The Mind and the Brain

This singular fact has also been noticed, that, in the same individual there may co-exist several kinds of consciousness which do not enter into communication with each other and which are not acquainted with each other. There is a principal consciousness which speaks, and, in addition, accessory kinds of consciousness which do not speak, but reveal their existence by the use of other modes of expression, of which the most frequent is writing.

This doubling or fractionation of the consciousness and personality have often been described in the case of hysterical subjects. They sometimes occur quite spontaneously, but mostly they require a little suggestion and cultivation. In any case, that they are produced in one way or other proves that they are possible, and, for the theory, this possibility is essential. Facts of this kind do not lead to a theory of the unconscious, but they enable us to understand how certain phenomena, unconscious in appearance, are conscious to themselves, because they belong to states of consciousness which have been separated from each other.

A third thesis, more difficult of comprehension than the other two, supposes that the consciousness may be preserved in an unconscious form. This is difficult to admit, because unconsciousness is the negation of consciousness. It is like saying that light can be preserved when darkness is produced, or that an object still exists when, by the hypothesis, it has been radically destroyed. This idea conveys no intelligible meaning, and there is no need to dwell on it.

We have not yet exhausted all the concepts whereby we may get to unconsciousness. Here is another, the last I shall quote, without, however, claiming that it is the last which exists. We might call it the physiological concept, for it is the one which the physiologists employ for choice. It is based upon the observation of the phenomena which are produced in the nervous system during our acts of consciousness; these phenomena precede consciousness as a rule, and condition it. According to a convenient figure which has been long in use, the relations of the physiological phenomenon to the consciousness are represented as follows: the physiological phenomenon consists in an excitement which, at one time, follows a direct and short route from the door by which it enters the nervous system to the door by which it makes its exit. In this case, it works like a simple mechanical phenomenon; but sometimes it makes a longer journey, and takes a circuitous road by which it passes into the higher nerve centres, and it is at the moment when it takes this circuitous road that the phenomenon of consciousness is produced. The use of this figure does not prejudge any important question.

Going further, many contemporary authors do not content themselves with the proposition that the consciousness is conditioned by the nervous phenomenon, but suggest also that it is continually accompanied by it. Every psychical fact of perception, of emotion, or of idea should have, it is supposed, a physiological basis. It would therefore be, taken in its entirety, psycho-physiological. This is called the parallelist theory.

We cannot discuss this here, as we shall meet with it again in the third part of this book. It has the advantage of leading to a very simple definition of unconsciousness. The unconscious is that which is purely physiological. We represent to ourselves the mechanical part of the total phenomenon continuing to produce itself, in the absence of the consciousness, as if this last continued to follow and illuminate it.

Such are the principal conceptions that may be formed of the unconscious. They are probably not the only ones, and our list is not exhaustive.

After having indicated what the unconscious is, we will terminate by pointing out what it is not and what it cannot be.

We think, or at least we have impliedly supposed in the preceding definitions, that the unconscious is only something unknown, which may have been known, or which might become known under certain conditions, and which only differs from the known by the one characteristic of not being actually known. If this notion be correct, one has really not the right to arm this unconsciousness with formidable powers. It has the power of the reality to which it corresponds, but its character of unconsciousness adds nothing to this. It is the same with it as with the science of the future. No scholar will hesitate to admit that that science will be deeper and more refined than that already formed. But it is not from the fact that it is unknown that it will deserve its superiority: it is from the phenomena that it will embrace. To give to that which is unconscious, as we here understand it, an overwhelming superiority over the conscious as such, we must admit that the consciousness is not only a useless luxury, but the dethronement of the forces that it accompanies.

In the next place, I decline to admit that the consciousness itself can become unconscious, and yet continue in some way under an unconscious form. This would be, in my opinion, bringing together two conceptions which contradict each other, and thus denying after having affirmed. From the moment that the consciousness dies, there remains nothing of it, unless it be the conditions of its appearance, conditions which are distinct from itself. Between two moments of consciousness separated by time or by a state of unconsciousness, there does not and cannot exist any link. I feel incapable of imagining of what this link could be composed, unless it were material—that is to say, unless it were supplied from the class of objects. I have already said that the substantialist thesis endeavours to establish a continuity between one consciousness and another separated by time, by supposing a something durable, of which the consciousness would be a property of intermittent manifestation. They would thus explain the interruptions of consciousness as the interruptions in the light of a lamp. When the light is extinguished, the lamp remains in darkness, but is still capable of being lighted. Let us discard this metaphor, which may lead to illusion. The concept of consciousness can furnish no link and no mental state which remains when the consciousness is not made real; if this link exists, it is in the permanence of the material objects and of the nervous organism which allows the return of analogous conditions of matter.

