Unconscious Memory(Fiscle Part-3) by Samuel Butler (best novels ever .TXT) 📖
- Author: Samuel Butler
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The Unconscious." Over And Above This, I Have Been So Often Told
That The Views Concerning Unconscious Action Contained In The
Foregoing Lecture And In "Life And Habit" Are Only The Very Fallacy
Of Von Hartmann Over Again, That I Should Like To Give The Public An
Opportunity Of Seeing Whether This Is So Or No, By Placing The Two
Contending Theories Of Unconscious Action Side By Side. I Hope That
It Will Thus Be Seen That Neither Professor Hering Nor I Have Fallen
Into The Fallacy Of Von Hartmann, But That Rather Von Hartmann Has
Fallen Into His Fallacy Through Failure To Grasp The Principle Which
Professor Hering Has Insisted Upon, And To Connect Heredity With
Memory.
Professor Hering's Philosophy Of The Unconscious Is Of Extreme
Simplicity. He Rests Upon A Fact Of Daily And Hourly Experience,
Namely, That Practice Makes Things Easy That Were Once Difficult, And
Often Results In Their Being Done Without Any Consciousness Of
Effort. But If The Repetition Of An Act Tends Ultimately, Under
Certain Circumstances, To Its Being Done Unconsciously, So Also Is
The Fact Of An Intricate And Difficult Action Being Done
Unconsciously An Argument That It Must Have Been Done Repeatedly
Already. As I Said In "Life And Habit," It Is More Easy To Suppose
That Occasions On Which Such An Action Has Been Performed Have Not
Been Wanting, Even Though We Do Not See When And Where They Were,
Than That The Facility Which We Observe Should Have Been Attained
Without Practice And Memory (P. 56).
There Can Be Nothing Better Established Or More Easy, Whether To
Understand Or Verify, Than The Unconsciousness With Which Habitual
Chapter 7 Pg 82Actions Come To Be Performed. If, However, It Is Once Conceded That
It Is The Manner Of Habitual Action Generally, Then All A Priori
Objection To Professor Hering's Philosophy Of The Unconscious Is At
An End. The Question Becomes One Of Fact In Individual Cases, And Of
Degree.
How Far, Then, Does The Principle Of The Convertibility, As It Were,
Of Practice And Unconsciousness Extend? Can Any Line Be Drawn Beyond
Which It Shall Cease To Operate? If Not, May It Not Have Operated
And Be Operating To A Vast And Hitherto Unsuspected Extent? This Is
All, And Certainly It Is Sufficiently Simple. I Sometimes Think It
Has Found Its Greatest Stumbling-Block In Its Total Want Of Mystery,
As Though We Must Be Like Those Conjurers Whose Stock In Trade Is A
Small Deal Table And A Kitchen-Chair With Bare Legs, And Who, With
Their Parade Of "No Deception" And "Examine Everything For
Yourselves," Deceive Worse Than Others Who Make Use Of All Manner Of
Elaborate Paraphernalia. It Is True We Require No Paraphernalia, And
We Produce Unexpected Results, But We Are Not Conjuring.
To Turn Now To Von Hartmann. When I Read Mr. Sully's Article In The
Westminster Review, I Did Not Know Whether The Sense Of Mystification
Which It Produced In Me Was Wholly Due To Von Hartmann Or No; But On
Making Acquaintance With Von Hartmann Himself, I Found That Mr. Sully
Has Erred, If At All, In Making Him More Intelligible Than He
Actually Is. Von Hartmann Has Not Got A Meaning. Give Him Professor
Hering's Key And He Might Get One, But It Would Be At The Expense Of
Seeing What Approach He Had Made To A System Fallen To Pieces.
Granted That In His Details And Subordinate Passages He Often Both
Has And Conveys A Meaning, There Is, Nevertheless, No Coherence
Between These Details, And The Nearest Approach To A Broad Conception
Covering The Work Which The Reader Can Carry Away With Him Is At Once
So Incomprehensible And Repulsive, That It Is Difficult To Write
About It Without Saying More Perhaps Than Those Who Have Not Seen The
Original Will Accept As Likely To Be True. The Idea To Which I Refer
Is That Of An Unconscious Clairvoyance, Which, From The Language
Continually Used Concerning It, Must Be Of The Nature Of A Person,
And Which Is Supposed To Take Possession Of Living Beings So Fully As
To Be The Very Essence Of Their Nature, The Promoter Of Their
Embryonic Development, And The Instigator Of Their Instinctive
Actions. This Approaches Closely To The Personal God Of Mosaic And
Christian Theology, With The Exception That The Word "Clairvoyance"
{89} Is Substituted For God, And That The God Is Supposed To Be
Unconscious.
