Part 22

This same principle underlies what is called the “social conscience,” the “civic” and “national conscience,” patriotism, public opinion, what the Germans call “Sittlichkeit,” the war attitude of mind, etc. All these mental attitudes may be reduced to common habits of thought and conduct derived from mental experiences common to a given community and conserved as complexes in the unconscious of the several individuals of the community.[153]

Through education, whether scholastic, vocational, or social, we inherit the experiences of our predecessors and become “... the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.” But the conceptions of one age can never represent those of a preceding age. The veriest layman in science today could not entertain the conceptions underlying many hypotheses formulated by the wisest of the preceding age—of a Galileo, a Descartes, or Pascal. Lucretius, in the first century B. C., argued, with what for the time was great force, that the soul of man was corporeal and that it “must consist of very small seeds and be inwoven through veins and flesh and sinews; inasmuch as, after it has all withdrawn from the whole body the exterior contour of the limbs preserves itself entire and not a tittle of the weight is lost.”

Lucretius gave much thought to this problem, but to-day the least cultured person, who has never reflected at all on psychological matters, would recognize the foolishness of such a conception and reject the hypothesis.[154] He would call it _common-sense_ which guided him, but common-sense depends upon the fact that in the unconscious lie memories, the reasons for and origin of which we do not remember; these nullify such an hypothesis. These contradicting ideas, sifted out of those belonging to the social education, have become fixed as dormant or organized memories, and determine the judgments and trends of the personal consciousness. These memory vestiges may work for good or evil, shape our personal consciousness into a useful or useless form, one that adapts or unfits the organism to its environment. In the latter case they drive the organism into the field of pathological psychology.

Footnote 138:

I am using this word in the general sense of any mental experience as in the common phrase, “the association of ideas,” and not in the restricted sense of Titchener as the equivalent of a perception.

Footnote 139:

I use this word “complex” in the general sense in which it is commonly used and not with the specific meaning given to it by the Zurich school, which limits it to a system of ideas to which a strong affective tone is attached and which, because of its personally distressing character, is repressed into the subconscious.

Footnote 140:

Which may be psychical, although not psychological.

Footnote 141:

Sisters of Napoleon, by M. Joseph Turquan.

Footnote 142:

McDougall (Social Psychology) regards jealousy as a complex emotional state in which anger, tender emotion, and other innate dispositions are factors.

Footnote 143:

Not included in this volume.

Footnote 144:

Aboulie et idées fixes, Revue philosophique, 1891, i., p. 279. Mental State of Hystericals, p. 408.

Footnote 145:

P. 33.

Footnote 146:

The switching process is an interesting problem in itself. (Cf. Max Levy-Suhl: Ueber Einstellungsvorgänge in normalen und anormalen Seelenzuständen. Zeitschrift für Psychotherapie und Medizinishe Psychologie, Bd. 11, Hft. 3, 1910.) An example is the well-known psychological diagram which may be perceived at one moment as a flight of steps and at another as an overhanging wall, according as which perception of the same line is switched in.

Footnote 147:

Lectures not included in this volume.

Footnote 148:

In the case of Miss B., for example, Sally had absolute amnesia for certain systems of subject-complexes (Latin, French, etc.) possessed by the other personalities.

Footnote 149:

William Sharp, A Memoir, by Elizabeth A. Sharp.

Footnote 150:

My Life as a Dissociated Personality, _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, October-November, 1908, December-January, 1909.

Footnote 151:

The Dissociation, Chapter XXIII.

Footnote 152:

Provided, of course, this new knowledge is justified and not contradicted by the facts and principles of life. In other words, it must be believed, at least, to be the truth.

Footnote 153:

While these pages were in press, Lord Haldane in his Montreal address (before the American Bar Association), which has attracted wide attention, developed the psychological principle of “Sittlichkeit,” as applied to communities, the nation and groups of nations. By “Sittlichkeit” is meant the social habit of mind and action underlying social customs, the instinctive sense of social obligation which is the foundation of society. This plainly includes what is often called the social conscience and actions impelled thereby. In further definition of this principle Lord Haldane quotes Fichte as stating “Sittlichkeit” to mean “those principles of conduct which regulate people in their relations to each other, and have become matter of habit and second nature at the stage of culture reached, and of which, therefore, we are not explicitly conscious.” The point was made that the citizen is governed “only to a small extent by law and legality on the one hand, and by the dictates of the individual conscience on the other.” It is the more extensive system of “Sittlichkeit” which plays the predominant rôle. Out of this system there develops a unity of thought and “a common ideal” which can be made to penetrate the soul of a people and to take complete possession of it. Likewise there develops “a general will with which the will of the good citizen is in accord.” This will of the community (inspired by the common ideal) is common to the individuals composing it. Lord Haldane goes on to make the point that what is now true within a single nation may in time come to be true between nations or a group of nations. Thus an international habit of looking to common ideals may grow up sufficiently strong to develop a general will, and to make the binding power of those ideas a reliable sanction for their obligations to each other. With this thesis, ably presented and fortified though it be, we are not here concerned. The point I wish to make is that this conception of “Sittlichkeit” which Lord Haldane in his remarkable address, destined I believe to become historic, so ably develops and applies to the solution of a world-problem is in psychological terms identical with that of complexes of ideas and affects organized in the unconscious.