CHAPTER IX

DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY

Let us resume the study of the preceding ideas in another form. Since, moreover, to define mind is at the same time to define psychology, let us seek for the truth which we can glean from the definitions of this science. Our object is not to discover an exact definition, but to make use of those already existing.

To define psychology is to describe the features of the domain over which this science holds sway, and at the same time to indicate the boundaries which separate it from its neighbours. At first sight this is an affair of geometric survey, presenting no kind of difficulty; for psychology does not merge by insensible transitions into the neighbouring sciences, as physics does with chemistry, for example, or chemistry with biology.

To all the sciences of external nature psychology offers the violent opposition of the moral to the physical world. It cannot be put in line with the physical sciences. It occupies, on the contrary, a position apart. It is the starting point, the most abstract and simple of the moral sciences; and it bears the same relation to them that mechanics does to the physical.

All this is doubtless true; and yet a very great difficulty has been experienced in condensing into a clear definition the essence of psychology. This is proved by the multiplicity of definitions attempted. They are so many because none of them has proved completely satisfactory. Their abundance shows their insufficiency. I will try to introduce a little order into these attempts, and propose to distribute the definitions of psychology into the following categories:—

We will rapidly run through this series of efforts at definition, and shall criticise and reject nearly the whole of them; for the last alone seems exact—that is to say, in harmony with the ideas laid down above.

Metaphysical definition has to-day taken a slightly archaistic turn. Psychology used to be considered as the science of the soul. This is quite abandoned. Modern authors have adopted the expression and also the idea of Lange,33 who was, I think, the first to declare that we ought to cultivate a soulless psychology. This categorical declaration caused an uproar, and a few ill-informed persons interpreted it to mean that the new psychology which has spread in France under cover of the name of Ribot, sought to deny the existence of the soul, and was calculated to incline towards materialism. This is an error.

It is very possible, indeed, that several adepts of the new or experimental psychology may be materialists from inward conviction. The exclusive cultivation of external facts, of phenomena termed material, evidently tends—this is a mystery to none—to incline the mind towards the metaphysical doctrine of materialism. But, after making this avowal, it is right to add at once that psychology, as a science of facts, is the vassal of no metaphysical doctrine. It is neither spiritualist, materialist, nor monist, but a science of facts solely. Ribot and his pupils have proclaimed this aloud at every opportunity. Consequently it must be recognised that the rather amphibological expression "soulless psychology" implies no negation of the existence of the soul. It is—and this is quite a different thing—rather an attitude of reserve in regard to this problem. We do not solve this problem; we put it on one side.

And, certainly, we are right to do so. The soul, viewed as a substance—that is, as a something distinct from psychical phenomena, which, while being their cause and support, yet remains inaccessible to our direct means of cognition—is only an hypothesis, and it cannot serve as objective to a science of facts. This would imply a contradiction in terms.

Unfortunately; we must confess that if it be right to relegate to metaphysics the discussion on the concept of the soul, it does not really suffice to purge our minds of all metaphysics; and a person who believes himself to be a simple and strict experimentalist is often a metaphysician without knowing it. These excommunications of metaphysics also seem rather childish at the present day. There is less risk than some years ago in declaring that: "Here metaphysics commence and positive science ends, and I will go no further." There is even a tendency in modern psychologists to interest themselves in the highest philosophical problems, and to take up a certain position with regard to them.

The second kind of definition is, we have said, that by enumeration. It consists in placing before the eyes of the reader an assortment of psychological phenomena and then saying: "These are the things psychology studies." One will take readily as samples the ideas, reasonings, emotions, and other manifestations of mental life. If this is only a strictly provisional definition, a simple introduction to the subject, we accept it literally. It may serve to give us a first impression of things, and to refresh the memories of those who, by a rather extraordinary chance, would not doubt that psychology studies our thoughts. But whatever may be the number of these deeply ignorant persons, they constitute, I think, a negligible quantity; and, after these preliminaries, we must come to a real definition and not juggle with the problem, which consists in indicating in what the spiritual is distinguished from the material. Let us leave on one side, therefore, the definitions by enumeration.

Now comes the definition by method. Numbers of authors have supposed that it is by its method that psychology is distinguished from the other sciences.