Mr. Sully Says:-
"When We Grasp It [The Philosophy Of Von Hartmann] As A Whole, It
Amounts To Nothing More Than This, That All Or Nearly All The
Phenomena Of The Material And Spiritual World Rest Upon And Result
From A Mysterious, Unconscious Being, Though To Call It Being Is
Chapter 7 Pg 83Really To Add On An Idea Not Immediately Contained Within The All-
Sufficient Principle. But What Difference Is There Between This And
Saying That The Phenomena Of The World At Large Come We Know Not
Whence? . . . The Unconscious, Therefore, Tends To Be Simple Phrase
And Nothing More . . . No Doubt There Are A Number Of Mental
Processes . . . Of Which We Are Unconscious . . . But To Infer From
This That They Are Due To An Unconscious Power, And To Proceed To
Demonstrate Them In The Presence Of The Unconscious Through All
Nature, Is To Make An Unwarrantable Saltus In Reasoning. What, In
Fact, Is This 'Unconscious' But A High-Sounding Name To Veil Our
Ignorance? Is The Unconscious Any Better Explanation Of Phenomena We
Do Not Understand Than The 'Devil-Devil' By Which Australian Tribes
Explain The Leyden Jar And Its Phenomena? Does It Increase Our
Knowledge To Know That We Do Not Know The Origin Of Language Or The
Cause Of Instinct? . . . Alike In Organic Creation And The Evolution
Of History 'Performances And Actions'--The Words Are Those Of
Strauss--Are Ascribed To An Unconscious, Which Can Only Belong To A
Conscious Being. {90a}
. . . . .
"The Difficulties Of The System Advance As We Proceed. {90b}
Subtract This Questionable Factor--The Unconscious From Hartmann's
'Biology And Psychology,' And The Chapters Remain Pleasant And
Instructive Reading. But With The Third Part Of His Work--The
Metaphysic Of The Unconscious--Our Feet Are Clogged At Every Step.
We Are Encircled By The Merest Play Of Words, The Most Unsatisfactory
Demonstrations, And Most Inconsistent Inferences. The Theory Of
Final Causes Has Been Hitherto Employed To Show The Wisdom Of The
World; With Our Pessimist Philosopher It Shows Nothing But Its
Irrationality And Misery. Consciousness Has Been Generally Supposed
To Be The Condition Of All Happiness And Interest In Life; Here It
Simply Awakens Us To Misery, And The Lower An Animal Lies In The
Scale Of Conscious Life, The Better And The Pleasanter Its Lot.
. . . . .
"Thus, Then, The Universe, As An Emanation Of The Unconscious, Has
Been Constructed. {90c} Throughout It Has Been Marked By Design, By
Purpose, By Finality; Throughout A Wonderful Adaptation Of Means To
Ends, A Wonderful Adjustment And Relativity In Different Portions Has
Been Noticed--And All This For What Conclusion? Not, As In The Hands
Of The Natural Theologians Of The Eighteenth Century, To Show That
The World Is The Result Of Design, Of An Intelligent, Beneficent
Creator, But The Manifestation Of A Being Whose Only Predicates Are
Negatives, Whose Very Essence Is To Be Unconscious. It Is Not Only
Like Ancient Athens, To An Unknown, But To An Unknowing God, That
Modern Pessimism Rears Its Altar. Yet Surely The Fact That The
Motive Principle Of Existence Moves In A Mysterious Way Outside Our
Consciousness No Way Requires That The All-One Being Should Be
Himself Unconscious.
Chapter 7 Pg 84
I Believe The Foregoing To Convey As Correct An Idea Of Von
Hartmann's System As It Is Possible To Convey, And Will Leave It To
The Reader To Say How Much In Common There Is Between This And The
Lecture Given In The Preceding Chapter, Beyond The Fact That Both
Touch Upon Unconscious Actions. The Extract Which Will Form My Next
Chapter Is Only About A Thirtieth Part Of The Entire "Philosophy Of
The Unconscious," But It Will, I Believe, Suffice To Substantiate The
Justice Of What Mr. Sully Has Said In The Passages Above Quoted.
As Regards The Accuracy Of The Translation, I Have Submitted All
Passages About Which I Was In The Least Doubtful To The Same
Gentleman Who Revised My Translation Of Professor Hering's Lecture; I
Have Also Given The German Wherever I Thought The Reader Might Be
Glad To See It.
Chapter 8 Pg 85
Translation Of The Chapter On "The Unconscious In Instinct," From Von
Hartmann's "Philosophy Of The Unconscious."
Von Hartmann's Chapter On Instinct Is As Follows:-
Instinct Is Action Taken In Pursuance Of A Purpose But Without
Conscious Perception Of What The Purpose Is. {92a}
A Purposive Action, With Consciousness Of The Purpose And Where The
Course Taken Is The Result Of Deliberation Is Not Said To Be
Instinctive; Nor Yet, Again, Is Blind Aimless Action, Such As
Outbreaks Of Fury On The Part Of Offended Or Otherwise Enraged
Animals. I See No Occasion For Disturbing The Commonly Received
Definition Of Instinct As Given Above; For Those Who Think They Can
Refer All The So-Called Ordinary Instincts Of Animals To Conscious
Deliberation Ipso Facto Deny That There Is Such A Thing As Instinct
At All, And Should Strike The Word Out Of Their Vocabulary. But Of
This More Hereafter.
Assuming, Then, The Existence Of Instinctive Action As Above Defined,
It Can Be Explained As -
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