Philosophy of the Unconscious

by Eduard Von Hartmann

  P. 328, 1. 7.—Another distinguished botanist, N. Pringsheim, at the close of an examination of the connected series of forms of the Sphacelarise, which leads from the simple Confervæ – like Ectocarpese through the genera Halopteris, Stypocaulon, &e., to the Cormopliytes - like genus Cladostephus, expresses himself in the following manner (Transactions of the Physical Division of the Academy of Science of Berlin, 1873, extracted in the Naturf., 1874, No. 4): “Here a more favourable progressive adaptation of the variations to the life-conditions in which they have arisen is neither supposable nor demonstrable. The differences of form that arise nowhere exhibit distinct, physiologically advantageous peculiarities; they depend essentially on slight, gradual variations in anatomical structure, and in the position of the ramifying systems.—With these simple creatures this struggle (for existence) is limited to at the most a struggle for room. The only point that would here be of importance, the variety, the number, and the self-preserving power of the reproduced forms, speaks in no plain manner for the observance of the direction which the series has taken in its development. In contemplating these and other similar series among the lowest plants, we cannot fail to see that the first variations of form in these simplest organisms are of a purely morphological character, i.e., that they have no demonstrable relation to any physiological functions whatever that are of importance for the maintenance of life. The existence of such purely morphological series appears to me decisive on the question as to the causes of the formation of species. Do not the series—not to go beyond the Algæ—of the Protococcaceæ, Palmellaceæ, Desmidiaceæ, Diatomeæ, Confervæ, Ulothritheæ, Ceramieæ, Polysphonieæ, &c., consist of such purely morphological species in direct contradiction to the Darwinian theory? Yet in all these series an evolution of the forms, proceeding from the simple to the complex, from the imperfect to the perfect, is unmistakable. Thus these lower purely morphological series decidedly tell in favour of the view, that the struggle for existence does not of itself suffice to explain the accumulation of the form - variations in a constant. direction from the simple to the manifold through the whole created series. This struggle presupposes, indeed, of necessity, the physiologically more favourable nature of the arising variations, and the accumulation of these favourable qualities in the favoured direction. These conditions are, however, wanting in the development of the purely morphological series of species of the lowest plants. Here those internal guiding forces which urge on the development of the ever-accumulating variations in the favoured direction appear in their purity, unmixed with the effects of the struggle for existence, and do not allow a doubt of their existence.”

  P. 328, 1. 19.—Another zoologist, Moritz Wagner, is, equally with Kölliker, an adherent of the theory of Descent, but at the same time regards the theory of Natural Selection as not merely of itself insufficient, but even false and wholly worthless. Now this is manifestly too extreme an opposition; but the arguments against the Darwinian over-estimate of the theory of Natural Selection which Wagner has marshalled in various treatises, and recently in “Ausland” (1875, May to July), are at all events well worthy of notice. His view is, that the local separation of several or a few individuals of an existing species is not only, as also Darwin admits, a favourable circumstance for the origin of a new species, but the indispensable condition, and at the same time forms the sufficient cause of this occurrence. If even his assumption were true, that the return of the novel variation into the stock by crossing is to be prevented by no other means than by local separation of one or several pairs (which at all events is still unproven), yet the separation could always only be condition, but never cause of the formation of a new species, and the question, which principle positively calls forth those important variations of separated individuals that are merely protected from destruction by separation, would still remain open after as before. The very examples cited by Wagner are such, that a recession to Geoffroy’s principle of the influence of changed external circumstances on the organism must here appear still more insufficient than the Darwinian insistance on the principle of selection; and that Wagner too, when perfecting his “Seclusion Theory” on the positive side, must necessarily come to recognise “inner guiding forces” as an “indwelling tendency of development,” i.e., an organising principle determining the direction of the variation.

  P. 329, 1. 24.—The conjecture here thrown out by me has in the meantime been verified by a discovery of the marine apothecary, A. Bavay, in the volcanic rocky island Guadeloupe, according to which a species of small frogs (Hylodes martinicensis), found there in great abundance owing to the absence of marshes and fresh water for their life as tadpoles, simply pass through the tadpole-stage within the ovum, and emerge from the shell complete tailless little frogs (“Naturforscher,” 1873, No. 17). In this particular case, the putting back of the metamorphosis into the embryonic life has certainly led to no further development-series of higher organisms; but the example offers us at least an analogy, according to which those reptiles also, from which the higher orders of the animal kingdom have sprung, may have developed from amphibia.

  P. 331.—Comp. with this chapter my book “Wahrheit und Irrthum im Darwinismus; eine kritische Darstellung der organischen Entwickelungstheorie,” Berlin, Carl Duncker, 1875.

  P. 334, L 14.—Comp, my “Erläuterungen zur Metaphysik d. Unbew.,” p. 52–57.

  P. 344, 1. 29.—Comp, with this section my “Erläuterungen zur Metaphysik d. Unhew.,” p. 57–74.

  VOL. III.