To the mind is attached the idea of the within, to nature the idea of being without the mind, of constituting a "without" (un dehors). It is a vague idea, but becomes precise in a good many metaphors, and has given rise to several forms of speech. Since the days of Locke, we have always spoken of the internal life of the mind as contrasted with the external life, of subjective reality as contrasted with objective reality; and in the same way we oppose the external senses to the inner sense (the internal perception), which it has at times been proposed to erect into a sixth sense. Though no longer quite the Cartesian dualism, this is still a dualism.

It has also been said that psychology is the science of introspection, and, in addition, that scientific psychology is a controlled introspection. This science of the "internal facts of man" would thus be distinguished from the other natural sciences which are formed by the use of our outer senses, by external observation—that is to say, to use a neologism, by externospection. This verbal symmetry may satisfy for a moment minds given to words, but on reflection it is perceived that the distinction between introspection and externospection does not correspond to a fundamental and constant difference in the nature of things or in the processes of cognition. I acknowledge it with some regret, and thus place myself in contradiction with myself; for I for a long time believed, and have even said in print, that psychology is the science of introspection. My error arose from my having made too many analyses of detail, and not having mounted to a sufficiently wide-reaching conception.

The definition I have given of consciousness is the implied condemnation of the above ideas. Consciousness, being nothing but an act of revelation, has neither a within nor a without; it does not correspond to a special domain which would be an inner one with regard to another domain.

Every consideration on the position of things is borrowed from the sphere of the object, and remains foreign to the sphere of the consciousness. It is by an abuse of language that we speak of the outer world in relation to the world of consciousness, and it is pure imagination on the part of philosophers to have supposed that our sensations are first perceived as internal states and states of consciousness, and are subsequently projected without to form the outer world. The notion of internal and external is only understood for certain objects which we compare by position to certain others.

In fact, we find that the opposition between an external and an internal series is generally founded on two characteristics: sensation is considered external in relation to the idea, and an object of cognition is considered as internal when it is accessible only to ourselves. When these two characteristics are isolated from each other, one may have doubts; but when they co-exist, then the outwardness or inwardness appears fully evidenced. We see then that this distinction has nothing to do with the value of consciousness, and has nothing mental about it.

It is thus that our ideas are judged from internal events. It is our microcosm opposed to the macrocosm. It is the individual opposed to the social. Looking at an external object, we remain in communion with our fellows, for we receive, or think we receive, identical sensations. At all events, we receive corresponding sensations. On the other hand, my thought is mine, and is known to me alone; it is my sanctuary, my private closet, where others do not enter. Every one can see what I see, but no one knows what I think.

But this difference in the accessibility of phenomena is not due to their peculiar nature. It is connected with a different fact, with the modes of excitement which call them forth. If the visual sensation is common to all, it is because the exciting cause of the sensation is an object external to our nervous systems, and acting at a distance on all.34 The tactile sensation is at the beginning more personal to the one who experiences it, since it requires contact; and the lower sensations are in this intimacy still in progress. And then, the same object can give rise, in common-place circumstances, to a sensation either common to all beings or special to one alone. The capsule of antipyrine which I swallow is, before my doing so, visible to all eyes; once in my mouth, I am the only one to perceive it. It is therefore possible that the same sensation, according to the displacements of the object which excites it, may make part of the internal or of the external series; and as all psychic life is sensation, even effort, and, as we are assured, emotion, it follows that our argument extends to all the psychical elements.

Finally, the internal or external character of events, which might be called their geographical position, is a characteristic which has no influence upon the method destined to take cognisance of it. The method remains one. Introspection does not represent a source of cognition distinct from externospection, for the same faculties of the mind—reason, attention, and reflection—act on sensation, the source of the so-called external sciences, and on the idea, the source of the so-called inner science. A fact can be studied by essentially the same process, whether regarded by the eyes or depicted by the memory. The consciousness changes its object and orientation, not its nature. It is as if, with the same opera-glass, we looked in turn at the wall of the room and through the window.

I can even quote on this point a significant fact: there are observers who are organised in such a way that they especially observe by memory. Placed before the sensorial phenomenon which strikes their senses, they are sometimes amazed, as if hypnotised; they require to get away from it to regain consciousness of themselves, to analyse the fact, and to master it, and it is by means of the memory that they study it, on condition, of course, of afterwards coming back to verify their conclusions by a fresh observation from nature. Will it be said that the physicist, the chemist, or the biologist who follows this slow method, and who thus observes retroactively, practises physics and biology by introspection? Evidently this would be ridiculous.

Conversely, introspection may, in certain cases, adopt the procedure of externospection. No doubt it would be inexact to say that the perception of one of our ideas always takes place through the same mechanism as the perception of one of our sensations. To give an account of what we think does not imply the same work as in the case of what we see; for, generally, our thoughts and our images do not appear to us spontaneously. They are first sought for by us, and are only realised after having been wished for. We go from the vague to the precise, from the confused to the clear; the direction of thought precedes, then, its realisation in images; and the latter, being expected, is necessarily comprehended when it is formed. But we may come across curious circumstances in which it is the image which has precedence over its appearance, and in that case it is exact to say that this uninvoked image must be interpreted and recognised as if it were an external object. In cases of this kind, there passes through our mind something which surprises us. I see, by internal vision, a face with a red nose, and I have to search my memory for a long time, even for days, in order to give precision to the vague feeling that I have seen it before, so as to finally say with confidence, "It is So and So!" Or else I hear in my inner ear a certain voice, with a metallic tone and authoritative inflections: this voice pronounces scientific phrases, gives a series of lectures, but I know not to whom it belongs, and it costs me a long effort to reach the interpretation: it is the voice of M. Dastre! There is, then, a certain space of time, more or less long, in which we can correctly assert that we are not aware of what we are thinking; we are in the presence of a thought in the same state of uncertainty as in that of an external, unknown, and novel object. The labour of classification and of interpretation cast upon us is of the same order; and, when this labour is effected incorrectly, it may end in an illusion. Therefore illusions of thought are quite as possible as illusions of the senses, though rarer for the reasons above stated. But the question of frequency has no theoretical importance.

I have shown elsewhere, by experiments on hysterics, that it is possible by the intermediary of their insensibility to touch to suggest ideas on the value of which the patients make mistakes. For instance, you take the finger in which they have no sensation, you touch it, you bend it. The patient, not seeing what is done, does not feel it, but the tactile sensation unfelt by their principal consciousness somehow awakes the visual image of the finger; this enters into the field of consciousness, and most often is not recognised by the subject, who describes the occurrence in his own way; he claims, for instance, that he thinks of sticks or of columns. In reality he does not know of what he is thinking, and we know better than he. He is thinking of his finger, and does not recognise it.

All these examples show that the clearly defined characteristics into which it is sought to divide extrospection and introspection do not exist. There is, however, a reason for preserving the distinction, because it presents a real interest for the psychology of the individual. These two words introspection and extrospection admirably convey the difference in the manner of thinking between those who from preference look, and those who from preference reflect. On the one hand, the observers, who are often men of action; on the other, the speculators, who are often mystics. But it would be no more legitimate by this means to separate psychology and physics than to say, for instance, "There are two kinds of geology: one is the geology of France, for one is acquainted with it without going from home, and the other is that of the rest of the world, because in order to know it one must cross the frontier."

We reject, therefore, the definition drawn from the difference of method. At bottom there is no difference of method, but only differences of process, of technique. The method is always the same, for it is derived from the application of a certain number of laws to the objects of cognition, and these laws remain the same in all spheres of application.

Here is another difference of method which, if it were true, would have an incalculable importance. Psychology, we are told, is a science of direct and immediate experiment; it studies facts as they present themselves to our consciousness, while the natural sciences are sciences of indirect and mediate experiment, for they are compelled to interpret the facts of consciousness and draw from them conclusions on nature. It has also been said, in a more ambitious formula, "The science of physical objects is relative; logical science is absolute."

Let us examine this by the rapid analysis of any perception taken at haphazard. What I perceive directly, immediately, we are told, is not the object, it is my state of consciousness; the object is inferred; concluded, and taken cognisance of through the intermediary of my state of consciousness. We only know it, says Lotze, circa rem. It is therefore apprehended less immediately, and every natural science employs a more roundabout method than that of psychology. This last, by studying states of consciousness, which alone are known to us directly, comprehends reality itself, absolute reality. "There is more absolute reality," M. Rabier boldly says, "in the simple feeling that a man, or even an animal, has of its pain when beaten than in all the theories of physics, for, beyond these theories, it can be asked, what are the things that exist. But it is an absurdity to ask one's self if, beyond the pain of which one is conscious, there be not another pain different from that one."35

Let us excuse in psychologists this petty and common whim for exaggerating the merit of the science they pursue. But here the limit is really passed, and no scholar will admit that the perception and representation of a body, as it may take place in the brain of a Berthelot, can present any inferiority as a cognition of the absolute, to the pain felt by the snail I crush under my foot. Nobody except metaphysicians will acknowledge that psychology is a more precise and certain science than physics or chemistry.