(sensations). The elements _constitute_ the _I_. _I_ perceive the
sensation green, means, that the element green occurs in a given
complex of other elements (sensations, memories). When _I_ cease to
perceive the sensation green, when _I_ die, then the elements no longer
occur in their customary, common way of association. That is all. Only
an ideal mental-economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased to exist.
* * * * *
The ego is not an unchangeable, definite, sharply-defined unity.
The important factor is not _unchangeability_, not determinate
_distinguishability_ from other things, and not accurate _limitation_,
for all these factors even vary within the sphere of individual life
itself, and their alteration is even _sought_ by the individual.
_Continuity_ alone is important. This view admirably accords with
that to which Weismann recently attained by biological investigations
("Regarding the Immortality of Unicellular Beings," _Biolog.
Centralbl._, Vol. IV, Nos. 21, 22; compare especially pp. 654 and
655, where the division of the individual into two _equal_ halves is
spoken of). But this continuity is only a _means_ to dispose and to
assure the content of the ego. This _content_ and not the _ego_ is the
principal thing. But this content is not confined to the individual.
With the exception of insignificant, valueless, personal memories or
reminiscences, it remains preserved in _others_ even after the death of
the individual. The _ego_ is unsavable. It is partly the discernment
of this fact, partly the fear of the same, that leads to the most
extravagant pessimistic and optimistic, religious and philosophical
absurdities. We shall not be able in the long run to close our eyes
to this simple truth, the immediate result of psychological analysis.
We shall then no longer place so high a value upon the ego which even
during individual life greatly changes, and which, indeed, in sleep
or during absorption in some conception or in some thought, just in
our happiest moments, may be partially or wholly absent. We shall then
gladly renounce individual immortality, and shall not place more value
upon the accessory elements than upon the principal. We shall in this
way arrive at a freer and a _more enlightened_ conception of life,
which will exclude the neglect of other egos and the over-estimation of
our own.
* * * * *
If, now, the knowledge of the connection of the elements (sensations)
does not suffice us, and we must ask _Who_, _What_, possesses this
connection of sensations, _Who_, _What_, perceives sensations? we have
succumbed, we may be sure, to our old habit of arranging every element
(every sensation) within some _unanalysed_ complex, and we are falling
back imperceptibly to an older, lower, and more limited point of view.
* * * * *
The habit of treating the unanalysed ego-complex as an indivisible
unity is often scientifically presented in peculiar ways. First, the
nervous system is separated from the body as the seat of sensations.
In the nervous system again the brain is selected as fitted for the
performance of this function, and finally, to save the pretended
psychical _unity_, a further _point_ is sought in the brain as the
seat of the soul. But rough conceptions like these are hardly adapted
to trace out even in the crudest lines the ways that future research
will follow in investigating the connection of the physical and
the psychical. The fact that the different organs of sensation and
memory are physically _connected_ with one another, and can be easily
_excited_ by one another is probably the foundation of the "psychical
unity."
I once heard the question seriously discussed of "How the percept
of a very large tree found room in the little head of a man?" Now
though this "problem" does not exist, yet we perceive by the question
the absurdity that is so easily committed in conceiving sensations
to exist spacially in the brain. When I speak of the sensations of
_another_ person, these sensations of course present no activity in my
optical space or my physical space generally; they are mentally added,
and I conceive them to be _causally_ annexed, not spacially, to the
brain observed or represented. When I speak of _my_ sensations, these
sensations do not exist spacially in my head, but rather my "head"
_shares_ with them the same spacial field, as was explained above
(compare what was said regarding the cut).
* * * * *
Let there be no mention of the so-called unity of consciousness. Since
the apparent opposition of the _real_ and the _perceived_ world exists
only in the mode according to which it is viewed, and no real chasm
exists, a multiplex interconnected content of consciousness is in no
respect more difficult to understand than the multiplex interconnection
of the world.
If we are determined to regard the ego as an actual unity, we cannot
extricate ourselves from the following dilemma: either to set over
against it—viz., the ego—the world of incognisable substances (which
would be wholly idle and purposeless), or to regard the whole world,
the egos of other people included, as only contained in our own ego (to
which, seriously, we could hardly make up our minds).
But if we take the ego merely as a _practical_ unity, composed for
purposes of provisional survey; in fact, take it as a more strongly
coherent group of elements, which is less strongly connected with other
groups of this kind; questions like these will not arise and research
will have a free outlook.
In his philosophical notes Lichtenberg says: "We become conscious of
certain ideas that are not dependent upon us; and there are other
ideas that, at least as we think, are dependent upon us. Where
is the border-line? We know only the existence of our sensations,
percepts, and thoughts. We should say, _It thinks_, just as we say,
_It lightens_. It is going too far to say _cogito_, when we translate
it by _I think_. Assuming the _I_, postulating it, is merely practical
necessity." Though the method by which Lichtenberg arrives at this
result is somewhat different from our own, we must nevertheless give
our assent to the conclusion itself.
XII.
Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of sensations
(complexes of elements) form bodies. If bodies appear to the physicist
as that which is permanent, that which is real, and sensations as
their evanescent transitory semblance, the physicist forgets that all
bodies are but thought-symbols for complexes of sensation (complexes
of elements). The _elements_ designated also form here the real,
immediate, and ultimate foundation which physiological research has now
further to investigate. Through the discernment of this, many things in
psychology and physics assume more distinct and economical forms, and
many imagined problems are disposed of.
The world therefore does not consist for us of mysterious substances,
which through their interaction with another equally mysterious
substance, the ego, produce sensations as solely accessible. Colors,
sounds, spaces, times, ... are for us the ultimate elements, whose
given connection it is our task to investigate. In this investigation
we dare not allow ourselves to be hindered by the composites and
circumscriptions (body, ego, matter, mind ...) that have been formed
for especial, practical, provisional, and limited purposes. On the
contrary, the appropriate and best adapted forms of thought must arise
within research itself, as happens in every special science. In the
place of the traditional instinctive conception must come a freer,
fresher view, conforming with developed experience.
* * * * *
I have always felt it as a special good fortune, that early in my
life, at about the age of 15, I came across in the library of my
father Kant's "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic." The book made at
that time a powerful, ineffaceable impression upon me, that I never
afterwards experienced to the same degree in any of my philosophical
reading. Some two or three years later I suddenly discovered the
superfluous rôle that "the thing in itself" plays. On a bright summer
day under the open heavens the world together with my ego all at once
appeared to me as _one_ coherent mass of sensations, but in the ego
more strongly coherent. Although the actual working out of this thought
did not occur until a later time, yet this moment became decisive for
my whole view.
Moreover I had still to struggle long and hard before I was able to
retain, in my own special department, the conception I had acquired.
With what is valuable in physical doctrines we necessarily absorb
a good dose of false metaphysics, which it is very difficult to
separate from that which must be preserved, especially where these
doctrines have become current and familiar. So, too, the traditional,
instinctive conceptions often arose with great power and placed
impediments in my way. Only by alternate studies in physics and the
physiology of the senses and by historico-physical investigations,
since about 1863, after having endeavored in vain to settle the
conflict by a physico-psychological monadology, did I acquire in my
views any considerable firmness. I make no pretensions to the title
of philosopher. I only wish to adopt in physics a point of view that
need not be instantly changed the moment our glance is carried into
the domain of another science; since indeed, ultimately, all must form
one whole. The molecular physics of to-day does certainly _not_ meet
this demand. What I say I have probably not been the _first_ to say.
I also do not wish to hold forth this exposition of mine as a special
performance. It is rather my belief that every one will collaterally
adopt the same view, who in a reflective manner holds survey in any
province of science that is not too limited.[22]
[22] I have recently (1886) propounded these views in a
pamphlet _Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen_. Avenarius,
with whom I recently became acquainted, approaches my point of
view (_Philosophie als Denken der Welt nach dem Princip des
kleinsten Kraftmasses_, 1876). Hering, too, in his treatise
upon Memory (_Almanach der Wiener Akademie_, 1870, p. 258;
also published in Nos. 6 and 7 of _The Open Court_), and J.
Popper in his beautiful book, "The Right to Live and the
Duty to Die" (Leipsic 1878, p. 62), have advanced similar
thoughts. Compare also my paper _Ueber die ökonomische Natur
der physikalischen Forschung_ (_Almanach der Wiener Akademie_,
1882, p. 179, note). Finally let me also refer here to the
introduction to W. Preyer's _Reine Empfindungslehre_, and to
Riehl's _Freiburger Antrittsrede_, p. 14. I should probably
have to cite much additional matter that is in some way
related to my line of thought if I possessed a more extensive
bibliographical knowledge.
XIII.
Science always arises through a process of adaptation of thoughts to
a certain department of experience. The results of this process are
thought-elements, which represent the entire department. The result,
of course, is different according to the character and extent of
the province surveyed. If the province of experience in question is
extended, or if several provinces hitherto separated become united,
the traditional, familiar thought-elements no longer suffice for the
province thus extended. In the struggle of acquired habit with the
effort after adaptation, _problems_ arise, which disappear when the
adaptation is completed, to give way to others that have sprung up in
the mean time.
