Footnote 119:
See also, “The Psychology of Sudden Religious Conversion,” _Journal
Abnormal Psychology_, April, 1906, and “The Dissociation,” 2nd Edit.,
pages 344 and 564; also James’ “The Varieties of Religious
Experience.”
Footnote 120:
Quoted by William James, page 343.
Footnote 121:
Some will undoubtedly read into Margaret’s vision a cryptic sexual
symbolism. To do so seems to me too narrow a view, in that it fails to
give full weight to other instincts (and emotions) and to appreciate
all the forces of human personality.
Footnote 122:
Lecture VI, pp. 169-172.
LECTURE VIII
THE 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 completeness ought to be touched upon
here, particularly as it is of considerable importance in any biological
conception of intelligence. _There is every reason to believe that_
intrinsically _there 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 various
coöperative movements 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 hemispheres only 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, may in 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]
Even _spontaneity_ which 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 following Schräder, 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 sensory
_impressions_, does it have visual, auditory and other _images_, 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 and deaf.[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 other _perceptions_, 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 other words 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 into _perception_ of 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 may be 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 by _secondarily 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 essential for 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 include
_acquired 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 centers _without the
intervention of the integrating influence of the cortex_ or 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 upon this 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—simply a 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
nature _intelligent_ in 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 defined in 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 actions have 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 physiological process 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, _objectively_ viewed, 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 regard physiological
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 same _kind_ of
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 introduced into 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, namely _Co-[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 very _definite 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 equivalent of 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 by _a priori_
reasoning, 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—without committal 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 to _include_ (_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:
{ (synonym: subconsciousideas.)
{ The coconscious {
{ { {a: Conserved dormant
{ { {neurograms or neural
{ { {dispositions.
The subconscious {
{ { {b: Active functioning
{ The unconscious { {neurograms or neural
{ { processes.
{ { (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. “After all,” 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 the _sub_conscious as resolvable, on the one
hand, into the _un_conscious, passive or active physiological
dispositions, and, on the other hand, into _co_active 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 corresponding
personality. 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 “subconscious _self_,” or “subliminal _self_,”
or “secondary _self_,” or “hidden _self_.” 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 subconscious _self_. 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 arranged in 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 appreciate the
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 whole _inner 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 of
abnormal mental 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 them _into_ our
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 the outer 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 the _flowering 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
personal consciousness, 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 a _static_
storehouse, has _dynamic_ functions. 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 of the 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
functioning as 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.
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Footnote 123:
For a general account of the behavior of decerebrate animals and
summary of these experiments see Loeb’s “Physiology of the Brain,” and
Schäfer’s Text Book of Physiology.
Footnote 124: