LECTURE VIIITHE UNCONSCIOUS
Our studies up to this point have led us to the general conclusion that a large measure of the experiences of life are conserved or deposited in what may be called a storehouse of neurographic dispositions or residua.This storehouse is the unconscious.From this storehouse our conscious processes draw for the material of thought. Further, a large amount and variety of evidence, which we have briefly and incompletely reviewed, has shown that conserved experiences may function without arising into consciousness, i.e., as a subconscious process. To what extent such processes take part in the mechanism of thought, contribute to the formation of judgments, determine the point of view and meaning of ideas, give direction to the stream and formulate the content of consciousness, and in particular conditions, by a species of translation, manifest themselves consciously as phenomena which we designate abnormal constitute special problems which require to be studied by themselves.
Physiological memory and processes.—There is one phase of the unconscious which for the sake of completenessought to be touched upon here, particularly as it is of considerable importance in any biological conception of intelligence.There is every reason to believe thatintrinsicallythere is no essential difference between those physiological dispositions and activities of the lower nervous centers (subcortical ganglia and spinal cord), which condition and determine unconscious behavior, and those dispositions and activities of the higher centers—the cortex—which condition and determine both conscious and unconscious behavior.The former are undoubtedly innate in that they are primarily conditioned by inherited anatomical and physiological prearrangements of neurons and the latter are pre-eminently acquired through experience although probably not wholly so. (Our knowledge of the localization of function in the nervous system is not sufficiently definite to enable us to delimit the localization of either innate or acquired dispositions.) The innate activities of the lower nervous centers so far as represented by movements can be clearly differentiated from those of the higher centers and recognized in the behavior of so-called “spinal” animals and of animals from which the cerebral hemispheres have been removed. In the former the connection between the spinal cord and all parts of the nervous system above having been severed, whatever movements are executed are performed by the spinal cord alone and therefore of course by unconscious processes. The latter animals, although their actions are more complex and closely approximate(with important differences) those of normal animals, are also devoid or nearly devoid of consciousness. I say “nearly devoid” because in the interpretation of the experiments it is difficult to disprove that, as some hold, elementary sensations—qua sensation—are retained, though others regard the animals as purely unconscious physiological machines.
In the spinal animal, in response to specific stimuli, various movements are elicited which though of a purposive character are effected, as has been so admirably worked out by Sherington, by complex spinal mechanisms of a reflex character. The so-called “scratch reflex” and the reflex movements of walking, trotting, and galloping (the animal being suspended in air) are examples. Such reflexes involve not only the excitation of certain movements appropriate to the stimulus but the inhibition of antagonistic muscles and reflex movements. Further in the integration of the spinal system, reflexes are compounded, one bringing to the support of another allied accessory reflexes so that variouscoöperativecoöperativemovements are executed. A constellation of reflexes leads to quite complex spinal mechanisms responsive to groups of stimuli acting concurrently and resulting in behavior which is purposive and adaptive to the situation. The neural processes executing such movements are necessarily conditioned by inherited dispositions and structural arrangements of the neurons.
In the animal from which the cerebral hemispheresonly have been removed there can be little doubt that the physiological mechanisms governing behavior differ only in complexity, not in kind, from those of the spinal reflexes; that in passing through successive anatomical levels from the spinal animal to this decerebrate animal with the addition of each successive ganglion the increasing complexity of behavior corresponds to increasing complexity of mechanisms or compounding of reflexes. And yet in the decerebrate animal without consciousness, as we must believe (excepting perhaps elementary sensations), the subcortical ganglia and spinal cord continue to perform exceedingly complex actions ordinarily, as we suppose, guided in the normal animal by consciousness. The reptile crawls; the fish swims; indeed the lancet fish has no brain, all its functions being regulated by its spinal cord. The frog hops and swims; the hen preens its feathers, walks and flies; the dog walks and runs. These, however, are the simplest examples of decerebrate behavior. Indeed it may be quite complex. The more recent experiments of Schräder on the pigeon and falcon and Goltz and Rothmann on the dog, not to mention those of earlier physiologists, have shown that the decerebrate unconscious (?) animal performs about all the movements performed by the normal animal.[123]“A mammal such as a rabbit, in the same way as a frog and a bird, mayin the complete or all but complete absence of the cerebral hemispheres maintain a natural posture, free from all signs of disturbance of equilibrium, and is able to carry out with success at all events all the usual and common bodily movements. And as in the bird and frog, the evidence also shows that these movements not only may be started by, but in their carrying out are guided by and coordinated by, afferent impulses along afferent nerves, including those of the special senses. But in the case of the rabbit it is even still clearer than in the case of the bird that the effects of these afferent impulses are different from those which result when the impulses gain access to an intact brain. The movements of the animal seem guided by impressions made on its retina, as well as on other sensory nerves; we may perhaps speak of the animal as the subject of sensations; but there is no satisfactory evidence that it possesses either visual or other perceptions, or that the sensations which it experiences give rise to ideas.”[124]
Evenspontaneitywhich at one time was supposed to be lost it is now agreed returns if the animal is kept alive long enough. It “wanders about in the room untiringly the greater part of the day” (Loeb).