To the physicist, pure and simple, the idea of a body facilitates
the acquisition of a comprehensive survey in his department, and
does not operate as a disturbance. So, also, the person that pursues
purely practical ends, is materially assisted by the concept of the
_I_ or Ego. For, unquestionably, every form of thought that has
been voluntarily or involuntarily constructed for some especial
purpose, possesses for that particular purpose a _permanent_ value.
As soon, however, as physics and physiology touch, the ideas held
in the one domain are discovered to be untenable in the other. From
the striving after an adaptation of the one to the other arise the
various atomic and monad theories—which are unsuccessful, however, in
the attainment of their object. If we regard _sensations_, taken in
the sense above defined, as _world-elements_ or elements of the All,
the problems referred to are practically removed, and the _first_
and most important adaptation therefore effected. This basal notion
(without any pretension to being a philosophy for all eternity) can at
present be adhered to with respect to all provinces of experience;
it is consequently the one that accommodates itself with the least
expenditure, that is, more economically than any other, to the present
_temporary state of collective science_. Moreover, in the consciousness
of its purely economical office, this basal notion acts with most
perfect tolerance. It does not obtrude itself into provinces in which
the current conceptions are still adequate. It will ever be ready, upon
subsequent extensions of the domain of experience, to give way to a
better one.
The philosophical point of view of the average man—if that term may
be applied to the naïve realism of the ordinary individual—has a
claim to the highest consideration. It has arisen in the progress of
immeasurable time without the purposed assistance of man. It is a
product of nature, and is preserved and sustained by nature. Everything
that philosophy has accomplished—the _biological_ title of every
advance, nay of every error, admitted—is, compared with _it_, but an
insignificant and ephemeral product of art. And in reality, we see
every thinker, every philosopher, the moment he is forced away from
his one-sided intellectual occupation by some practical necessity,
immediately fall back upon the universal point of view that all men
hold in common.
We seek by no means to discredit this point of view. The task that
we have set ourselves is simply to show _why_ and to what _purpose_
for the greatest part of our life we occupy this point of view, and
_why_ and for what _purpose_ we are provisorily obliged to abandon it.
No point of view has an absolute _permanent_ validity. Each has an
importance but for some one given end.
ERNST MACH.
THE ORIGIN OF MIND.
#Given facts and deduced facts.#
We must distinguish between two kinds of facts; viz., given facts or
data, and deduced facts or inferences. With regard to the facts of
soul-life we recognise that the former class, that of given facts,
necessarily consists of states of consciousness only; they are feelings
of any description, varying greatly in their nature. They are different
in the rhythmical forms of their vibrations, in their intensity, and in
their distinctness. The latter class, that of inferences, is deduced
from the former, and serves no other purpose than that of explanation.
This class is mostly representative of external facts, and knowledge of
external facts exists only in so far as external facts are represented
in deduced facts. What a thinking being would call external facts is
nothing but the contents of certain deduced facts.
Deduced facts, and among them the conception of external facts
(wherever they exist), have been produced by the effort of accounting
for given facts—viz., the elementary data of consciousness and their
relations. Deduced facts are the interpretation of given facts. They
are, so to say, conjectures concerning their causes as well as their
interconnections.
#Definition of mind.#
The organised totality of deduced facts, as it is developed in feeling
substance, is called mind. Feelings are the condition of mind. From
feelings alone mind can grow. But there is a difference between
feelings and mind. Feelings develop into mind, they grow to be mind by
being interpreted, by becoming representative. Representative feelings
are mind. Accordingly, we characterise mind as the representativeness
of feelings.
#The growth of mind.#
Although deduced facts are an interpretation of given facts, this
"interpretation" is not expressly designed. These inferences from
given facts are not invented with a premeditated purpose; they are
not constructed with foresight or intention. Deduced facts grow
naturally and spontaneously from given facts, which are the elements of
sense-activity. There is not an agent that oversees their fabrication;
there is not a devising "subject" that surmises the existence of
external facts and thus matures their conception into deduced facts.
Deduced facts are rather the natural product of a certain group of
given facts. Deduced facts issue from a co-operation of a number of
feelings. They are the result of an organisation of certain repeated
sense-impressions which produce a disposition not only to receive
sense-impressions of the same kind, but also to react upon them in a
certain way. Mind is not the factor that organised the given facts of
mere sense-impressions so that they became representations. There was
no mind as long as feelings remained unorganised. Feelings acquire
meaning; and as soon as they have acquired meaning they are what we
call "deduced facts," representations—especially representations of
external facts. Deduced facts are the elements of mind; and mind is not
their root, but their fruit.