  P. 4, 1. 16, and in A. Taubert, “Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner” (Berlin, C. Duncker, 1873), p. 70–76. That even Hegelianism is an evolutionism not hostile to, but inclusive of Pessimism; that it only views with a too hard and cold indifference the crushing of innumerable individual destinies by the iron wheel of historical progress, but at the same time recognises the tragic fate of everything finite to be consumed in the contradiction of its own existence, has been excellently shown by J. Volkelt (“Das Unbew. u. d. Pess.” p. 246–255).

  P. 12, 1. 3.—Comp, here Taubert, “Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner,” No. 2, “The worth of life and its estimation.”

  P. 13, last 1. but one.—Comp. Taubert’s “Pessimismus, p. 27–28.

  P. 15, 1. 15.—Or if an unconscious will should actually exist, it is yet too weak to render itself observable by its non-satisfaction; and we may conclude a fortiori that this degree of will must be too weak to make itself perceptible by its satisfaction.

  P. 27, L 17.—Comp, with this section Taubert’s “Pessimismus,” No. 3, “The privative goods and work.”

  P. 41, L 4.—Comp, also vol. i. p. 241, 1. 20. Only unfortunately the point of view of the reconciliation of instinct with a consciousness enlightened by a philosophic monism still remains a theoretical postulate, that in practical reference must be realised by continuous conflict and ethical wrestling with an unbroken and persistent egoism. The reconciliation which philosophy offers, the ethicising of natural impulse, is no possession to be acquired once for all and then maintained without effort, but it is the enduring struggle of the reason of the All-one Unconscious arrived at consciousness with the necessarily given selfishness of natural individuality, which only when waged with energetic untiring zeal, and favoured by the bent of the original character, leads to the habitual harmony of virtue. This is, however, not to be supposed the ordinary point of view of human consciousness at the present time any more than is the naïve, still perfectly unbroken sway of natural instinct; rather is the discordancy of individual consciousness and its selfishness with the demands reaching beyond the individual of the instinctive and the philosophical reason to be regarded as the normal condition, whether this disharmony is only beginning to show itself in the innocence of native ingenuousness, whether it has developed to the bitter length of an apparently inextinguishable conflict; or, lastly, whether with the postulate of the subordination of the individual will to the All-Will a final solution and the method of reconciliation are revealed. And just beca
use each fresh human being has always anew the destiny to give birth to and to conquer this discord in himself, because, however, the conquest is wont soonest to succeed when it has behind it the struggle of youth (which is the proper time of sexual love), I thought myself warranted in my examination in assuming the discord of the conscious individual will with the unconscious purpose as the empirically given normal condition (comp. vol. i. p. 232).

  P. 41, 1. 8.—Comp, on this section Taubert’s “Pessimismus,” No. 4, “Love.”

  P. 42, 1. 2.—Comp. Taubert’s “Pessimismus,” No. 5, “Compassion.”

  P. 48, 1. 34.—Thus the instinct to contract marriage and found a family, and the desire to possess and to rear children, appears one of a number of connected instincts that mock egoism with delusive expectations, but are of the utmost importance for the maintenance of the world-machinery and the progress of the world-process. As love has the purpose of producing the most capable succeeding generation possible, so the instinct to conclude a marriage and found a family serves to educate the generation thus produced to the utmost excellence possible. As long as it is an irrefragable truth that no foundling-hospital nurture and orphan-house education can replace the maternal care and family education, so long will all the revolutionary plans directed against the existence of marriage and the family be dashed to pieces on the unconscious reason of history; for however much they may demonstrate that (what admits of no doubt) marriage brings with it the greatest inconveniences and that (what is very doubtful) people would be better off with the abolition of this social arrangement, yet the comfort of the spouses comes only in quite a secondary fashion into the question as to the value of marriage, since the family does not primarily exist for the sake of the married couples, but for the sake of the children. Hence there lies hidden in the belief subjectively so unreasonable of the lovers in the imperishability of their love so deep an objective reason. This illusion is only the bait to lead egoism to sacrifice its freedom, by imposing upon itself the legal bond of a permanent social fellowship, to which without this illusion it would at least with far more difficulty submit.

  P. 60, 1. 31.—Comp, hereon Taubert’s “Pessimismus,” No. 7, “Happiness as virtue.”

  P. 66, 1. 26.—Comp, here Taubert’s “Pessimismus,” No. 7, “Happiness as æsthetic view of the world,” and No. 6, “Enjoyment of Nature.”

  P. 88, 1. 8.—The most complete and searching “Critique of the Idea of Immortality” in a small compass of a strictly scientific character is to be found in Biedermann’s “Christliche Dogmatik” (§ 949–973), where it is shown that a religious interest has been taken in immortality by historical Christianity only by reason of erroneous suppositions, but that in truth the question as to continued existence after death is indifferent for religion, and cannot be answered otherwise than in the negative on the part of anthropology and metaphysics.

  P. 88, 1. 27.—Comp, also Taubert’s “Pessimismus,” No. 9, “Happiness hereafter.”

  P. 115, 1. 2.—Comp, with this Taubert’s “Pessimisinus,” No. 10, “Happiness as realisable in the future of the world.”

  P. 129, 1. 22.—We see from this that the individual negation of Will, even if it could lead to any result, would yet only concern the concrete phenomenon, without ever altering the essential being underlying this phenomenon. But if the assertion should be seriously maintained that the individual negation of will can affect and deny the essence of the will to live itself, it would immediately follow on monistic suppositions that then the first individual actually accomplishing in himself the negation of will must annihilate the All-Will, the will to live in its absolute totality, i.e., the whole world at a blow. This consequence even Schopenhauer sees himself compelled occasionally to admit. He says (W. as W. a. I., trans. by Haldane and Kemp, i. p. 167), after showing that the unity of the will is unaffected by the plurality of the stages of objectification and the number of individuals at any stage, as follows:—“We may therefore say that if, per impossible, a single real existence, even the most insignificant were to be entirely annihilated, the whole world would necessarily perish with it. The great mystic Angelus Sile-sius feels this when he says—

  ‘I know God cannot live an instant without me,

  He must give up the ghost if I should cease to be.’”

  From this passage it is evident to him himself that such an assumption can only be made per impossible. In his individual theory of redemption he has obviously left this impossibility out of sight, when he endeavours to maintain a difference in effect between suicide and an ascetic mortification of the body and of the will to live.

  P. 142.—Comp, my “Erl. z. Met. d. Unb.,” p. 33–35 and p. 74–80.

  P. 154, last 1.—Comp, my “Erl. z. Met. d. Unb.,” p 12–22.

  P. 173, 1. 32.—Comp, on the preceding section my “Erl. z. Met. d. Unb.,” p. 35–40. V. Kirchmann has protested against the application of the calculus of probabilities in the case before us (“Princip. des Eealismus,” p. 46–47), because the principles of the calculus of probabilities are only admissible on the assumption of a regularly acting causality, which supposition is here not satisfied. In opposition to this, it is to be remarked that a rigid uniform causality excludes, on the contrary, all computation of probabilities, which latter rather presupposes the assumption of non-causal chance, and is altogether dependent thereon. Now we certainly know that chance apart from causality has no place within the world-process, and therefore the whole calculus of probabilities is in strictness based on a mere fiction. This fiction is only possible on account of the insufficiency of our knowledge of the causes acting in the concrete case, since with perfect knowledge of these we should no longer talk of probability, but of certainty. On the other hand, however, this fiction is indispensable for our cognition, since probability offers us the only compensation for the certainty we are always desiderating. That now in spite of its fictitious basis the calculus of probability yields results relatively so exact lies in this, that with a more frequent recurrence of the same event for the most part only a part of the co-operant causes remains constant; another part, however, is so far variable that the effects compensate one another more completely, the more frequently the event is repeated. The constant causes, which are seen to be such, can now not be the basis of the calculus of probability, since their effects must be assumed to be necessary; the variable causes that compensate one another, however, do not afford an opening for the calculus of probabilities, because they act in each single case with regular causality, but rather precisely because in a larger series of cases their action is neutralised, i.e., because the same result turns out as if no causality had acted at all, but as if the variations of the several cases had been purely accidental. What is here within the world-process a mere fiction (which certainly is not only practically harmless, but even a positively useful surrogate of the true state of the case), is in the instance of the uncaused resolve of the Will to will perfect truth; the calculus of probabilities, which is only abusively applied to the properly strictly necessary events within the world-process, is rightly applicable in this unique example.

  P. 184, 1. 2.—The “Idea” means in this passage not (as V. Kirchmann misunderstands it—“Princ. d. Real.,” p. 36–37) “the whole unconscious mass of representations of the first attribute,” but the IDEA as logical formal principle, as matrix of an infinite possible unfolding of unconscious intuitions; for of an actual mass of representations there can of course be 110 question at the commencement of the process, when the Will seizes the Idea.

  P. 186, 1 10.—Comp, with this the inquiries on the nature of causality in my memoir, “J. H. v. Kirchmann’s erkenntnisstheoretischer Realismus,” No. 15–22 (Berlin, C. Duncker).

  P. 187, 1. 32.—Comp, on this section my “Erl. z. Met. d. Unb. “p. 28–35.

  P. 194, 1. 3.—Comp, my “Erl. z. Met. d. Unb.,” p. 22–28.

  1 Maudsley says, op. cit., p. 305: “When the whole energy of an idea passes immediately outwards in id
eomotor action, then there is scarce any, or there may be no, consciousness of it; in order that there may be consciousness of the idea, it is necessary not only that its excitation reach a certain intensity, but that the whole force of it do not pass immediately outwards in the reaction. … The persistence for a time of a certain degree of intensity of energy in the ideational circuit would certainly appear to be the condition of consciousness. “This is, however, only possible if the energy of the stimulus is absorbed by the cell, i.e., converted into tension.