Of course there are differences in the animal’s behavior when compared with normal behavior, but these differences are not so easy to interpret in psychological terms. Loeb, apparently followingSchräder, does not believe the animal is blind or deaf or without sensation for it reacts to light, to noise, to smell, to tactile impressions, etc. It avoids obstacles and is guided by visual impressions, etc. The falcon jumps at and catches a mouse introduced in its cage; the dog growls and snaps if its paw is pinched and endeavors to get away or bite the offending hand; the pigeon flies and alights upon a bar, apparently visually measuring distance, and so on. But though it is guided by visual and other sensoryimpressions, does it have visual, auditory and otherimages, that is, conscious sensory states? This is not easy to answer. It certainly acts like an animal that is not blind nor deaf nor without tactual sensation, and yet it is conceivable that it is guided simply by sensory mechanisms without conscious sensation. The main reason, apparently, for believing the animal to be without sensation, as some believe (e. g., Morgan) is the absence of the cerebral cortex in which alone sensation is believed to be “localized.” Recently Rothmann[125]has succeeded in keeping alive for three years a dog from which the entire cerebrum was extirpated. It was then killed. Although the dog, like Goltz’ dog, in its behavior exhibited an abundance of functions in the spheres of mobility, sensibility, feeding, barking, etc., Rothmann came to the conclusion that it was blind anddeaf.[126]Although apparently without taste for bitter, sweet, sour, and acid, yet the dog reacted differently to edible and non-edible substances, swallowing the former and rejecting the latter (moist sand); raw flesh was eaten preferably to cooked flesh and Goltz’ dog rejected from its mouth food made bitter with quinine. Some kind of gustatory processes (probably purely reflex as in Pawlow’s association experiments) were therefore retained though not necessarily taste as such. But blindness and deafness in the dog cannot negative the retention in birds and other animals of visual and auditory impressions of some kind which guide and originate behavior. But whether such impressions are psychologically sensations or not, the animal certainly does not possess visual or otherperceptions, because the “sensations” have no “meaning.” Schräder’s falcon, for example, would jump at and catch with its claws a moving mouse in the cage, but there the matter was at an end; it did not devour it as would a normal falcon. Any moving object had for it the same meaning as a mouse and excited the same movement. So the decerebrate dog does not distinguish friend from stranger and other dogs have no meaning for it. All objects are alike to all decerebrate animals. In the popular language of the street “all coons look alike” to them. In otherwords the main defect is loss of memory for conscious experiences, of what Loeb calls associative-memory, the conscious memory which gives meaning to sensations, transforms them by synthesis intoperceptionof objects and gives still further meaning to the objects. Hence for the pigeon without its cerebrum “Everything is only a mass in space, it moves aside for every pigeon or attempts to climb over it, just as it would in the case of a stone. All authors agree in the statement that to these animals all objects are alike. They have no enemies and no friends. They live like hermits no matter in how large a company they find themselves. The languishing coo of the male makes as little impression upon the female deprived of its cerebrum as the rattling of peas or the whistle which formerly made it hasten to its feeding place. Neither does the female show interest in its young. The young ones that have just learned to fly pursue the mother, crying unceasingly for food, but they might as well beg food of a stone.”[127]
One of the chief utilities of conscious memory is the means it offers the psycho-physiological organism to make use of past experiences to adapt present conduct to a present situation. This the brainless animal cannot do. Hence it is a mindless physiological automaton. All the actions performed by it, however complex they may be, are unquestionably performed and primarily conditioned by inherited neural arrangements and dispositions. They maybe even regarded as complexly compounded reflex processes similar excepting in complexity, as Sherrington has held, to the mechanisms of the spinal cord. The behavior of the animal is therefore by definition instinctive. But even so this fact in no way throws light upon the intrinsic nature of the physiological process, but only upon the conditions of its occurrence. Acquired behavior is also conditioned—conditioned by acquired dispositions. The difference physiologically between the two is that in instinctive behavior the neural processes are confined to pathways established by evolutionary development, and in acquired behavior to pathways established by experience. Both must be conditioned by pathways, and the process in its inner nature must be the same in both. Many cortical processes, to be sure, are conscious—i.e., correlated with consciousness—but probably not all. And this quality of consciousness permitting of conscious memory is of great utility in the organization of acquired dispositions that provide the means for the adaption of the animal to each new environmental situation.
