attains its maximum in the cerebral hemispheres and their elaboration of the conveyed impressions by conscious reflexion. The fluctuating, hesitating, and doubting is of longer duration the more cells are drawn into action, i.e., the further the reflexion is spun out before the resolution to act is taken. But with all that, each single action of the Unconscious woven into this process is timeless, i.e., in each single cell “there is no time to be interposed between sensation and will, although both, in consequence of the repeated molecular undulations, possess a certain temporal extent, which may in part be coincident (as the duration of every cause coincides with that of the effect to the merest fraction).
P. 86, 1. 5.—Comp, the preceding addendum to p. 50, 1. 23.
P. 89, 1. 5.—If we enter more minutely into the physiological aspect of the question, in place of the atom, the ganglionic cell, as indivisible nerve-element with an indivisible consciousness, is the order of individuals to be particularly taken account of. The ganglion-cell possesses a certain individual force or individual will, which, through its individual character (or, in physiological language, through its inherited or acquired specific energies), is led to manifest itself in certain favoured directions. The satisfaction of this individual will can, as we shall soon see, only be felt as pleasure by reflective comparison with the pain of non-satisfaction; the repression of the same, or the suppression and enforced inhibition of its manifestation makes itself, on the contrary, immediately perceptible as a painful feeling (qualitatively coloured by unconscious representations). Now we know from the Appendix that the satisfaction of the individual will of a ganglion-cell, or, in physiological language, the actualising of its predispositions in specific energies, consists chemically in a decomposition, i.e., that the discharge of force or transformation of tension into vis viva is effected by a decomposition of complex chemical compounds into simpler ones. Chemical combination, whereby the tension or store of work is accumulated as a normal process of nutrition, proceeds in the state of repose so slowly in comparison with the suddenness of the discharge, that at each single moment without doubt the threshold of consciousness (at least for the collective consciousness of the ganglion-cell) is not overstepped. It is otherwise if an external stimulus is conveyed to the cell through the immerging fibres. In this case the stimulus is mainly extinguished by the inhibitory influences, and only secondarily after an interval, during which the stimulus has become latent, does the cell answer by an active discharge of force. The stimulus consists in a current of innervation, i.e., in a series of impulses of vital force. That this vis viva is extinguished or absorbed by the inhibitory influences of the cell physically only admits of the interpretation that it is transformed into tension, and this transformation is compressed into a space of time sufficiently confined to be felt as contrast to the natural direction of the individual will, i.e., as pain. The qualitatively coloured pain thus felt acts now as motive to the manifestation of will, and the reaction of will is, as it were, the attempt to free one-self from the pain of the imposed constraint. This second phase of the reflex process in the ganglion-cell does not, in the first place, enter into consciousness by itself, but only so far as the painful feeling is paralysed and disappears from consciousness through the satisfaction of the manifestation of will or discharge of force. The matter of consciousness is thus essentially composed of sensations, which arise through the extinction of inflowing stimuli in ganglion-cells by means of their inhibitory influences.
On the other hand, the mere process of conduction, so far as it is understood as mechanical propagation of the received stimulation without absorption and active regeneration of living force, cannot lead to the genesis of sensation,1 at least not of sensation in nerve-elements, but at the most in the atoms constituting them (where the absorption and regeneration of vis viva is to be traced in each single vibration). Accordingly, it might seem as if the nerve-fibre, as such, were incapable of sensation, because it only mechanically conveys the peripheral or central energies of stimulation. But we have already seen in the Appendix that the nerve-fibre also possesses a store of force of its own, which it sets free as the result of stimulation, and that in its course a part of the stimulus is absorbed. Only the tendency to decomposition is in the fibre far greater than in the cell, and at the same time the store of active force and the inhibitory influences far less than in the latter. On the other side, it would be an extravagant idea if we believed that in the ganglion-cell the whole living force of every stimulus is annihilated, and the reactive innervation generated afresh exclusively from the existing store of force; rather is this only an extreme case for a cell destined solely for central functions. But at the same time all ganglion-cells are also more or less predisposed for direct conduction (e.g., all bodily pains are conducted through the grey strands of the spinal cord to the brain, whilst the white strands only conduct the painless sensations of the tactile and muscular sense). The oftener a ganglion-cell has conveyed a stimulus in a particular direction, the more is it accustomed to this path, and with the less expenditure of its own energy does it perform its work, i.e., a so much larger part of the received energy of stimulation it propagates unabsorbed, and a so much smaller part of the energy of stimulation it absorbs, to replace it from its own resources. The less, however, the absorbed part of the energy of stimulation becomes, the weaker becomes the sensation, i.e., the sensation is the more enfeebled in the passage of the stimulus through a cell, the more the cell is exercised in conducting in this particular direction, and sinks with a certain degree of exercise below the threshold of consciousness. This exercise is, however, always related only to a particular kind (form of vibration) of stimulus, and must be acquired anew for a newly occurring unwonted kind of stimuli. Thus then is it also possible that the absorbed part of the energy of stimulation in the nerve-fibres remains for the ordinary kinds of stimuli under normal circumstances below the threshold, whilst the nerve-fibre may again bring into use its capacity to feel, either if unusual stimuli are conveyed to it, or if it is placed under abnormal circumstances (e.g., through the enhancement of its irritability in consequence of separation from its centre).
