The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (best large ereader .txt) đź“–
- Author: Bertrand Russell
- Performer: 0486445518
Book online «The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (best large ereader .txt) 📖». Author Bertrand Russell
Most psycho-analysts pay little attention to the analysis of
desire, being interested in discovering by observation what it is
that people desire, rather than in discovering what actually
constitutes desire. I think the strangeness of what they report
would be greatly diminished if it were expressed in the language
of a behaviourist theory of desire, rather than in the language
of everyday beliefs. The general description of the sort of
phenomena that bear on our present question is as follows: A
person states that his desires are so-and-so, and that it is
these desires that inspire his actions; but the outside observer
perceives that his actions are such as to realize quite different
ends from those which he avows, and that these different ends are
such as he might be expected to desire. Generally they are less
virtuous than his professed desires, and are therefore less
agreeable to profess than these are. It is accordingly supposed
that they really exist as desires for ends, but in a subconscious
part of the mind, which the patient refuses to admit into
consciousness for fear of having to think ill of himself. There
are no doubt many cases to which such a supposition is applicable
without obvious artificiality. But the deeper the Freudians delve
into the underground regions of instinct, the further they travel
from anything resembling conscious desire, and the less possible
it becomes to believe that only positive self-deception conceals
from us that we really wish for things which are abhorrent to our
explicit life.
In the cases in question we have a conflict between the outside
observer and the patient’s consciousness. The whole tendency of
psychoanalysis is to trust the outside observer rather than the
testimony of introspection. I believe this tendency to be
entirely right, but to demand a re-statement of what constitutes
desire, exhibiting it as a causal law of our actions, not as
something actually existing in our minds.
But let us first get a clearer statement of the essential
characteristic of the phenomena.
A person, we find, states that he desires a certain end A, and
that he is acting with a view to achieving it. We observe,
however, that his actions are such as are likely to achieve a
quite different end B, and that B is the sort of end that often
seems to be aimed at by animals and savages, though civilized
people are supposed to have discarded it. We sometimes find also
a whole set of false beliefs, of such a kind as to persuade the
patient that his actions are really a means to A, when in fact
they are a means to B. For example, we have an impulse to inflict
pain upon those whom we hate; we therefore believe that they are
wicked, and that punishment will reform them. This belief enables
us to act upon the impulse to inflict pain, while believing that
we are acting upon the desire to lead sinners to repentance. It
is for this reason that the criminal law has been in all ages
more severe than it would have been if the impulse to ameliorate
the criminal had been what really inspired it. It seems simple to
explain such a state of affairs as due to “self-deception,” but
this explanation is often mythical. Most people, in thinking
about punishment, have had no more need to hide their vindictive
impulses from themselves than they have had to hide the
exponential theorem. Our impulses are not patent to a casual
observation, but are only to be discovered by a scientific study
of our actions, in the course of which we must regard ourselves
as objectively as we should the motions of the planets or the
chemical reactions of a new element.
The study of animals reinforces this conclusion, and is in many
ways the best preparation for the analysis of desire. In animals
we are not troubled by the disturbing influence of ethical
considerations. In dealing with human beings, we are perpetually
distracted by being told that such-and-such a view is gloomy or
cynical or pessimistic: ages of human conceit have built up such
a vast myth as to our wisdom and virtue that any intrusion of the
mere scientific desire to know the facts is instantly resented by
those who cling to comfortable illusions. But no one cares
whether animals are virtuous or not, and no one is under the
delusion that they are rational. Moreover, we do not expect them
to be so “conscious,” and are prepared to admit that their
instincts prompt useful actions without any prevision of the ends
which they achieve. For all these reasons, there is much in the
analysis of mind which is more easily discovered by the study of
animals than by the observation of human beings.
We all think that, by watching the behaviour of animals, we can
discover more or less what they desire. If this is the case—and
I fully agree that it is—desire must be capable of being
exhibited in actions, for it is only the actions of animals that
we can observe. They MAY have minds in which all sorts of things
take place, but we can know nothing about their minds except by
means of inferences from their actions; and the more such
inferences are examined, the more dubious they appear. It would
seem, therefore, that actions alone must be the test of the
desires of animals. From this it is an easy step to the
conclusion that an animal’s desire is nothing but a
characteristic of a certain series of actions, namely, those
which would be commonly regarded as inspired by the desire in
question. And when it has been shown that this view affords a
satisfactory account of animal desires, it is not difficult to
see that the same explanation is applicable to the desires of
human beings.
We judge easily from the behaviour of an animal of a familiar
kind whether it is hungry or thirsty, or pleased or displeased,
or inquisitive or terrified. The verification of our judgment, so
far as verification is possible, must be derived from the
immediately succeeding actions of the animal. Most people would
say that they infer first something about the animal’s state of
mind—whether it is hungry or thirsty and so on—and thence
derive their expectations as to its subsequent conduct. But this
detour through the animal’s supposed mind is wholly unnecessary.
We can say simply: The animal’s behaviour during the last minute
has had those characteristics which distinguish what is called
“hunger,” and it is likely that its actions during the next
minute will be similar in this respect, unless it finds food, or
is interrupted by a stronger impulse, such as fear. An animal
which is hungry is restless, it goes to the places where food is
often to be found, it sniffs with its nose or peers with its eyes
or otherwise increases the sensitiveness of its sense-organs; as
soon as it is near enough to food for its sense-organs to be
affected, it goes to it with all speed and proceeds to eat; after
which, if the quantity of food has been sufficient, its whole
demeanour changes it may very likely lie down and go to sleep.
These things and others like them are observable phenomena
distinguishing a hungry animal from one which is not hungry. The
characteristic mark by which we recognize a series of actions
which display hunger is not the animal’s mental state, which we
cannot observe, but something in its bodily behaviour; it is this
observable trait in the bodily behaviour that I am proposing to
call “hunger,” not some possibly mythical and certainly
unknowable ingredient of the animal’s mind.
Generalizing what occurs in the case of hunger, we may say that
what we call a desire in an animal is always displayed in a cycle
of actions having certain fairly well marked characteristics.
There is first a state of activity, consisting, with
qualifications to be mentioned presently, of movements likely to
have a certain result; these movements, unless interrupted,
continue until the result is achieved, after which there is
usually a period of comparative quiescence. A cycle of actions of
this sort has marks by which it is broadly distinguished from the
motions of dead matter. The most notable of these marks are—(1)
the appropriateness of the actions for the realization of a
certain result; (2) the continuance of action until that result
has been achieved. Neither of these can be pressed beyond a
point. Either may be (a) to some extent present in dead matter,
and (b) to a considerable extent absent in animals, while
vegetable are intermediate, and display only a much fainter form
of the behaviour which leads us to attribute desire to animals.
(a) One might say rivers “desire” the sea water, roughly
speaking, remains in restless motion until it reaches either the
sea or a place from which it cannot issue without going uphill,
and therefore we might say that this is what it wishes while it
is flowing. We do not say so, because we can account for the
behaviour of water by the laws of physics; and if we knew more
about animals, we might equally cease to attribute desires to
them, since we might find physical and chemical reactions
sufficient to account for their behaviour. (b) Many of the
movements of animals do not exhibit the characteristics of the
cycles which seem to embody desire. There are first of all the
movements which are “mechanical,” such as slipping and falling,
where ordinary physical forces operate upon the animal’s body
almost as if it were dead matter. An animal which falls over a
cliff may make a number of desperate struggles while it is in the
air, but its centre of gravity will move exactly as it would if
the animal were dead. In this case, if the animal is killed at
the end of the fall, we have, at first sight, just the
characteristics of a cycle of actions embodying desire, namely,
restless movement until the ground is reached, and then
quiescence. Nevertheless, we feel no temptation to say that the
animal desired what occurred, partly because of the obviously
mechanical nature of the whole occurrence, partly because, when
an animal survives a fall, it tends not to repeat the experience.
There may be other reasons also, but of them I do not wish to
speak yet. Besides mechanical movements, there are interrupted
movements, as when a bird, on its way to eat your best peas, is
frightened away by the boy whom you are employing for that
purpose. If interruptions are frequent and completion of cycles
rare, the characteristics by which cycles are observed may become
so blurred as to be almost unrecognizable. The result of these
various considerations is that the differences between animals
and dead matter, when we confine ourselves to external
unscientific observation of integral behaviour, are a matter of
degree and not very precise. It is for this reason that it has
always been possible for fanciful people to maintain that even
stocks and stones have some vague kind of soul. The evidence that
animals have souls is so very shaky that, if it is assumed to be
conclusive, one might just as well go a step further and extend
the argument by analogy to all matter. Nevertheless, in spite of
vagueness and doubtful cases, the existence of cycles in the
behaviour of animals is a broad characteristic by which they are
prima facie distinguished from ordinary matter; and I think it is
this characteristic which leads us to attribute desires to
animals, since it makes their behaviour resemble what we do when
(as we say) we are acting from desire.
I shall adopt the following definitions for describing the
behaviour of animals:
A “behaviour-cycle” is a series of voluntary or reflex movements
of an animal, tending
Comments (0)