Furthermore, it is not at all certain that the behavior of the decerebrate animal is not in part determined bysecondarily acquired dispositions. In the normal animal instinctive actions become modified and perfected after the very first performances of the act by conscious experience[128]and it is not at all certain that dispositions so acquired and essentialfor these modifications are not conserved and incorporated in the unconscious neural arrangements of the subcortical centers. So far as this may be the case the acquired modifications of instinctive behavior may be manifested in the actions of the decerebrate animals. In other words, the unconscious processes of the lower nervous centers motivating movements (and visceral functions) may includeacquired dispositions or physiological memories.
That the subcortical centers are capable of memory seems to have been shown for the first time by Rothmann’s dog. This mindless animal proved to be capable of a certain amount of education. It learned to avoid hitting against objects, and to do certain tricks—jumping over a hurdle and following on its hind legs a stool upon which its fore feet were placed as the stool was dragged forward. “In the perfection of all these performances the influence of practice was easily recognized.” This means, if the interpretation given is correct, that new dispositions and new connections may be acquired within the lower centerswithout the intervention of the integrating influence of the cortexor conscious intelligence.[129]This is an important contribution for apparently the attempt to educate brainless animals had not been previously made, and their capability for education demonstrated.
The important bearing which this fact has uponthis discussion is that it shows that unconscious processes are capable of memory, that is physiological memory. It may be said that this statement needs some modification if the sensory “impressions” guiding the decerebrate animal are to be interpreted as true psychological, however elementary, “sensations.” It would seem to me on the contrary only to accentuate the fact that the processes of the brainless animal are on a transition level between the purely unconscious processes of the spinal animal and the purely (if ever wholly so) conscious processes of the normal animal, and that intrinsically all are of the same nature. If sensation enters into the complex reflex reactions of the brainless animal it would seem that it can only be an elemental conscious factor in a complicated unconscious physiological mechanism. In this mechanism it can have no more specific importance in determining behavior, because of the fact of its being a psychological state, than if it were a receptor “impression” intercalated in the arc of an innate process. It is not linked with any associative memories of the past or foresight into the future; it does not constitute conscious intelligence. As a conscious experience it cannot have that kind of “meaning” which in the normal animal modifies instinctive processes and determines conduct. It probably plays simply the same part in the whole process, which otherwise is wholly unconscious, that the associative sensory image plays in determining the flow of thick or thin saliva in Pawlow’s dogs—simplya single link in a chain of associated reflex processes.
The next point to which I would direct attention is that from an objective point of view the behavior of the decerebrate animal may be in natureintelligentin the empirical sense of that word. The dog that growls and snaps when his foot is pinched, tries to draw it away, and, failing that, bites at the offending hand; the “educated” dog that jumps over a hurdle, and walks on his hind legs, following a stool supporting his front legs, to my way of thinking performs intelligent actions whether it has a brain or not. If intelligence is arbitrarily limited to actions performed by conscious processes, then intelligence becomes a mere question of terms.[130]There arises also the practical difficulty that certain types of behavior, which by common assent and common sense are regarded as purely automatic and unintelligent, must be termed intelligent because guided by consciousness. I cannot help thinking that “intelligence” is a pragmatic question, not a biological or psychological one. It would be much more conducive to a clear understanding of biological problems to use intelligence only as a convenient and useful expression, like sanity or insanity, to designate certain behavior which conforms to a type which, without strictly defining its limits, popular language has defined as intelligent. Sanity and insanity have ceased to be terms of scientific value because they cannot be defined in terms of specific mental conditions and much less in terms of mental processes. So intelligence cannot be definedin terms of conscious and unconscious processes. Any attempt to do so meets with insuperable difficulties and becomes “confusion worse confounded.” When we say then that the behavior of the decerebrate dog may be intelligent, all that is meant is that the animal exhibits behavior identical with that which in the normal animal we would empirically call intelligent. In this sense unconscious processes may exhibit intelligence. It was from this viewpoint, I think, that Foster concluded: “In short, the more we study the phenomena exhibited by animals possessing a part only of their brain, the closer we are pushed to the conclusion that no sharp line can be drawn between volition and lack of volition, or between the possession and absence of intelligence. Between the muscle-nerve preparation at one limit, and our conscious willing selves at the other, there is a continuous gradation without a break; we cannot fix on any linear barrier in the brain or in the general nervous system, and say ‘beyond this there is volition and intelligence, but up to this there is none.’”[131]
It has already been pointed out (Lecture V) that, in man, complicated actions which have been volitionally and perhaps laboriously acquired may be afterwards involuntarily and unconsciously performed.[132]In other words, after intelligent actionshave been acquired by conscious processes, they may be performed by subconscious processes for which there is no conscious awareness and probably these may be either coconscious or entirely unconscious. There is no sharp dividing line between the activities of the unconscious, coconscious, and conscious.
When we descend in the scale of animal life to the insects (bees, ants, etc.,) we observe motor activity of a highly complex character of a kind that is termed intelligent, but we are forced to conclude, from various considerations, that the elements of consciousness have dwindled away to what can be nothing more than mere sensibility. In other words consciousness is reduced to its lowest terms, but behavior and the neural processes are maintained at a high level of complexity. Accordingly there is a disproportion between the complexity of the motor behavior and the inferred simplicity of consciousness, for in the higher animals the former would be correlated with complex psychological processes. If this be so, the motor activities must be determined by processes which are mostly unconscious.
In still lower forms of life the motor activities can be referred to simple tropisms, and thus necessarily are wholly unconscious.
Between the most complex unconscious physiological processes performed by the nervous system and the simpler cerebral processes accompanied by consciousness there is not as wide a step as might seem when superficially viewed. The physiologicalprocess may, as we have seen, manifest itself in acts of quite as intelligent a character as those exhibited by the conscious process, and indeed more so; for the conscious act may be little more than a limited reflex. On the other hand a psychological process may be so elementary that it contains nothing of awareness of self, of intelligence, or of volition in the true sense—nothing more, perhaps, than an elementary sensation without even perception. But it may be said that the presence of the most rudimentary state of consciousness makes all the difference and renders the gulf between the two impassable.
We are not called upon to discuss that question here. It is one which involves the ultimate nature of physical processes. A distinction should be made between psychological and psychical, these not being coextensive and always interchangeable terms. Psychological pertains to the empirical data of consciousness, (thoughts, ideas, sensations, etc.) while psychical pertains to the inner or ultimate nature of these data. Though the data as given in consciousness are psychical, that which is psychical may not be solely manifested as psychological phenomena. It may be manifested as physical phenomena and perhaps be identified with the energy of the universe. Hence the doctrine of panpsychism. And so it may be that in its ultimate analysis an unconscious process is psychical (monism) although not psychological and not manifesting itself as a datum of consciousness. Certain it is that,objectivelyviewed, there is nothing to distinguish physiological from psychological intelligence. If the extraordinary instinctive habits exhibited by insects, such as bees and ants and by still lower forms of animal life, can rightly be interpreted as, in large part at least, manifestations of physiological processes, as is quite possible, the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious in respect to intelligence and adaptability to environment would be reduced to one only of degree. That some of the lowest forms of life are endowed with consciousness, in any sense in which the word has psychological meaning, seems incredible, though they manifest instinctive intelligence of no mean order. The fact probably is, as I have just intimated, that those processes we call physiological and those we call psychological are in their inner nature identical, and the former are quite capable of functioning, incredible as it may seem, in a fashion that we are accustomed to believe can only be the attribute of conscious intelligence. This does not mean, of course, that the physiological intelligence can reach the same degree of perfection as that reached by conscious intelligence, though conversely, the latter may be of a lower order than physiological intelligence.[133]From this point of view we are logically entitled to regardphysiological processes, even of the lower nervous centers and even though they are not acquired but due to congenital structural and functional arrangement, as phases of the unconscious.
Psycho-physical parallelism and monism.—According to the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism every mental process is correlated with (accompanied by) a brain process. As brain processes thus viewed are “unconscious” (in the sense of not having the attribute of consciousness) we may express this in other terms and say: every “conscious” process is accompanied by an “unconscious” process. I have no intention of entering here into the question of the validity of the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism. I wish merely to point out that if parallelism is a true formulation of the mind-brain problem, as I have just stated it, the converse ought to hold true, namely, that every brain process of a certain kind involving intelligence ought to be correlated with consciousness. But if some subconscious processes manifesting what is equivalent to thought, reasoning, judgment, imagination, volition, etc., are unconscious—as seems likely if not probable—then this converse does not hold true. This has some bearing on the validity of the doctrine; for if physical processes can perform substantially the same function as conscious intelligence it is difficult to reconcile this fact with what I may call naïve psycho-physical parallelism.
It is reconcilable, however, with psychic monism.According to this doctrine it is not a question of parallelism at all. There is only one process—the psychical. The physical brain process is only an aspect or special mode of apprehending this one. All is psychical but not psychological. That which we apprehend in the form of the unconscious is really psychical and hence is capable of performing the samekindof function as it performs when it becomes psychological. It is not at all certain that unconscious processes may not comprise an intelligence possessing faculties identical in kind with those of conscious intelligence and indistinguishable from the latter. Subconscious processes may exhibit perception, cognition, reason, imagination, conation (will), feeling, etc., and it is possible that some of these processes may be correctly interpreted as unconscious. At any rate, from the point of view of monism, whether the real psychical process or, probably more correctly, how much of it shall emerge as a psychological state of consciousness depends upon intrinsic conditions. Though we cannot penetrate within them it is quite conceivable that it is a matter of complexity of synthesization and coöperative activity of psychical energies. This is a most interesting problem closely related to that of awareness and self-consciousness.
The meanings of the unconscious, subconscious, and coconscious.—Though the term “unconscious” is in general use it has so many connotations derived from its various meanings in metaphysics, psychology,and physiology that its use has given rise to considerable confusion of thought, particularly, I am compelled to believe, in the interpretation of specific psycho-physiological phenomena. Nevertheless, it has been so well established in our nomenclature that we could not replace it if we would. Nor is it wholly desirable to do so. It is a good and useful term, but I believe that with each advance in the precision of our knowledge we ought, so far as accumulative data permit, to give precision to the concept for which it stands. Just as in physical science we attempt to give precision to our concept of electricity in conformity with new data accumulated from time to time, so our psychological concepts should be defined and limited in accordance with the advance in knowledge. Some do not like to define the term, not being quite willing to commit themselves unreservedly to the complete acceptance of the physiological theory of memory and to cut adrift from the metaphysical concept of a subliminal mind. If the psycho-physiological theory of memory, which is now generally accepted, is sound, we have one meaning of the unconscious which is a very definite concept, namely, the brain residua, physiological “dispositions” or neurograms in which the experiences of life are conserved. These terms become, therefore, synonyms for the unconscious. That, under certain conditions, the passive neurograms may, under stimulation, become active and function unconsciously (i.e., without corresponding psychological equivalents being introducedinto the personal consciousness), need not invalidate the concept. We are then dealing with an unconscious and dynamic process. The effects of such functioning are simply the manifestations of the unconscious and may be recognized either in modifications of the stream of consciousness or in bodily disturbances. The term unconscious is an appropriate and descriptive term to characterize that which is devoid of the attributes of consciousness. This use of the term has been sanctioned by common usage.
Unfortunately, however, the term has been also employed to characterize another and distinct class of facts, namelyCo-[or Sub-]conscious Ideas. We shall have occasion to study these psychological phenomena in other lectures.[134]We have seen examples in many of the phenomena I have cited. It is sufficient to say here, that as conceived of, and as we have seen, they are verydefinite states of coconsciousness—a coexisting dissociated consciousness or coconsciousness of which the personal consciousness is not aware, i.e., of which it is “unconscious.” Hence they have been called “unconscious ideas” and have been included in the unconscious, particularly by German writers. But this is plainly using the term in a different sense—using it as a synonym for the longer phrase, “ideas we are unaware of,” and not as a characterization of that which is physiological and non-psychological.
“Unconscious ideas” in this sense (the equivalentof coconscious ideas) would include conscious states that we are not aware of simply because not in the focus of attention but in the fringe of the content of consciousness. The term would also include pathologically split-off and independently acting coconscious ideas or systems of ideas such as occur in hysteria, reaching their apogee in coconscious personalities and in automatic writings. Here we have a series of facts essentially different from the conceptual facts of physical residua, the form in which experiences are conceived to be conserved. Manifestly it is confusing and incorrect to define both by “the unconscious.” And to speak of the former as “unconscious ideas” and of the latter as “unconscious,” although technically correct, leads to confusion from using the term “unconscious” in two different senses.[135]
As a concept in a scheme of metaphysics, “unconscious ideas”—i.e., ideas of which we are not conscious, have long been recognized. Leibnitz was the first to maintain, on theoretical grounds and bya priorireasoning, the existence of ideas of which we are not aware, as did likewise Kant, influenced by Leibnitz, and later Schilling, and Herbart; while Hartmann evolved the unconscious into a biological and metaphysical system.[136]
By most American, English, and French psychologists such ideas, as conceived at least by Leibnitz, Kant, and Herbart, would to-day be called subconscious or coconscious ideas. Hartmann included all physiological processes of the nervous system in the Unconscious and ascribed to them special attributes (will, purpose, etc.). The Unconscious accordingly has connotations from which it is not easy to rid ourselves in dealing with it. It is generally agreed that it is desirable to have a term which shall cover all classes of facts—coconscious ideas, conserved experiences, and physiological processes—withoutcommittal of opinion as to interpretation.[137]
It does not follow, however, that the term “unconscious” is the one that should be chosen. On the contrary, as unconscious has two distinct and different meanings (that pertaining to unawareness and that which is non-psychological) it is a very undesirable term if we wish to be precise in our terminology. That we should have a term which shall precisely define ideas which are not in awareness and which shall distinguish them from physiological processes is necessitated by the fact that such ideas in themselves form a distinct field of investigation.
The term “subconscious” is commonly used, excepting by German writers, to characterize these coconscious ideas. In fact, by some French medical writers, particularly Janet, it is very precisely limited to such ideas. By other authors it is employed in this sense and also to include the physical residua of experiences, and sometimes with the additional meaning of unconscious physiological neurograms, or processes, which it defines—in fact, to denote any conserved experience or process outside of consciousness. On the other hand, among these authors, some do not admit the validity of the concept of coconscious ideas, but interpret all so-called subconscious manifestations as the expression of the physiological functioning of physiological neurograms in which the experiences of life are conserved. Subconscious and unconscious are, therefore,quite commonly, but not always, employed as synonyms to define two or three different classes of facts. For practical reasons, as already stated, it is desirable to have a term which shall embrace all classes of facts, and of the two terms in common use, subconscious and unconscious, the former is preferable, as it is not subject to the double meaning above mentioned. I, therefore, use the term subconscious in a generic sense toinclude(a)coconscious ideas or processes; (b)unconscious neurograms, and(c)unconscious processes. Of course it is only a matter of terminology. The conceptual facts may then be thus classified:
The subconscious{The coconsciousThe unconscious{{(synonym: subconscious ideas.)a: Conserved dormant neurograms or neural dispositions.b: Active functioning neurograms or neuralprocesses.(synonym: unconscious processes.)
The subconscious
{
The coconsciousThe unconscious
{{(synonym: subconscious ideas.)a: Conserved dormant neurograms or neural dispositions.b: Active functioning neurograms or neuralprocesses.(synonym: unconscious processes.)
{{
(synonym: subconscious ideas.)a: Conserved dormant neurograms or neural dispositions.b: Active functioning neurograms or neuralprocesses.(synonym: unconscious processes.)
Subconscious as an adjective used to qualify ideas is plainly equivalent to coconscious ideas. This terminology I have found useful in keeping the different classes of conceptual facts separate in my mind and I believe it will prove to be equally useful to others. With the conceptual facts clearly differentiated it will be generally easy to recognize the various senses in which the terms are used when found in the writings of others.
The unconscious as a fundamental of personality.—A survey of all the facts and their relations, which I have outlined in the preceding lectures, brings into strong relief the important principle that no matter in what state complexes of ideas are formed, so long as they are conserved, they become a part of our personality. They become dormant, but, being conserved, they may under favorable conditions be awakened and enter our conscious life. It matters not whether complexes of ideas have been formed in our personal consciousness, or in a state of hypnosis, in dreams, in conditions of dissociated personality, in coconsciousness, or any other dissociated state. They all become parts of ourselves and may afterwards be revived under favoring conditions, whether volitionally, automatically, by artificial devices, by involuntary stimuli, or other agencies. They may or may not be subject to voluntary recall as recollections, but, so long as they form part of our dormant consciousness as physiological neurograms, they belong to the personal self. “Afterall,” as Miss B. used to say, and correctly, referring to her different dissociated personalities, BI, B III, and BIV, “after all, they are all myself.” It makes no difference in what state an experience has occurred. A potential memory of it may persist and may, in one way or another, be revived, no matter how or when it originated.
