The presence of ideas and thoughts in our consciousness is as strictly
subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason in its different forms
as the movement of bodies to the law of causality. It is just as little
possible that a thought can appear in the mind without an occasion as that
a body can be set in motion without a cause. Now this occasion is either
_external_, thus an impression of the senses, or _internal_, thus itself
also a thought which introduces another thought by means of _association_.
This again depends either upon a relation of reason and consequent between
the two; or upon similarity, even mere analogy; or lastly upon the
circumstance that they were both first apprehended at the same time, which
again may have its ground in the proximity in space of their objects. The
last two cases are denoted by the word _à propos_. The predominance of one
of these three bonds of association of thoughts over the others is
characteristic of the intellectual worth of the man. The first named will
predominate in thoughtful and profound minds, the second in witty,
ingenious, and poetical minds, and the third in minds of limited capacity.
Not less characteristic is the degree of facility with which one thought
recalls others that stand in any kind of relation to it: this constitutes
the activeness of the mind. But the impossibility of the appearance of a
thought without its sufficient occasion, even when there is the strongest
desire to call it up, is proved by all the cases in which we weary
ourselves in vain to _recollect_ something, and go through the whole store
of our thoughts in order to find any one that may be associated with the
one we seek; if we find the former, the latter is also found. Whoever
wishes to call up something in his memory first seeks for a thread with
which it is connected by the association of thoughts. Upon this depends
mnemonics: it aims at providing us with easily found occasioners or causes
for all the conceptions, thoughts, or words which are to be preserved. But
the worst of it is that these occasioners themselves have first to be
recalled, and this again requires an occasioner. How much the occasion
accomplishes in memory may be shown in this way. If we have read in a book
of anecdotes say fifty anecdotes, and then have laid it aside, immediately
afterwards we will sometimes be unable to recollect a single one of them.
But if the occasion comes, or if a thought occurs to us which has any
analogy with one of those anecdotes, it immediately comes back to us; and
so with the whole fifty as opportunity offers. The same thing holds good
of all that we read. Our immediate remembrance of words, that is, our
remembrance of them without the assistance of mnemonic contrivances, and
with it our whole faculty of speech, ultimately depends upon the direct
association of thoughts. For the learning of language consists in this,
that once for all we so connect a conception with a word that this word
will always occur to us along with this conception, and this conception
will always occur to us along with this word. We have afterwards to repeat
the same process in learning every new language; yet if we learn a
language for passive and not for active use—that is, to read, but not to
speak, as, for example, most of us learn Greek—then the connection is
one-sided, for the conception occurs to us along with the word, but the
word does not always occur to us along with the conception. The same
procedure as in language becomes apparent in the particular case, in the
learning of every new proper name. But sometimes we do not trust ourselves
to connect directly the name of _this_ person, or town, river, mountain,
plant, animal, &c., with the thought of each so firmly that it will call
each of them up of itself; and then we assist ourselves mnemonically, and
connect the image of the person or thing with any perceptible quality the
name of which occurs in that of the person or thing. Yet this is only a
temporary prop to lean on; later we let it drop, for the association of
thoughts becomes an immediate support.
The search of memory for a clue shows itself in a peculiar manner in the
case of a dream which we have forgotten on awaking, for in this case we
seek in vain for that which a few minutes before occupied our minds with
the strength of the clearest present, but now has entirely disappeared. We
grasp at any lingering impression by which may hang the clue that by
virtue of association would call that dream back again into our
consciousness. According to Kieser, “_Tellurismus_,” Bd. ii. § 271, memory
even of what passed in magnetic-somnambular sleep may possibly sometimes
be aroused by a sensible sign found when awake. It depends upon the same
impossibility of the appearance of a thought without its occasion that if
we propose to do anything at a definite time, this can only take place if
we either think of nothing else till then, or if at the determined time we
are _reminded_ of it by something, which may either be an external
impression arranged beforehand or a thought which is itself again brought
about in the regular way. Both, then, belong to the class of motives.