Footnote 154:

Professor G. S. Fullerton, in the course of an essay, “Is the Mind in the Body?” interestingly refers to this fact and points out that common sense directs the common man in repudiating ancient doctrines, and that it is “part of his share in the heritage of the race.” “The common sense which guides men is the resultant attitude due to many influences, some of them dating very far back indeed.” _The Popular Science Monthly_, May, 1907.

LECTURE X THE MEANING OF IDEAS AS DETERMINED BY SETTINGS

In the preceding lecture when describing the organization of emotional complexes, I mentioned, somewhat incidentally, that their fuller meaning was to be found in antecedent experiences of life; and that these experiences conserved in the unconscious formed a setting that gave the point of view and attitude of mind. It was pointed out also that if we wish to know the reason why a given experience, like that of Voltaire with Frederick, awakens a strong emotional reaction, and why the memory of this experience continues persistently organized with the emotion or gives rise to the emotional reaction whenever stimulated, we must look to this setting of antecedent experiences which gives the ideas of the complexes meaning. We need now to inquire to what extent the unconscious complex in which the setting has roots may take part in the process which gives meaning to an idea. It is a problem in _psychogenesis_ and psychological mechanisms. As an imperatively recurring emotional complex is an obsession the full meaning of any given obsession is involved in the psychological problem of “Idea and Meaning.”

Let us, then, take up for discussion this latter problem as preliminary to the study of that important psychosis—obsessing ideas and emotions.

A perception, or, what is in principle the same thing, an idea of an object, although apparently a simple thing, is really, as a rule, a complex affair. Without attempting to enter deeply into the psychology of perception (and ideas), and particularly into the conventional conception of perception as usually expounded in the text-books—a conception which to my mind is inadequate and incomplete[155]—it is sufficient for our immediate purposes to point out in a general rough way the following facts concerning perception.

=Perception a synthesis of primary and secondary images.=—Perception may be regarded both as a process and as a group of conscious elements some of which are within the focus of attention or awareness and some of which are outside this focus. As _a process_ it undoubtedly may include much that is entirely subconscious and therefore without conscious equivalents, and much that appears in consciousness. As a group of conscious elements it is a fusion, amalgamation, or compounding of many elements.

My perception of X., for example, whom I recognize as an acquaintance, is much more than a cluster of visual sensations—I mean the sensations of color and form that come from the stimulation of my retina. Besides these sensations it includes a number of imaginal memory images some of which are only in the fringe of consciousness and can only be recognized by introspection or under special conditions. These secondary images, as they are called, may be (as they most often are) visual, orienting him in space and in past associative relations, according to my previous experiences; they may be auditory—the imaginal sound of his voice or verbal images of his name; or they may be the so-called kinesthetic images, etc.; and all these images supplement the actual visual sensations of color and form.

That such images take part in perception is of course well recognized in every text-book on psychology where they will be found described. It is easy to become aware of them under certain conditions. For instance, to take an auditory perception from every-day life, you are listening through the telephone and hear a strange voice speaking. Aside from the meaning of the words you are conscious of little more than auditory sensations although you do perceive them as those of a human voice and not of a phonograph. Then of a sudden you recognize the voice as that of an acquaintance. Instantly visual images of his face, and perhaps of the room in which he is speaking and his situation therein, of the furnishings of the room, etc., become associated with the voice. Your perception of the voice now takes on a fuller meaning in accordance with these imaginal images. In such an experience, common probably to everybody, the secondary images which take part in perception are unusually clear and easily detected.

Again, let us take a visual perception. You meet face to face a person whom at first sight seems unfamiliar; then in a flash visual images of a scene in a room where you first met, verbal images of his name, and the sound of his voice rush into consciousness. The comparatively simple perception of a man has now given place to a more complex perception (apperception) of an acquaintance and has acquired a new meaning. This new meaning is in part due to these images which have supplemented the visual sensations; but it is also due to the coöperation of another and important factor—the context—which I will presently consider.

Another situation of every-day life in which we become aware of the images is when riding in a street car at night we look out of the window and fail to recognize the individual buildings as we pass them though we perceive them as houses. The neighborhood being obscured by darkness, the buildings have no meaning from the point of view of their uses, proprietorship, locality, etc., but only from an architectural point of view. Then suddenly, by some apparently subconscious process, visual memory images of the unseen neighborhood (hidden in darkness), and of the interior of the buildings, flash into consciousness in conjunction with the actual visual pictures of the buildings. In imagination we at once see the locality and recognize (or apperceive) the buildings which acquire a new meaning as particular shops, which we have often entered, located in a particular locality, etc.

Again, take a tactual perception: If you close your eyes and touch, say a point on your left hand, with your finger, you not only perceive the touch but you perceive the exact spot that you touched. Your perception includes localization. Now if you fix your attention and introspect carefully you will find that you visualize your hand and see, more or less vividly, the point touched (and the touching finger). If you draw a figure on the hand you will visualize that figure. That is to say imaginal visual images of the hand, figure, etc., enter into the tactual perceptions. You will probably also be able to feel faint tactual “images” of the hand (joints, fingers, etc.) which combine with the visualization.[156] The whole complex is the perception proper.

The images which take part in actual perception, or in ideas of objects, vary with the mode of perception (whether visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) and with objects, and in different people. Reading, or the perception of words, is in many people accompanied by the sound of the words or kinesthetic images of words. If the printed words are those of a person whose voice is familiar to us we may actually hear his voice.[157] General kinesthetic images may occur in perception, as with objects which look heavy, i.e., have secondary tactual sensations of heaviness. Likewise tactile and olfactory images may enter the perceptual field and supplement the visual sensations. When the sensational experiences of perception are tactile, auditory, olfactory, or gustatory visual images probably always take part in the perceptual field if the object is perceived as, e. g., the perception of velvet by touch and of an orange by smell. Summing all this up we may say, using Titchener’s words: “perceptions are selected groups of sensations in which images are incorporated as an integral part of the whole process.” We may further say the secondary images give meaning to sensations in forming a perception.

Now, before proceeding further in this exposition, I would point out that if memory images are habitually synthesized with sensations to form a given perception, and if perception is a matter of synthesis, then, theoretically, it ought to be possible to dissociate these images. Further, in that case, the perception as such ought to disappear. That this theoretical assumption correctly represents the facts I have been able to demonstrate by the following experiment which I have repeated many times. I should first explain that it has been shown by Janet that by certain technical procedures some hysterics can be distracted in such a way that the experimenter’s voice is not consciously heard by them, but is heard and understood subconsciously. The ordinary procedure is to whisper to the subject while his attention is focused on something else. The whisper undoubtedly acts as a suggestion that the subject will not consciously hear what is whispered. The whispered word-images are accordingly dissociated, but are perceived coconsciously, and whatever coconsciousness exists can be in this way surreptitiously communicated with and responses obtained without the knowledge of the personal consciousness. In this way I have been able to make numerous observations showing the presence of dissociated coconscious complexes which otherwise would not have been suspected. Now the experiment which I am about to cite was made for the purpose of determining whether certain experiences for which the subject had amnesia were coconsciously remembered, but the results obtained, besides giving affirmative evidence on this point, furnished certain instructive facts indicative of the dissociation of secondary images.

The subject, Miss B., was in the state known as BIVa, an hypnotic state, _her eyes closed_. While she was conversing with me on a subject which held her attention I whispered in her ear with the view of communicating with coconscious ideas as above explained. While I was whispering, she remarked, “Where have you gone?” and later asked why I went away and what I kept coming and going for. On examination it then appeared that it seemed to her that during the moments when I whispered in her ear I had gone away. That is to say, she could no longer visualize my body, the secondary imaginal visual images being dissociated with my whispered words. At these times, however, she continued the conversation and was not at all in a dreamy state. Testing her tactile sense it was found that there was no dissociation of this sense during these moments. She felt tactile impressions while she was not hearing my voice, but she explained afterwards [while whispering, of course, I could not ask questions regarding sensations aloud] that when I touched her, and when she held my hand, palpating it in a curious way as if trying to make out what it was, she felt the tactile impressions, or tactile sensations, but not naturally. It appeared as the result of further observations that this feeling of unnaturalness and strangeness was due to a dissociation of the secondary visual images which normally occur with the tactile images. (She described the tactile impressions of my hand as similar to those she felt when she lifted her own hand when it had “gone to sleep”; it felt dead and heavy as if it belonged to no one in particular.

Testing further it was found that, _before abstraction_, while she held my hand she could definitely visualize my hand, arm, and even face. While she was thus visualizing I again abstracted her auditory perceptions by the whispering process. At once the secondary visual images of my hand, etc., disappeared. As with the auditory perceptions she could not obtain these visual images, although a moment before she could visualize as far as the elbow.

Desiring now to learn whether these dissociated visual images were perceived coconsciously I whispered, at the same time holding her hand, “Do you see my hand, arm, and face?” She nodded (automatically) “Yes.” “Does _she_ [meaning the personal consciousness] see them?” (Answer by nod) “No.” (The personal consciousness (BIVa) was unaware of the questions and nodding; the latter was performed subconsciously.)

This experiment was repeated several times. As often as she ceased to hear my voice she ceased to visualize my hand, though she could feel it without recognizing it. It follows, therefore, that the dissociation of the auditory perceptions of my voice having also robbed the subject’s personal consciousness of all visual images of my body, her previous tactual perception of my hand lost thereby its visual images and ceased to be a perception.

Let us take another observation: We have seen that a tactual perception of the body includes secondary imaginal visual and other sensory images besides the tactile sensation. Now, of course, if sensation is dissociated so that one has complete anesthesia, no tactile sensation can be perceived. Under such conditions an anesthetic person theoretically might not be able to imagine the dissociated tactile sensations and the associated visual images included in tactile perception. If so such a person would not be able to visualize his body. In other words, in accordance with the well-known principle that the dissociation of a specific memory robs the personal consciousness of other elements of experiences synthesized with the specific memory, the dissociation of the tactile images carries with it the visual images associated in perception. This theoretical proposition is confirmed by actual observation. Thus B. C. A. in one hypnotic state has general anesthesia, so complete that she has no consciousness of her body whatsoever. She does not know whether she is standing or sitting, nor the attitude of her limbs, or her location in space; she is simply thought in space. Now it is found that she can visualize the experimenter, the room, and the objects in the room although she cannot visualize any part of her own body. The dissociation of the tactual field of consciousness is so complete that she cannot evoke imaginal tactual images of the body, and this dissociation of these images carries with it that of the associated imaginal visual images. Visual images of the environment, however, not being synthesized with the tactual body images, can be still evoked. So we see from observations based on introspection and experimentation that perception includes, besides primary simple sensations of an object, secondary imaginal images of various kinds and in various numbers.

=Besides images the content of ideas includes “Meaning”.=—What I have said thus far refers to perception and idea as the content of consciousness—a group of conscious states. But this is not all when perception is regarded as a _process_. The objects of experience have associative relations to other objects, actions, conduct, stimuli, constellated ideas, etc., i.e., past experiences represented by conserved (unconscious) complexes. As a result of previous experiences various associations have been organized with ideas and these complexes form the setting or the “context” (Tichener) which gives ideas meaning. As the secondary images give meaning to sensations to form ideas (or perceptions), so these associated complexes as settings give meaning to ideas. This setting in more general terms may be regarded as the attitude of mind, point of view, interest, etc. Just as the context in a printed sentence gives meaning to a given word, and determines which of two or more ideas it is meant to be the sign of, so in the process of all perceptions the associated ideas give meaning to the perception. Indeed it is probable that the context as a process determines what images shall become incorporated with sensations to form the nucleus of the perception. Perception thus takes one meaning when it is constellated with one complex and another meaning when constellated with another complex.

“Meaning” plays such an important part in the mental reactions of pathological and everyday life that I feel we must study it a little more closely before proceeding with our theme.

The idea horse[158] as the content of consciousness includes more than the primary and secondary sensory images which constitute a perception of an animal with four legs distinguished anatomically from other animals: The idea includes the meaning of a particular kind of animal possessing certain functions, useful for particular purposes and occupying a particular place in civilization, etc. We are distinctly conscious of this meaning; and although we may abstract more or less successfully the visual image of the animal from the meaning, and attend to the former alone, the result is an artifact. Likewise we may as an artifice abstract, to a large degree, the meaning from the image, keeping the latter in the background, and attend to the meaning.