Through the conception of thesubconscious as resolvable, on the one hand, into theunconscious, passive or active physiological dispositions, and, on the other hand, intocoactive conscious states, the subconscious becomes simplified and intelligible. It offers a basis on which may be constructed comprehensible theories of memory, suggestibility, post-hypnotic phenomena, dreams, automatic writing and similar phenomena, artificial hallucinations, the protean phenomena of hysteria, and the psycho-neuroses, as well as the mechanism of thought. It enables us also to construct a rational concept of personality and self. As we shall see, when we take up the study of multiple personality in later lectures, out of the aggregate of the accumulated and varied experience of the past conserved in the unconscious may be constructed a number of different personalities, each depending upon a synthesis and rearrangement of life’s neurograms and innate dispositions and instincts. All dormant ideas with their feeling tones and conative tendencies belong to our personality, but they may be arranged with varying instincts and innate dispositions into a number of differentiated systems, each synthesized into a correspondingpersonality. In the unconscious may be conserved a vast number of life’s experiences ranging in time almost from the cradle to the grave. The hopes, the wishes, the anxieties of childhood may still be there, lying fallow, but capable of injecting themselves under favoring conditions into our personalities. Properly speaking, from this point of view, aside from certain artificial and pathological conditions, there is,normally, no distinct “subconsciousself,” or “subliminalself,” or “secondaryself,” or “hiddenself.” In artificial and pathological conditions there may be, as has been frequently shown, a splitting of consciousness and the aggregation into a secondary coconscious system of large systems of ideas which have all the characteristics of personality. This secondary personality (of which the primary personality is not aware) may have its own memories, feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. It may appropriate to itself various complexes of neurograms deposited by the experiences of life which are not at the disposal of the principal personality. Such a coconscious system may properly be spoken of as a subconsciousself. But there is no evidence that,normally, such systems exist. All that we are entitled to affirm is that every individual’s consciousness may include ideas of which he is not aware, and that he has at his disposal, to a greater or less extent, a large unconscious storehouse in which are neurographically conserved a large and varied mass of life’s experiences. These experiences may be arrangedin systems, as we shall see in the next lecture, but they do not constitute a “self.” To speak of them as a subconscious, subliminal, secondary, or hidden self is to construct concepts which are allegories, metaphors, symbolisms, personifications of concrete phenomena. Their use tends to fallacious reasoning and to perverted inductions from the facts. Becoming major premises in a syllogism, they lead to erroneous interpretations of the simplest facts, just as fixed ideas or obsessions tend to a perverted interpretation of the environment.
We are now in a position to see that the psycho-physiological theory of memory has a far-reaching significance. The facts which have been brought before you in evidence of the theory have been selected largely from those which were capable of verification by experimentation and by other objective testimony. They include a large variety of experiences which occurred in pathological conditions like amnesia and multiple personality, and in artificial conditions like hypnosis and intoxication. Such abnormal conditions enable us to show by testimony, independent of the individual, that these experiences had actually occurred, and, therefore, to show that the reproductions of these experiences were in principle truthful memories. They also enable us to appreciate the enormous variety and quantity of experiences which, although absolutely beyond the power of voluntary recall, may be conserved nevertheless as neurograms, and also to appreciatethe minuteness of detail in which the brain records may be preserved.
If you will stop a moment to think, and give play to your imagination, you will see that the principle of the neurographic conservation of experiences must be true not only of our outer life, of our experiences with our environment, but of our wholeinner life, normal as well as abnormal. It is always possible that any thought, any feeling, however trivial and transitory, may leave neurograms in the brain. It is always possible that even a fleeting doubt or scruple, thoughts which flash into the mind and straightway are put out again, all may leave their records and dispositions to function again. Even a passing doubt which any of you may entertain regarding the interpretation of the phenomena I have described, and the correctness of our conclusions, may be recorded. Indeed, it is a matter of some importance for the understanding ofabnormalabnormalmental conditions that many of those horrid little sneaking thoughts which we do not like to admit to ourselves, the thoughts which for one reason or another we endeavor to repress, to put out of our minds, may leave their indelible traces. In fact, these are the very thoughts, the ones which we try hardest to forget, to push aside, which are most likely to be conserved. The harder we try, the stronger the feelings attached to them, the more likely they are to leave neurograms in the brain though they may never be reproduced. This has been shown by observation of pathological conditions,like hysteria and psychasthenia, and by experimentation. In repressing our thoughts we do not put them out of our minds, but, as the subject previously cited, who in hypnosis could recall such repressed thoughts, said, we put themintoour minds. In other words, we conserve them as neurograms.
In one sense, I suppose, we may say that every one leads a double life. Let me hasten to say to you, I mean this not in a moral but in an intellectual sense. Every one’s mental life may fairly be said to be divided between those ideas, thoughts, and feelings which he receives from and gives out to his social world, the social environment in which he lives, and those which belong more properly to his inner life and the innermost sanctuary of his personality and character. The former include the activities and the educational acquisitions which he seeks to cultivate and conserve for future use. The latter include the more intimate communings with himself, the doubts and fears and scruples pertaining to the moral, religious, and other problems of life, and the struggles and trials and difficulties which beset its paths; the internal contests with the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The conventionalities of the social organization require that the outward expression of many of these should be put under restraint. Indeed, society insists that some, the sexual strivings, are aspects of life and human nature which are not to be spoken or thought of. Now, of course, this inner life must also leave its neurographic tracings along with theouter life, and must, potentially at least, become a part of our personality, liable to manifest itself in character and in other directions. But, more than this, abnormal psychology, through its technical methods of investigation and through the perverted manifestations exhibited in sick conditions of mind and body, has shown us that the neurograms deposited as the experiences of this inner life may flower, to use an expression of the lamented William James, below the threshold of consciousness, and, under certain conditions, where the mind is in unstable equilibrium, burst forth in mental and bodily manifestations of an unusual character. Thus in processes of this kind we find an explanation of religious phenomena like sudden conversion; of dreams and of certain pathological phenomena like the hallucinations, deliria, crises, and bodily manifestations of hysteria, and the numerous automatic phenomena of spiritualistic mediums. Such phenomena may then be interpreted as theflowering or functioning of the unconscious.
The essential difference in the consequences which follow from this psycho-physiological conception of memory, based as it is on the unconscious, and those which follow from that conception which is popularly held must be obvious. According to popular understanding the mental life which we have outlived, the life which we have put behind us, whether that of childhood or of passing phases of adult life, is only an ephemeral, evanescent phase of consciousness which once out of mind, put aside or forgotten,need no longer be taken into consideration as pertaining to, much less influencing, our personality. Writers of fiction who undertake to depict human nature almost invariably, I believe, are governed by this point of view. They describe their characters as throwing overboard their past, their dominating beliefs, convictions, and other traits as easily as we should toss undesirable refuse into the ocean. Their heroes and heroines jettison their psychological cargoes as if they were barrels of molasses whenever their personalities show signs of going down in the storms of life’s experiences. According to this view, which is derived from an imperfect conception of mental processes, any passing phase of consciousness ceases to have potential existence or influence as soon as it is forgotten, or as soon as it ceases to be a consciously dominating belief or motive of life. It is assumed that so long as we do not bring it back into consciousness it belongs to us no more than as if it had originated in the mind of another, or had taken flight on the wings of a dove. This is true in part only. A phase of consciousness may not be conserved, or it may become so modified by the clash with new experiences that a rearrangement of its elements takes place and it becomes, for instance, a new motive or belief, or a new setting to give a new meaning to an idea. On the other hand, any passing phase may, as we have seen, still belong to our personality even though it lies hidden in its depths. That we no longer recall it, bring it voluntarily into the field of our personalconsciousness, does not negative its continuing (though dormant) existence, and its further influence upon the personality through the subconscious workings of the mind.
In conclusion, and by way of partial recapitulation, we may say, first: The records of our lives are written in unconscious dormant complexes and therein conserved so long as the residua retain their dynamic potentialities. It is the unconscious, rather than the conscious, which is the important factor in personality and intelligence. The unconscious furnishes the formative material out of which our judgments, our beliefs, our ideals, and our characters are shaped.
In the second place, the unconscious, besides being astaticstorehouse, hasdynamicfunctions. It is evident that, theoretically, if unconscious complexes are once formed they may, under favoring conditions of the psycho-physical organism, become revived and play an important part in pathological mental life. If through dissociation they could be freed from the normal inhibition and the counterbalancing influences of the normal mental mechanism, and given an independence and freedom from voluntary control, they might, by functioning, produce abnormal states like fixed ideas, delusions, automatisms, hallucinations, etc. A study of such abnormal phenomena confirms this theoretical view and finds in this conception of the unconscious an explanation of the origin of many of them. The hallucinations and bizarre notions and delusions ofthe insane, the hysteric, and psychasthenic, where all seems chaos, without law or order, are often due to the resurrection and fabricating effect of unconscious complexes formed by the earlier experiences of the patient’s life. Of course, the mechanism by which such phenomena are produced is a complicated one about which there is much difference of opinion and which we cannot enter into here. In post-hypnotic phenomena and artificial hallucinations we have experimental examples of the principle.
More than this, and more important, there is considerable evidence going to show that conserved experiences functioning as subconscious processes take part in and determine the conscious processes of everyday life. On the one hand stored neurograms may undergo subconscious incubation, assimilating the material deposited by the varied experiences of life to finally burst forth in ripened judgments, beliefs, and convictions, as is so strikingly shown in sudden religious conversions and allied mental manifestations. Through a similar incubating process, the stored material needed for the solution of baffling problems is gathered together and oftentimes assimilated and arranged and formulated as an answer to the question. On the other hand, subconscious processes may be but a hidden part of that mechanism which determines our everyday judgment and our points of view, our attitudes of mind, the meanings of our ideas, and the traits of our characters. Antecedent experiences functioningas such processes may determine our fantasies and our dreams. Thus functioning as dynamic processes the stored residua of the past may provide the secrets of our moods, our impulses, our prejudices, our beliefs, and our judgments.
It remains, however, for future investigation to determine the exact mechanism and the relative extent to which subconscious processes play their parts.