DR. MORTON PRINCE, Boston: I sympathize with Dr. Putnam in his interest in
philosophical problems, my only conflict with his point of view being with
what I conceive to be a mixing of problems. I suppose that if we want an
explanation of the universe it must be in terms of philosophy or
metaphysics. The only alternative is to accept it as a phenomenal universe,
as it is. You will remember that when it was reported to Carlisle that
Margaret Fuller said she "accepted the universe," he replied "Gad! I think
she had better!". So we have got either to explain the universe in terms of
philosophy or accept it as it is.
I have no objection to introducing philosophical problems if we do not
confuse those problems with our psychological problems. They are entirely
distinct. This distinction between philosophy and science the physicists
and chemists clearly recognize. One of their problems is the ultimate nature
of matter, but it is not a problem of practical physics and chemistry. These
deal, let us say, with phenomenal atoms and molecules, with their
attractions and repulsions, etc. In dealing with the problem of the
ultimate nature of matter the chemist analyzes matter and finds that it can
be reduced to atoms, and then analyzes the atoms and finds them composed of
electrons flying about within the circumscribed space of an atom. Then he
analyzes the electron and reduces it to negative electricity, and when asked
what negative electricity is he says it is a form of the energy of the
universe, and stops there and says--"I don't know," when asked to explain
energy.
Here the problem of the ultimate nature of matter becomes a question of
philosophy and metaphysics. It is a field of research by itself. The
chemist never confuses that problem with the specific problems of his
particular science. These deal with empirical atoms and molecules as he
finds them. No chemist would undertake to give the chemical formula of the
union of sulphuric acid and zinc by a formula which expressed the ultimate
nature of atoms or negative electricity. If he did so he would confuse his
problems. And so I think we confuse our problems when we attempt to explain
empirical psychological phenomena in philosophical or ultimate terms. We
must treat our psychological elements--ideas, wishes, emotions, etc,--as the
chemist treats atoms and molecules. But, just as the latter may take up
ultimate problems as a special field of investigation so may we do, if we
like, but we must not treat them as psychological problems.
This confusion of problems is, I think, the fundamental error of Jung and
others in treating of the libido when he and they attempt to explain
specific phenomena as empirically observed. Jung undertakes to resolve
libido into the energy of the universe. Of course this is possible. All
forces can be ultimately so resolved, including the forces of mind and body.
Emotions such as anger and fear are forces and each of these forces, with
great probability, can be reduced in the ultimate analysis to a form of
energy. But this is not to admit that we are justified in explaining
specific concrete psychological phenomena, with which we are dealing, in
philosophical terms. We must explain them in terms of the phenomena
themselves. As a monist and pan-psychist, for example, I may believe that
conscious processes can be reduced to, or be identified with the ultimate
nature of matter, the thing-in-itself. And conversely atoms and electrons
may be reduced to a force which may be identified with psychic force, but I
would not attempt to explain psychological behaviour in terms of such a
philosophical concept but only through phenomenal psychological forces, let
us say, wishes. In other words, I would not undertake to introduce
pan-psychism into the problem at all as an explanation of a particular
phobia. I think, therefore, that when Jung and others attempt to explain
phobias and other psychological phenomena through a philosophical concept of
the libido as analyzed into an elan vitale or the energy of the universe,
they not only confuse their problems but introduce such a mixing up of terms
that the resulting explanation becomes little more than nonsense. The
libido, whatever it may be, must be treated as a psychophysiological force
just like any of the other emotions. Otherwise psychology ceases to be a
science.
Now one word about conflicts. Undoubtedly conflicts play a most important
part in such psychological disturbances as we have to deal with in the
psycho-neuroses, but I cannot agree that psychological conflicts conform
only to, or are synonymous with ethical conflicts. Undoubtedly there are a
large number of conflicts between ideas and sentiments which we have all
agreed to label as ethical, but there are also a large number of conflicts
between sentiments which cannot be pigeon-holed as ethical. For example, the
mother whose child is threatened with danger and who herself would incur
danger in rescuing her child, undergoes a conflict between her fear
instinct, on the one hand, and her love on the other, exciting also her
anger emotion. The anger and love conflict with the fear, down and repress
it. There you have a conflict but I think it could not be classed as an
ethical conflict. It is a general law, whenever one instinct antagonizes
another instinct there is a conflict. It is a conflict which has its
prototype in the lower organic processes. Thus Sherrington's spinal
reflexes, that he has worked out so beautifully, involve conflicts between
opposing organic impulses. In the scratch reflex, for instance, the impulse
which excites the flexor muscles inhibits the excitation of the extensor
muscles. I believe this principle underlies the higher processes and upon it
is built up the whole of the psycho-physiological mechanisms.
DR. TOM A. WILLIAMS, Washington, D. C.: I want Dr. Putnam to reply to two
objections to his position. One, the manifestations of functional
capacities which are themselves dependent upon structural differences. I am
not talking now of psychogenetic determinants, but alone of the trends of
which Dr. Putnam has spoken. Is he not assuming the contrary to Darwin when
he says that function precedes structure? Are not the potentials dependent
upon the variation which has determined this function? I am speaking now in
the broadest possible terms and not confining myself to the cerebrum. Do we
not find it in the tadpole who is prepared for breathing not because he
wants to breathe, but because he is going to have a new kind of breathing
apparatus and the duck who takes to the water because he has the mechanism
to swim?
Two, in regard to Hegel and the appeal to the ethical as being of a
different type from the motive of biological satisfaction. Is not that
difficulty only apparent, and is it not answered by Dr. Putnam's own appeal
that these matters should be settled independently, and is not it the case
that the average sexual man would settle it very differently from Dr. Putnam
himself and most of us; and is not it true that, though the ethical
determinants of behaviour are not auspicious for the average sexual
satisfactions of man, yet are they not themselves forms of hedonistic
satisfactions? For a man who would behave unethically would be miserable in
doing so by the loss of his own self-respect. So that he already has a
hedonistic determinant for his own conduct which is in harmony with the
biological concepts of Aristotle.
DR. JAMES J. PUTNAM, Boston: I should be very sorry to be taken as wishing
to put myself in the sort of adverse position which Dr. Prince and Dr.
Williams believe me to assume. I accept, of course, the proposition that
there are conflicts which are not ethical, and, as Dr. Williams says, the
average man would naturally come to different conclusions from those of the
trained man in ethical matters. I want to make a slight movement towards
restoring a balance which it seemed to me had become tipped too far one way.
Psychoanalysts, for example, actually deal with metaphysics and yet they do
not really study out what this involves. If we were nothing but scientific
men we could say, "very well, let metaphysics go." But we are not. We are
dealing with individuals who are thrilling with desires, hopes and fears,
the movements of which cannot be expressed in scientific formulae. Dr.
Williams speaks of Darwin. It can be asserted with justice, however, that
the genetic method of investigation which is exemplified by Darwin's study
of evolution is an imperfect method for discovering the aims of human
beings. I refer to the interesting book of Prince Kropotkin in which he
studies mutual aid as a factor in evolution, mutual aid being something not
adequately contemplated by Darwin, who considers conflict as the essential
influence in evolution. Prof. Judd showed in a paper a few years ago the
change which has taken place in the attitude of a good many students of
economics through the introduction of human intelligence and desires as
something quite distinct from the conflicts of interests, and similar
arguments have been brought forward by students of evolution. Among others
Prof. Cope, the distinguished Zoologist of Philadelphia and Prof. Hyatt of
Boston, showed very clearly how the course of evolution becomes materially
changed when desires and will become prominent as factors. I agree that, as
a partial motive, structure does limit and determine function. There is no
question about that. I merely want to say that logically function precedes
structure, inasmuch as the wish and desire to do a thing precedes the means
by which we secure for ourselves the power to do it. But of course all
energies must work through structural media. In regard to hedonism, one must
recognize that pleasure counts as a partial motive, but when it comes to
taking it as the final motive it fails utterly. Our lives contain
determinants which we cannot range under the category of pleasure. We act in
certain ways because our structure and our functions and our wills are what
they are, and not exclusively by our temporary wishes. Our "meanings," when
thoroughly studied are found to coincide with the meaning of the universe as
a whole. It is only through getting hold of the entire scheme that you have
something that you can use as a criteria. The nearest approach to this is
obtained through the study of the most broadly developed, public spirited
men, and such men do not work in accordance with hedonistic principles.
President G. Stanley Hall, of Worcester, Mass., read a paper entitled, "The
Application of Freudian Mechanisms to Other Emotions."[*]
[*] Published in the June-July number, p. 81, of this Journal.