The physiological mode of looking at the matter, therefore, altogether confirms the above supposition that it is the collision of two wills opposed in their content from which consciousness springs. The individual will of the nerve-element is disturbed in its equilibrium by the will of the stimulus invading its repose; the elastic interception of this disturbance is the absorption of the stimulus by conversion of its vis viva into tension, a self-preserving process on the part of the cell that is diametrically opposed to its tendency to will-manifestation, i.e., to the discharge of its tension into living force. The conflict with the individual will, the forcing of the same from its position of equilibrium into the direction opposed to its own tendency, is felt as pain, and the restitution, or the second act of the self-preserving process of the nerve-element, is the discharge of the reaction, which at first aims only at the restoration of the state of equilibrium; but, the opportunity for the manifestation of will once being given, goes beyond the state induced by the stimulus, namely, discharges an excess of tension accumulated by nutrition.
P. 118, last 1.—Comp, my” Erläut. zur Met. d. Unb.,” p. 49–51
P. 148, 1. 23.—According to recent investigations by Kleinenberg (“Hydra,” Leipzig, 1872), the differentiation of the protoplasm into nerves and muscular fibre already begins with the Hydra or the fresh-water polypes, but in such wise, that it is the same cell whose peripheral rotund form plays the part of a sensitive cutaneous cell, whilst its central fibrous processes serve as the contractile element, i.e., as prototype of the muscle-cell, in that they are excited to contract by the external part. Kleinenberg has called these cells “neuro-muscular cells.” They exhibit The transition from the more lowly organisms, in which all parts of the protoplasm of a cell uniformly act as nervous and muscular elements, to the higher ones, where the functions are not merely distributed to different parts of the same cell, but the different functioning elements have become differentiated into separate cell-layers.
P. 155, note, last 1.—An attempt to eliminate the concept of force from molecular physics has recently been made by Alexander Wiesner (“Das Atom,” Leipzig, 1874); as, however, in this writer philosophical acumen and mathematical aptitude are alike wanting, and his explanations, regarded even from a purely physical point of view, appear but little tenable and plausible, the development of molecular physics is hardly likely to be furthered by this attempt. Although Wiesner is perfectly clear as to the necessity of removing the idea of matter from the atom, yet a certain remnant thereof remains clinging to his atom, because with the reduction of all force to energy of motion there would otherwise remain no subject of the motor function. The attempt to regard the corporeal atoms as the converging, the ether as the sphere of the parallel atoms, can hardly claim serious consideration, especially as all coercive force is wanting to the united atoms.—Another and far more important memoir by A. Pfeilsticker bears the title “Das Kinetsystem, oder Elimination der Repulsivkräfte und überhaupt des Kraftbegriffs aus der Molecular - Physik” (Stuttgart, 1873). Here, however, the author would be misunderstood if the title were thought to imply that the writer denies the concept of force altogether. The author’s intention is only the perfectly proper one, to take the idea of force out of the sphere of mathematical physics as such, simply to hand it over to metaphysics, and in the mechanics of the atom, in place of force, to be satisfied with its most direct expression, acceleration. The work performed by a force is most directly measured by the magnitude of the acceleration called forth by it in other atoms; mechanics, therefore, needs the standard for the magnitude of the force as surrogate of the idea of force itself. In this, as we know, there is nothing new, and Pfeilsticker merely makes use of a certain modification in the meaning of certain expressions and formulæ in order to make more complete the agreement between the metaphysical idea of force and its mathematical surrogate. It does not, however, occur to him to deny that the “property” of an atom “to cause changes of movement according to certain laws” in other atoms (p. 14) must be philosophically retained as metaphysical cause of these uniform changes of motion, i.e., as force behind acceleration.