#Subjective and objective existence.#
The whole domain of mind-activity (i. e., of the representativeness of
feelings) is called subjective; while the totality of all facts that
are represented in the mind is called objective. Subjective existence
consists of feelings and of states of consciousness; objective
existence is represented as things that are in motion. Motion and
feeling are quite different things, yet in spite of their radical
difference experience teaches us that both spheres are intimately
interwoven. Subjective existence constantly draws upon objective
existence. Not only do states of consciousness exist as they are by
virtue merely of the objects represented, but also that group of facts
called our body, the action of which appears in a constant connection
with and as a condition of our consciousness, is kept in running order
only through a constant renewal of its waste products out of the
resources of objective existence.
We distinguish between our body and external facts; but the boundary
between both provinces is not distinct. There is constantly an exchange
of substance taking place, proving that our body is in kind not
different from the substance of which external facts consist. It must
be regarded as a group of the same kind as external facts, existing
in a constant interaction with and among the external facts. In other
words, the body of the thinking subject is an object in the objective
world.
#The origin of feeling from the elements of subjective existence.#
Concerning the subjective sphere of existence we recognise that
consciousness does not act uninterruptedly; there are moments when
consciousness is lost. If they are normal, we call them sleep; if
they are abnormal, swoons or trances. Former conscious states can
be revived; they form a chain of memories which is very limited in
comparison with the extension of the objective world. There is a
time in the past beyond which our memory does not reach. Moreover we
have reason to believe, that there will be a time when the chain of
conscious states will be broken forever. This consummation is called
death. In short the subjective world is transient; it grows by degrees;
its existence is very precarious; it flickers like a candle in the
wind and will disappear again. The objective world however is eternal,
it is indestructible. Experience teaches that it constantly undergoes
changes, but that in its totality it is imperishable.
#Feeling with the help of memory acquires meaning.#
The objective world is in a certain sense a part of the subject. In
another sense, we must say that the subject is a part of the objective
world. Indeed these two sentences represent the same truth, only viewed
from two standpoints. The subjective world being transient and the
objective world being eternal, the question presents itself, "How does
the subject originate in or among the objects of the objective world?"
The problem is complicated and we must approach it step by step.
First, we are inevitably driven to the conclusion, that the subjective
world of feelings forms an inseparable whole together with a special
combination of certain facts of the objective world, namely our body.
It originates with this combination, and disappears as soon as that
combination breaks to pieces. And, secondly, we must assume that the
conditions for building up such material dispositions as have the
power of developing the subjectivity of consciousness are an intrinsic
quality of the objective world. Subjectivity cannot originate out of
nothing; it must be conceived as the product of a co-operation of
certain elements which are present in the objective world. In other
words, the elements of the subjective world are features that we must
suppose to be inseparably united with the elements of the objective
world, which are represented in our mind as motions. This leads to
the conclusion that feeling has to be considered not as a simple but
as a complex phenomenon. Feelings originate through a combination of
elements of feeling; and the presence of the elements of feeling must
be supposed to be an intrinsic property of the objective world.[23]
The objective elements, the action of which is accompanied with
the elements of feeling, arrange themselves, we suppose, into such
combinations as display actual feelings, in exact agreement with the
laws of molar and molecular mechanics. This, we must assume, takes
place with the same spontaneity as, for instance, an acid and a base
combine into a salt. To use another example, it takes place with the
same necessity as, under special conditions, a certain amount of molar
motion is transformed into the molecular motion of ether-waves, called
electricity. Motions are not transformed into feelings, but certain
motions (all being separately accompanied with elements of feeling),
when co-operating in a special form, are accompanied in that form with
actual feelings.
[23] For further details see the author's article _Feeling and
Motion_; published first in _The Open Court_, Nos. 153 and 154.
#Neither feeling nor mind can be considered as incidental phenomena.#
There is a certain class of philosophers who look upon feeling as an
incidental effect, as a fortuitous by-play of the interacting elements
of matter. This conception has little if anything in its favor. On
the contrary, if the elements of feeling are throughout inseparably
connected with the elements of objective existence, it must appear
natural that wherever the conditions fitted for organised life appear,
irritable substance will originate. We may fairly assume that feeling
will arise on the cooled surface of a planet with the same necessity
as, for instance, a collision between non-luminous celestial bodies
will cause them to blaze forth in the brilliant light of a nebula
containing all the elements for the production in the course of ages of
a planetary system.