Every morning when we awake our consciousness is a _tabula rasa_, which,
however, quickly fills itself again. First it is the surroundings of the
previous evening which now reappear, and remind us of what we thought in
these surroundings; to this the events of the previous day link themselves
on; and so one thought rapidly recalls the others, till all that occupied
us yesterday is there again. Upon the fact that this takes place properly
depends the health of the mind, as opposed to madness, which, as is shown
in the third book, consists in the existence of great blanks in the memory
of past events. But how completely sleep breaks the thread of memory, so
that each morning it has to be taken up again, we see in particular cases
of the incompleteness of this operation. For example, sometimes we cannot
recall in the morning a melody which the night before ran in our head till
we were tired of it.
The cases in which a thought or a picture of the fancy suddenly came into
our mind without any conscious occasion seem to afford an exception to
what has been said. Yet this is for the most part an illusion, which rests
on the fact that the occasion was so trifling and the thought itself so
vivid and interesting, that the former is instantly driven out of
consciousness. Yet sometimes the cause of such an instantaneous appearance
of an idea may be an internal physical impression either of the parts of
the brain on each other or of the organic nervous system upon the brain.
In general our internal process of thought is in reality not so simple as
the theory of it; for here it is involved in many ways. To make the matter
clear to our imagination, let us compare our consciousness to a sheet of
water of some depth. Then the distinctly conscious thoughts are merely the
surface; while, on the other hand, the indistinct thoughts, the feelings,
the after sensation of perceptions and of experience generally, mingled
with the special disposition of our own will, which is the kernel of our
being, is the mass of the water. Now the mass of the whole consciousness
is more or less, in proportion to the intellectual activity, in constant
motion, and what rise to the surface, in consequence of this, are the
clear pictures of the fancy or the distinct, conscious thoughts expressed
in words and the resolves of the will. The whole process of our thought
and purpose seldom lies on the surface, that is, consists in a combination
of distinctly thought judgments; although we strive against this in order
that we may be able to explain our thought to ourselves and others. But
ordinarily it is in the obscure depths of the mind that the rumination of
the materials received from without takes place, through which they are
worked up into thoughts; and it goes on almost as unconsciously as the
conversion of nourishment into the humours and substance of the body.
Hence it is that we can often give no account of the origin of our deepest
thoughts. They are the birth of our mysterious inner life. Judgments,
thoughts, purposes, rise from out that deep unexpectedly and to our own
surprise. A letter brings us unlooked-for and important news, in
consequence of which our thoughts and motives are disordered; we get rid
of the matter for the present, and think no more about it; but next day,
or on the third or fourth day after, the whole situation sometimes stands
distinctly before us, with what we have to do in the circumstances.
Consciousness is the mere surface of our mind, of which, as of the earth,
we do not know the inside, but only the crust.
But in the last instance, or in the secret of our inner being, what sets
in activity the association of thought itself, the laws of which were set
forth above, is the _will_, which urges its servant the intellect,
according to the measure of its powers, to link thought to thought, to
recall the similar, the contemporaneous, to recognise reasons and
consequents. For it is to the interest of the will that, in general, one
should think, so that one may be well equipped for all cases that may
arise. Therefore the form of the principle of sufficient reason which
governs the association of thoughts and keeps it active is ultimately the
law of motivation. For that which rules the sensorium, and determines it
to follow the analogy or other association of thoughts in this or that
direction, is the will of the thinking subject. Now just as here the laws
of the connection of ideas subsist only upon the basis of the will, so
also in the real world the causal connection of bodies really subsists
only upon the basis of the will, which manifests itself in the phenomena
of this world. On this account the explanation from causes is never
absolute and exhaustive, but leads back to forces of nature as their
condition, and the inner being of the latter is just the will as thing in
itself. In saying this, however, I have certainly anticipated the
following book.
But because now the _outward_ (sensible) occasions of the presence of our
ideas, just as well as the _inner_ occasions (those of association), and
both independently of each other, constantly affect the consciousness,
there arise from this the frequent interruptions of our course of thought,
which introduce a certain cutting up and confusion of our thinking. This
belongs to its imperfections which cannot be explained away, and which we
shall now consider in a separate chapter.