Part 19

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.

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:

M. Foster: A Text Book of Physiology, 1895, page 726.

Footnote 125:

Von M. Rothmann: Demonstration des Hundes ohne Grossirn. _Bericht über den V Kongress f. Experiment. Psychol. in Berlin, 1912_, page 256. The report is too meager to admit of independent judgment of the animal’s behavior in many of its details.

Footnote 126:

Until the basal ganglia have been microscopically examined it cannot be determined that the loss of function was not due to secondary organic lesions. In Goltz’ dog, which acted like a blind dog, one optic nerve was cut and the corpora striata and optic thalami were partly involved in the lesion.

Footnote 127:

Quoted from Schräder by Loeb.

Footnote 128:

Cf. Lloyd Morgan: Instinct and Experience, 1912.

Footnote 129:

Dr. Morgan in his work, “Instinct and Experience,” 1912, published before Rothmann’s observations, remarks that this “is not inherently improbable” although it had not as yet been demonstrated.

Footnote 130:

From the point of view here adopted, the recent discussions and controversies over the problems of “instinct and intelligence” have been much muddled by the arbitrary denial of conscious elements to an instinctive process, and by the acceptation of consciousness or conscious experience as the criterion of intelligence. In this view instinct and intelligence become contrasted concepts which to my way of thinking they are not necessarily at all. If it is admitted that instinct is an innate disposition, its contrasted quality is that which is _acquired_ and not the quality of consciousness. It is true that acquired behavior is commonly if not always determined by conscious processes (conscious experience), but likewise innate behavior may be determined by processes which contain conscious elements. Surely fear is instinctive and is a conscious element in an innate process; and so must be visual and other sensory images, as in the first peck of a chicken. To look upon the first visual image simply as conscious “experience,” as an “onlooker,” and reject it as a factor in the process which determines that first peck, seems to me to be arbitrary psychology if not physiology. If consciousness may be a quality of an innate process—and why not?—it cannot be a criterion of intelligence. The true converse of the conscious is the unconscious.

This adopted antithesis between consciousness and instinct, from this point of view as well as the arbitrary limitation of the localization of the whole of an instinctive process to the subcortical centers, vitiates the force of the very able presentation of the subject by Dr. Morgan, if I correctly understand him. I know of no data which forbid the cortex to be included in the innate mechanism of an instinctive process. On the contrary, it is difficult to understand instinctive behavior and its modifications through conscious experience unless cortical centers are included in the psycho-physiological arcs. At any rate we may define instinct and intelligence in terms of the conscious and the unconscious, or in brain terms, but we should not mix up these aspects with that of localization in the definition. Mr. McDougall’s conception of instinct appeals to me more strongly from both a biological and a psychological point of view, and further seems to me to be more in consonance with the data of experience.

Footnote 131:

A Text Book of Physiology, 1893, page 727.

Footnote 132:

The localization of the processes concerned in all such acquired automatic behavior—whether it is in the cortex or subcortical centers—is an unsolved problem.

Footnote 133:

If the subconscious processes which perform a mathematical calculation and other problems, which logically determine the symbolism of a dream, etc., can be correctly interpreted as unconscious, they plainly exhibit a higher order of intelligence than any conscious processes in lower animals, or even some conscious processes of man, like brushing away a fly.

Footnote 134:

Not included in this volume.

Footnote 135:

It has been objected that to speak of unconscious ideas is a contradiction of terms. This seems to me to smack of quibbling as we know well enough that the adjective is used in the sense of unawareness.

Footnote 136:

For a good account of the history of the theory of unconscious ideas in philosophy see Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” where the following quotations may be found: “To have ideas and yet not to be conscious of them—there seems to be a contradiction in that—for how can we know that we have them if we are not conscious of them? Nevertheless, we may become aware indirectly that we have an idea, although we be not directly cognizant of the same.” (Kant, Anthropology, sec. 5.) And again: "Innumerable are the sensations and perceptions whereof we are not conscious although we must undoubtedly conclude that we have them, obscure ideas as they may be called (to be found in animals as well as in man). The clear ideas, indeed, are but an infinitely small fraction of these same exposed to consciousness. That only a few spots on the great chart of our minds are illuminated may well fill us with amazement in contemplating this nature of ours. (Ibid.)

“Now unconscious ideas” are such “as are in consciousness without our being aware of them” (Herbart).

It is interesting to notice how Kant’s statement might well be substituted for that of Myers’ of his “Subliminal.” It is difficult to understand the peculiar antagonistic attitude of certain theoretical psychologists to the theory of subconscious (coconscious) ideas in view of the history of this theory in philosophy. They seem to have forgotten their philosophy and not to have kept pace with experimental psychology.

Footnote 137:

See footnote on p. 149.

LECTURE IX THE ORGANIZATION OF UNCONSCIOUS COMPLEXES

=Everyday life.=—It will be well at this point to state in orderly fashion a few general principles governing the organization of complexes or syntheses of ideas[138] which, as we shall see, play an important part in normal and abnormal life. Although this statement will be little more than descriptive of what is common experience it will be helpful in classifying and obtaining a useful perspective of the phenomena with which we shall deal.

Now, as every one knows, the elemental ideas which make up the experience of any given moment tend to become organized (i.e., synthesized and conserved) into a system or complex of ideas, linked with emotions, feelings and other innate dispositions, so that when one of the ideas belonging to the experience comes to mind the experience as a whole is recalled. We may conveniently term such a system when in a state of conservation, an _unconscious complex_[139] _or neurogram, or system of neurograms_. If we wish to use psychological terms we may speak of it as a complex or synthesis of dormant ideas. Although we may formulate this principle as the “association of ideas” the formula can have only a descriptive significance pertaining to a relation in time (and not a causal one) unless there be included an unconscious factor by which the association becomes effective in exciting one idea through another—i.e., through a linking of neural dispositions. We cannot conceive of any conscious relation between ideas that can possibly induce this effect. It must be some _unconscious dynamic relation_[140] and be explained in terms of neural dispositions. If this be so, all ideas are dynamically associated and related in a process which does not appear in consciousness and which is essential for organization into a complex. Every system of associated ideas, therefore, implies conservation through an organized unconscious complex.

Complexes may be very feebly organized in that the elemental ideas are weakly conserved or weakly associated; in which case when we try to recall the original experience only a part or none of it is recalled.

On the other hand, a complex may be strongly organized and include a large number of details of an experience. This is usually owing to the fact that the original experience was accompanied by strong emotional tones, or by marked interest and attention, or was frequently repeated.

=Emotional Complexes=: 1. When the original experience was accompanied by an emotion it may be regarded as having excited one or more of the emotional instincts of anger, fear, disgust, etc. The excitation of the instinct or instincts is in one sense a _reaction_ to the ideas of the experience. The instincts then become organized about one or more of the ideas to form a sentiment (Shand) and the whole is incorporated in a complex which then acquires an affective character. The impulsive force of the instinct thereafter largely determines the behavior of the complex. (To this we shall return later when we consider the instincts.) General observation shows that emotional experiences are more likely to be conserved and also voluntarily recalled. Given such an emotional complex nearly anything associated with some detail of the experience may, by the law of association, automatically or involuntarily revive it, or the emotional reaction with a greater or less number of its associated memories. This tendency seems to be directly proportionate to the intensity of the instinct (fear, anger, etc.) incorporated in the complex. Sometimes, it is true, a strongly emotional experience, even an experience of great moment in an individual’s life, is completely forgotten, so completely that no associated idea avails as a stimulus to awaken it. Usually in all such cases the neurograms are isolated, etc., by dissociation. They still, however, may be strongly organized and conserved as an unconscious complex and sometimes may be excited as a subconscious process by an associated stimulus. In such conditions it very frequently is found that the dissociation is due to conflict between the emotion belonging to the complex and another emotional complex. The impulsive force of the latter dissociates the former complex which then cannot be voluntarily reproduced as memory, nor awakened by any association under normal conditions. We have then a condition of amnesia and often an hysterical condition. To this important phenomenon we shall return when we consider the emotions. Passing over these exceptional conditions of conflicting emotions (which being explained “prove the rule”), it still remains true that in everyday life emotional experiences are not only more likely to be conserved but to be subject to voluntary recall, or awakened involuntarily by an associated stimulus.

If, for instance, we have experienced a railroad accident involving exciting incidents, loss of life, etc., the words “railroad,” “accident,” “death,” or a sudden crashing sound, or the sight of blood, or even riding in a railroad train may recall the experience, or at least the prominent features in it. The earlier events and those succeeding the accident may have passed out of all possibility of voluntary recall. To take an instance commonplace enough, but which happens to have come within my recent observation: a fireman, hurrying to a fire, was injured severely by being thrown from a hose-wagon against a telegraph-pole with which the wagon collided. He narrowly escaped death. Although three years have elapsed he still cannot ride on a wagon to a fire without the memory of substantially the whole accident rising in his mind. When he does so he again lives through the accident, including the thoughts just previous to the actual collision when realizing his situation he was overcome with terror, and he again manifests all the organic physical expressions of fear, viz., perspiration, tremor, and muscular weakness. Here is a well organized and fairly limited complex. It is also plainly an imperative memory, that is to say, any stimulus-idea associated with some element in the complex reproduces the experience as memory whether it is wished or not. Try as hard as he will he cannot prevent its recurrence. The stimulus that excites such involuntary memories may be a spoken word (as in the psycho-galvanic and other associative experiments which we shall consider in a later lecture), or it may be a visual perception of the environment—of a person or place—or it may be a repetition of the circumstances attending the original experience, however induced. The phenomenon may also be regarded as an automatism or automatic process. As the biological instinct of fear is incorporated in the complex it is also a _phobia_.

_Why_ our fireman suffered the intense terror that he did at the time of the accident, why he experienced the thoughts which surged into his mind, why he suffered this emotional experience, while another man going through the same accident suffers no more than the physical injury (if any) at the time, and why the experience continues to recur as an imperative memory are problems which we are not considering now. The fact is that he did suffer the terror and its agonizing thoughts, and, this being the case, their constant recurrence, i.e., the reproduction of the experience, is a memory. And this memory consists of a well organized complex of ideas, feelings, and physiological accompaniments. I emphasize this point because an imperatively recurring mental experience of this sort is a psychosis, and, so far as the principle of memory enters into it, so far memory becomes a part of the mechanism of obsessions.

The reason why the man at the moment of the accident experienced the terrorizing thoughts that he did, and why he continued to experience them, must be sought in associated conserved experiences of his past. These experiences were the psycho-genetic factors. It would take us too far out of the way to consider this problem, which belongs to the obsessions, at this time, but, as I have touched upon it, I may say in passing that the accident would have awakened no sense of terror and no emotional shock if a _psychological torch_ had not already been prepared. This torch was made up of ideas previously imbibed from the social environment and made ready to be set aflame by the match set to it by the accident. In the unconsciousness of this man were written in neurographic records the dangers attending accidents of this kind and dangers which still threatened his present and future.

Likewise the _insistence_ of the memory can be related to a setting of associated thoughts which gave meaning to his perception of himself as one affected, as he believed, with a serious injury threatening his future. His fear was also, therefore, a fear of the present and future. Thus not only the experiences of the accident itself became organized into a group and conserved as a memory, but were organized with memories of still other experiences which stood in a genetic relation to them. If it were necessary I could give from my personal observation numerous examples of this mode of organization of complexes through emotional experiences and of their reproduction as automatic memories.

An historical example of complex-organizing of this kind is narrated in Tallentyre’s delightful life of Voltaire. Toward the end of Voltaire’s famous residence at the court of Frederick the Great, as the latter’s guest, one of those pestiferous friends who cannot help repeating disagreeable personal gossip for our benefit swore to Voltaire to having heard Frederick remark, “I shall want him (Voltaire) at the most another year; one squeezes the orange and throws away the rind.” From that moment a complex of emotional ideas was formed in Voltaire’s mind, that, do what he would, he could not get rid of. He wrote it to his friends, thought about it, dreamed about it; he tried to forget it, but to no purpose; it would not “down”; the rind kept constantly rising. It brought with it every memory of Frederick’s character and actions that fitted the remark.

Voltaire, like many men of genius, was a neurasthenic and his ideas with strong emotional tones tended to become strongly organized and acquire great force. “The orange rind haunts my dreams,” he wrote; “I try not to believe it.... We go to sup with the king and are gay enough sometimes;—the man who fell from the top of a steeple and found the fall through the air soft and said, ‘Good, provided it lasts,’ is not a little as I am.” The emotional complex which so tormented Voltaire that it literally became an obsession was a recurring memory. The experience had been strongly registered and conserved, owing to the emotional tone, but the reason _why_ there was so much emotion, and _why_ it absorbed so many associated ideas into itself and kept recurring would undoubtedly have been found to lie, if we could have probed Voltaire’s mind, in its settings—his previous stormy experiences with Frederick, his knowledge of Frederick’s character, his previous _apprehensions_ of what later actually occurred, and, most probably, self-reproach for his own behavior, _the consequences of which he feared to face_. All this, conserved as neurograms, was set ablaze by the remark and furnished not only the emotion but the material for the content of the complex. These previous experiences, therefore, stood in genetic relation to the latter, excited the emotional reaction of anger, resentment and fear, and prevented the complex from subsiding. The exciting cause for each recurrence of the complex was, of course, some associated stimulus from the environment, or train of thought.

Another interesting historical example is the foolish complex which is said to have disturbed the pretty Mme. Leclerc (Pauline Bonaparte, who was afterward the Princess Borghese). This fascinating and beautiful woman was enjoying her triumph at a ball. Seated in a little boudoir off the ball-room she was entertaining “guests who came to admire her and fill her cup to overflowing. There was, however, a Mme. de Contades, who had been deserted by her own cavaliers at the appearance of Pauline. Approaching, now, on the arm of her escort, she said in a tone sufficiently loud so that every one, including Pauline, could hear perfectly: ‘Mon Dieu, what a misfortune! Oh, what a pity! She would be so pretty but for that!’ ‘But for what?’ asked her cavalier. All eyes were turned upon poor Mme. Leclerc, who thought there must be something the matter with her coiffure and began to redden and suffocate. ‘But do you not see what I mean?’ persisted Mme. de Contades, with the cold cruelty of a jealous woman. ‘What a pity! Yes, truly, how unfortunate! Such a really pretty head to have such ears! If I had ears like those I would have them cut off. Yes, positively, they are like those of a pug dog. You who know her, Monsieur, advise her to have it done; it would be a charitable act.’ Pauline, more beautiful than ever in her blushes, rose, tears blinding her eyes, then sank back upon the sofa, hiding her face in her hands, sick with mortification and shame. As a matter of fact, her ears were not ugly, only a little too flat. From that day, however, she always dressed her hair over them or concealed them under a bandeau, as in the well-known painting of her.”[141]

Fixed ideas relating to physical blemishes are not uncommonly observed as obsessions in psychasthenics. With our knowledge of such psychical manifestations it is easy to imagine Pauline’s antecedent thoughts regarding her own flat ears, and repugnance to this defect in others, her suspicions of unfavorable criticisms and of not being admired, etc., all organized with the instinct of self-abasement (emotion of subjection) and forming a sentiment of self-depreciation and shame in her mind.

2. The outbreak of such _automatic memories_ is particularly prone to occur in persons of a particular temperament (the apprehensive temperament, in which the biological instinct of fear is the paramount factor), in fatigue states, and in so-called neurotic people—neurasthenics, psychasthenics, and hysterics. In such people the organization of the complex probably has been largely a previously _subconscious incubating process_, as in the phenomenon of “sudden religious conversion.” Later the sudden suggestion or awakening by whatsoever means of an idea, which has roots in the antecedent thoughts engaged in the subconscious process, readily gives occasion for the outbreak of the complex. The latter then excites the emotional reaction of anger, horror, antipathy, fear, jealousy, etc., which becomes incorporated in the complex. When once formed the automatism becomes the psychosis. The following case is an illustration: