Natural-Philosophical Lectures on the Fundamental Problems of Consciousness and Life

Translated from: Palágyi, Melchior. Naturphilosophische Vorlesungen über die Grundprobleme des Bewußtseins und des Lebens. Charlottenburg: Verlag von Otto Günther, 1908. Translation from a digitised copy held by the Harvard College Library.

Translation note: This is the first English translation of Palágyi’s twenty lectures on natural philosophy. The translation preserves the author’s sentence structure and rhetorical devices. German terms are given in brackets on first use; sidenotes provide context for key philosophical concepts. This translation is a work in progress — further lectures will be added incrementally.

Introduction#

The problems of vitalism [Vitalismus] and psychologism [Psychologismus] stand in the foreground of modern scientific and philosophical interest. Vitalismus — not the postulation of a mysterious life-force, but the epistemic thesis that vital processes are accessible to only one direct witness, and are therefore irreducible to mechanical (publicly observable) processes. Psychologismus — the systematic conflation of the vital and the mental, originating in the Locke–Berkeley–Hume tradition; termed thus by the historian of philosophy Johann Eduard Erdmann.

The vitalism so often pronounced dead in the course of the last centuries is indeed living again in our days as "neo-vitalism" [Neovitalismus] with a greater energy than ever before. But when vitalism makes itself heard, this signifies for the intellectual barometric reading of scientific thought something like the oppressive heat before a thunderstorm or the proximity of a tempest. — Seemingly without connexion with this neo-vitalistic current, but at bottom conditioned by it, there is also making itself noticeable within psychology a worrying secessionist movement: psychology, namely, is to separate itself entirely from the philosophical disciplines and constitute itself as an independent, purely scientific and experimental discipline. This split in the psychological camp shows that one has grown weary of the unclear entanglement of experimental natural science and metaphysical thought such as obtains in psychophysics. The call for the separation of experiment and metaphysics points at the same time to a crisis in philosophical thought altogether. In fact, everywhere a deep longing for a new foundation of epistemology and metaphysics makes itself felt. As far as the eye can reach, there prevails in all scientific camps an intellectual fermentation as on the eve of an upheaval of the received scientific and philosophical conceptions.

Leading figures of physical research, such as Maxwell, Hertz, Lord Kelvin, and others, declared without concealment that the distinctive nature of the life-process [Lebensprozess] renders its resolution into a combination of purely mechanical (physico-chemical) processes an impossibility. Lebensprozess — the continuous, flowing vital process accessible only to its own subject; distinguished from mechanical processes which have many witnesses.

And what is still more significant, the biologists themselves, who otherwise were accustomed to think more mechanistically than the mechanists, are abandoning the hopeless endeavour to transform the riddle of life into a mechanical problem. Precisely such biologists as Driesch, Wolff, Apathy, and others, who are wholly filled with the spirit of exact scientific research, make the principle of the irreducibility of the vital process to purely mechanical (physico-chemical) processes the foundation of their biological thinking. Hans Driesch (1867–1941), Gustav Wolff (1865–1921), and Stephan von Apathy (1863–1922) were leading neo-vitalist biologists of the period.

Should this conception prevail, we are approaching a new epoch in the history of natural science and philosophy: an epoch in which biology will no longer be the mere satellite of mechanistic natural science and will no longer seek its glory in wanting to make itself superfluous and dissolve into pure mechanism. Yet unfortunately there still prevails, even in biological circles, the old prejudice that only mechanistic thinking may lay claim to strict scientificity. To oppose this prejudice and to furnish the proof of the scientific equality of mechanistic and vitalistic thinking is the one tendency of the following philosophical lectures.

Mechanistic and vitalistic research can, in my view, only in the most intimate accord with one another procure the foundations of a genuine knowledge of nature. Into all perceptions, observations, into all measurements of the mechanistic natural scientist, however rigorous, the vital moment [das vitale Moment] necessarily intrudes as well, because we are able to perceive mechanical phenomena only by means of the vital processes of our own organism. A phenomenon of the inorganic natural process exists for us only in so far as it is presented to our consciousness [Bewußtsein] through a process of our own vital process. We behold the entire mechanical natural process, as it were, only through the windows of our own life-process, so that the ascertainment of mechanical facts necessarily requires a complementary fixing of the corresponding vital conditions, and conversely the perception of vital facts must always be supplemented by the investigation of the corresponding mechanical conditions. In this principle of correlation [Correlation] it is stated that mechanistic and vitalistic research can no more subsist without one another than a right half of the body without the complementary left half can form a living organism.

But how is it that this, so to speak, self-evident principle of the correlation of mechanical and vital processes yet finds no general recognition, indeed that the best philosophical minds of our age must positively exhaust themselves in the struggle for it? The answer to this question leads us over to the psychologistic problem, which forms the principal theme of these lectures.

It lies in the developmental history of modern natural science and philosophy that a sound vitalistic thinking, such as would be absolutely required for the harmonious supplementation of mechanistic research, was unable to arise. For those facts which we must designate as the most familiar vitalistic facts, such as, for example, sense-sensations [Sinnesempfindungen], were presented by the founders of modern psychological thinking, by the chief representatives of English philosophy — Locke, Berkeley, Hume, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and others — not as vital processes [Lebensvorgänge], but as psychical facts. One confused the concept of life with the concept of mental (psychical) activity; one fashioned an entirely novel, hybrid concept, such as was still wholly unknown to the ancients: that modern concept of "the psychical" [des Psychischen], which signifies neither life nor yet consciousness of life, and yet both at once. The age-old distinction between the "Tree of Life" and the "Tree of Knowledge," which the prescient human spirit had made, so to speak, already in Paradise, was lost; and in its place a new tree was planted, which is neither the tree of life nor the tree of knowledge, but the tree of conceptual confusion, and which for more than two centuries has been producing a most unwelcome profusion of flourishing errors — the sum of which the highly meritorious historian of modern philosophy, Johann Eduard Erdmann, designated as psychologistic thinking. Johann Eduard Erdmann (1805–1892), Hegelian philosopher and author of Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung der Geschichte der neuern Philosophie (1834–53), a comprehensive history of modern philosophy.

The confusion of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge finds in Locke an almost palpably tangible expression in that he presents our sense-sensations as the elements of our "ideas," or also as simple ideas, from which, by composition, complex ideas of the phenomena and things of the external world are supposed to arise. These Lockean "ideas" still waver between "thoughts" on the one hand and sense-sensations or, in general, "experiences" — that is, vital processes — on the other. In his work they still have a vacillating, ambiguous character, which is the fundamental trait of every psychologistic thinking. It is first Berkeley who energetically demands the complete equation of idea and sense-sensation, and thereby becomes the founder of the consistently ambiguous or perverse idealism. He denies the existence of abstract ideas, ridicules them, and understands by idea nothing other than something singular, concrete — namely, the individual sense-intuition, and, going further, the individual physico-chemical phenomenon itself. His famous principle esse-percipi identifies the perceived phenomenon with the perceptual activity of our mind.

Inorganic natural process, life-process, and psychical activity cease to be concepts distinct from one another; the entire sensible world of phenomena migrates, skin and all, into consciousness and becomes a mere product of consciousness, so that the existence of a material world subsisting outside of consciousness can be denied.

Berkeley devised this theory because he believed that through it he could arrive at an irrefutable proof of the existence of God. The noble Bishop of Cloyne was a witty, high-minded, God-inspired thinker — but a proof of God has long since ceased to make an impression on any mortal. His good intention is forgotten; his error, however, has founded a school as scarcely any other error in modern times. It has become the starting-point of a specifically modern sophistry that to this very day puts forth the most luxuriant and seductive blossoms. For if one formulates the identity esse-percipi, or what is equivalent: physical phenomenon = psychical activity, one possesses therein a sophistical means of now playing the role of an "empirical idealist," now that of an "empirical realist." If one reads the identity from left to right, one dissolves reality into ideas and may profess idealism; but if one reads it conversely, from right to left, then all ideas become mere sense-sensations, indeed mere physico-chemical phenomena, and one may then call oneself a realist.

Since Berkeley’s principle has, as it were, two opposed poles like a magnet, it exercised a tremendous power of attraction upon minds and influences modern thought to a quite unprecedented degree. It gave the impetus to the transcendental or formal idealism of Kant; it becomes illusionism in Schopenhauer, correlativism or positivistic idealism in Laas, empirio-criticism or the philosophy of pure experience in Avenarius and Mach, immanence-philosophy in Schuppe, solipsism or theoretical egoism in Schubert-Soldern, phenomenalism, conscientialism, epistemological idealism, panpsychism, psycho-monism, and so forth, in uncounted other thinkers. Palagyi here catalogues the principal post-Kantian positions that he traces back to Berkeley’s esse-percipi. Ernst Laas (1837–1885), Richard Avenarius (1843–1896), Ernst Mach (1838–1916), Wilhelm Schuppe (1836–1913), and Richard von Schubert-Soldern (1852–1924) were leading figures of late-nineteenth-century positivism and immanence-philosophy.

It lies, however, by no means in the character of the German spirit to confuse the vital with the mental; rather, the history of German thought shows that it resists this confusion — in so far as it becomes aware of it — with determination. The most significant German philosophers combat English psychologism. Leibniz opposes Lockean sensualism; Kant turns all the more sharply against "the good Berkeley" the more he was originally influenced by him; and the great representatives of specifically German idealism, Fichte and Hegel, are at pains to strip from themselves even the last trace of English sensualism, in order to bring the "Idea" in its absolute spirituality to its due. Unfortunately they fell into an excess and thereby uprooted their own best endeavour. German idealism has long lain in ruins, and the same holds also for French rationalism.

Originally the rationalist line was the main line of both French and German philosophy; the sensualist line held, particularly in the latter, only the second rank. It is the reverse with English philosophy, in which rationalism never succeeded in attaining a leading role. The ideal of the English spirit is that mighty vitality of which the figures of the Shakespearean drama are brimming and overflowing. The English spirit would accordingly have been called upon to procure the foundations of that vitalistic thinking which forms the necessary supplement to the mechanistic research founded by Galilei. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, the three chief luminaries of English philosophy, were, however, no natural scientists. Although they were fascinated by that which is the living element in us, they nevertheless confused it with the mental and created that hermaphrodite concept of the psychical which for two centuries has been hindering in the highest degree the sound development of vitalistic thinking, and thus of biological natural research altogether.

But how is it possible, one asks, that a hybrid concept was able to hold minds captive through so many generations? To this it must be answered that the best among the leading spirits of the human race have for nearly two centuries been waging an unceasing struggle against that ambiguous concept — admittedly with an as yet inadequate success, because hermaphrodite concepts exercise upon the mass of the educated, and indeed upon independent researchers as well, a far greater power of attraction than pure and clear conceptions. For a hybrid concept contains indeed a logical contradiction, but in such a form that it creates the appearance of arising from the highest philosophical striving — the striving after unity in knowledge — indeed, of being the realisation of the so ardently desired monism. Peculiarly enough, only concepts which are, as it were, logical bastards — that is, which contain a logical contradiction — can simulate a perfected monistic knowledge; clear conceptualisations, however, are unable to promise more than they actually contain, and always remind us of the not-knowing that lurks in the closest neighbourhood of knowing, and of the hard intellectual labour that still remains to be done in order to come one step closer to the monism that in its completion will, however, never be attained.

The monistic conviction that underlies all scientific and philosophical thought may be formulated in approximately the following intelligible manner: All powers that are efficacious in the universe form but one power; correspondingly, all lawfulnesses in whose sense those powers operate form but one law; and what is the main thing: that one universal power and this one universal law are identical with one another. (Identity of the all-encompassing Being and the all-encompassing Knowing.) The exposition of this monistic principle is, to be sure, not the task of the following investigations, in which I merely attempt to open a path leading to that proposition, by endeavouring to demonstrate the hybrid character of the psychical as it sprang from the English philosophical spirit, and to replace it with a pure concept of the living as well as a pure concept of the mental. Through the sharp abstract distinction of the living and the mental, their concrete unity is indeed not impaired; on the contrary, the concrete unity of our life-process and our mental activities can be recognised only to the extent that we succeed in achieving a rigorous abstract differentiation of the concepts of life and of consciousness. [Author’s note:] A limited being and a limited knowing can, however, never be identical; only between limitless being and limitless knowing does every difference cease.

Psychologistic thinking, on the other hand, in its traditional forms permits neither a pure concept of life nor a pure concept of mental activity to arise, and is accordingly, on the one hand, the most dangerous enemy of a scientific biology, while on the other hand it is its fault that a modern science of the mental activity of man was unable to develop. With respect to the detailed demonstration of this state of affairs, reference is made to the lectures; here I wish to illuminate their content through the following summarising reflections.

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a) As regards biology first of all, it is a science of life, and must accordingly, in order to have a right to exist, be able to point to vital facts that form the object of its investigation. But of vital facts there can only be talk because we find life in ourselves. Could we not find it in ourselves, it would be impossible to seek it anywhere else. But we find life in ourselves in that we notice that we feel [fühlen] and sense [empfinden], so that the certainty of being alive is guaranteed to us through the vital facts of feeling [Gefühl] and sensation [Empfindung]. Gefühl — feeling; not merely emotion, but the vital process through which we have knowledge of the vegetative life-substrate. Contrasts with Empfindung (sensation), which relates to the mechanical world. Empfindung — sensation; the animal-vital process through which we are placed in connexion with the inorganic (mechanical) natural process. Distinguished from feeling (Gefühl), which relates to the vegetative substrate.

Thus an epistemologically grounded biology can have no other starting-point than the facts of one’s own feeling and one’s own sensation. Just as the certainty of one’s own thinking, the Cogito (of the great Descartes), forms the starting-point of the science of mind, so the certainty of life, the Vivo, which is established for everyone through the processes of his feeling and sensing, is the irrefutable foundation of every biological thinking — though, as must at once be added, not the sole foundation thereof.

For there exist, besides those vital processes which we designate as feeling and sensation and which are characterised by the fact that they can have only a single immediate witness (namely the person by whom they are experienced), yet another class of vital processes, which cannot be directly observed by any witnesses at all — that is, which have no immediate connexion whatsoever with our consciousness: these are the processes of the own-life [Eigenleben] of the structural constituents of our body. The histological and anatomical components of our body — notably the extremely small point-like formations, such as the microchromosomes, further the most delicate thread-like formations, such as the nerve and muscle fibrils, no less than the first workshops of life itself, the cells, and the tissues and organs arising from their propagation and differentiation — all lead indeed a mysterious own-life that in its immediacy is absolutely unreachable for our consciousness, and that I designate as "vegetative life" [vegetatives Leben]. Vegetatives Leben — the non-conscious organic substrate: the own-life of cells, tissues, and organs, which is absolutely inaccessible to consciousness in its immediacy.

But the changes that take place within this in itself witnessless vegetative life-process can reach the cognisance of consciousness through vital messengers — namely through feelings, or rather emotions [Emotionen]. Such vital processes as, for example, feelings, which have an immediate contact with our consciousness-activity [Bewusstseinstätigkeit], and which can thus be immediately apprehended by one and only one witness, I call animal vital processes [animale Lebensvorgänge]; and besides feelings I distinguish two further kinds thereof: namely sensations and phantasms [Phantasmen]. Bewusstseinstätigkeit — consciousness-activity; the intermittent, punctual acts of consciousness, as distinct from the flowing vital processes they apprehend. Animale Lebensvorgänge — animal vital processes; those higher vital processes that have immediate contact with consciousness, comprising feelings, sensations, and phantasms. Contrasted with vegetative processes, which have no such contact. Phantasmen — phantasms; a class of animal vital processes, hitherto scarcely recognised, through which we enter into the sensations and feelings of other persons, relive past experience, anticipate the future, and apprehend the present reality. Three types are later distinguished: direct, inverse, and symbolic.

Sensations are animal vital processes through which we are placed in connexion with the ocean of the inorganic natural process that encompasses our life-process on all sides. Phantasms, too, are animal vital processes, whose distinctive nature has hitherto been as good as entirely unrecognised, and upon whose investigation I lay the greatest weight in the following investigations, because without their aid no (human) mental activity can take place. Through phantasms we transport ourselves into the sensations and feelings, and thus into the life-process, of other persons; through phantasms we live ourselves back into our past life, or forward into the hoped-for or feared future; through phantasms we remove ourselves from reality altogether and create for ourselves a proper imaginary world. And what is most peculiar: even reality, even the present world of phenomena, can be apprehended only by means of phantasms. I believe I have furnished in the following investigations the proof that sense-sensations are indeed indispensable but thoroughly insufficient conditions of our sense-perception [Sinneswahrnehmung], and that they must first arouse that peculiar kind of vital processes which we call "phantasms," so that the requisite vital basis for a mental perceptual activity may be procured. In short, our consciousness requires phantasms just as much to transport itself into present reality as to transport itself into a past, a future, or any imagined world whatsoever. To be sure, there arises thereby for our investigation the important and difficult task of expounding the antagonism between reality-phantasms [Wirklichkeitsphantasmen] and imagination-phantasms [Imaginationsphantasmen], and of demonstrating upon this occasion the scholastic vacuity of the so-called theories of association [Assoziationstheorien].

But what lends to our life-process the character of almost excessive mysteriousness is the vegetative substratum [Untergrund] thereof, which we all divine, and into which we sometimes fancy ourselves gazing down with a gentle horror, as into an abyss. The witnessless darkness of this vegetative substratum of life misleads many biologists into an abuse of the concepts of the "unconscious" [das Unbewußte] and the "subconscious" [das Unterbewußte]. One can create much semblance of profundity with such expressions, but produce no knowledge. A rational biology will have to resign itself once and for all to the fact that vegetative vital processes in their immediacy are unreachable for consciousness, but that we can besiege the vegetative riddle in an indirect manner from two sides. On the one hand, the changes within the vegetative process make themselves known — as stated — through the animal vital processes of feelings and affects; on the other hand, our vegetative life-process expresses itself in a system of physico-chemical processes that form precisely the object of mechanistic physiology, and that emerge most perspicuously in respiration and in the pulse.

Thus it follows already from these schematically summarising reflections that biology must rely in equal measure upon vitalistic and upon mechanistic research. On the one hand, the vegetative substratum of life must be apprehended through its animal-vital manifestations, which can have only one observer; on the other hand, one apprehends it through those manifestations that are accessible to any number of observers, and which we may for this reason designate as mechanistic (physico-chemical) processes.

At the same time, in this light it emerges with almost palpable clarity in what critical a position biology found itself, and still finds itself, in the course of its entire modern development. On the one hand, there is nothing easier in the world than simply to deny the existence of witnessless vegetative-vital processes, whereby their physico-chemical manifestations become purely mechanical processes that have nothing to do with any supposed life; and the physiologists do indeed incline, in no small part, towards this dangerous view, through which biology is uprooted and appears in the light of an applied physics and chemistry that happens to be tinkering about on so-called living beings. On the other hand, there is nothing easier in the world than to present those vital facts that are thoroughly familiar to us all — namely sensations, feelings, and phantasms — and that could form an unassailably secure starting-point of biological research, as though they were not vital processes at all, but rather mental activities: as the English psychologists, and under their influence most of the French and German colleagues as well, have done. Thus the entire content of biology falls between the two millstones of mechanistic and psychologistic thinking, now to be ground down into purely physico-chemical processes, now to evaporate into so-called phenomena of consciousness. Of vital facts one may under such circumstances no longer speak: for those vital processes that have no immediate connexion with consciousness are simply denied, while those vital facts that are immediately connected with consciousness are re-stamped as psychical facts. Thus there comes about a tragicomic biology that knows nothing of a life; its counterpart is, to be sure, that tragicomic psychology that knows no mental activity.

If the epistemological position of biology within the circle of the other sciences is to be truly clarified, one must above all seek to put an end to the psychologistic confusion of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. This is assuredly no easy task. For the animal vital processes that we designate as feeling, sensation, and phantasm agree with our mental activity completely in this: that they all can have one and only one immediate witness. This misleads us into confusing the animal-vital processes that come to our consciousness with the mental acts [geistige Akte] of perception through which they are apprehended. It lies in the nature of the case that the vital process of sensing and the mental act of perceiving must flow together into a concrete unity. For as soon as we become conscious of a sensation, the union of the vital sensation-process with consciousness-activity must already have taken place — that is, must already belong to the proximate past. We can never say: now the sensation is approaching our consciousness, now it is already quite near to it, now it is knocking at the gates of consciousness, now at this mathematical instant it has gained admittance. For a sensation-process that has not yet united with our consciousness-activity does not yet exist for us; and a sensation that already exists for us has already accomplished its union with consciousness-activity in an unnoticed manner. Truly there is no more natural and pardonable illusion in the world than the psychological illusion that confuses the vital process that comes to cognisance with the act of taking cognisance. But it is precisely the most natural and precisely the most pardonable illusions that completely decompose our logical thinking, by drawing it into a vortex of endless contradictions.

Our animal-vital processes, particularly our phantasms, are of an intuitable [anschaulich] nature; but if one confuses mental activity with them, one must also declare mental activity to be intuitable. In fact, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and others hold psychical activity to be intuitable. Locke teaches that there is an "inner sense" (internal sense) with which we perceive our own mental activity. From this "inner sense" arose "inner perception," "inner observation," and it also gave the impetus to the formation of the mystical concept of apperception [Apperception] in Leibniz, Kant, Herbart, Steinthal, Wundt, and others. We should thus be in possession of a faculty for beholding our own mental activity, and upon this inner beholding psychology as an "empirical" science would be founded.

Were it possible to behold one’s own psychical activity, we would not only see images but also inspect this very seeing, and we would not only hear tones but also be able to listen to our own hearing. As surely as one’s own seeing cannot be inspected, one’s own hearing cannot be overheard, so certain is it that the opinion that our psychical activity is inwardly intuitable, and that upon this inner intuitability an "empirical" science of the human mind could be founded, is an absurdity.

Our animal vital processes — feelings, sensations, phantasms — are indeed something immediately perceivable, intuitable (and indeed for the one who experiences them); but the mental acts that attach to them are something non-intuitable [unanschaulich]. Unanschaulich — non-intuitable; mental acts cannot be seen, heard, or touched. They are not accessible to any form of inner or outer intuition; they can only be known through thinking about thinking.

What in our experiences is intuitable belongs to biology and is subject to a scientific investigation in the vitalistic sense; but what attaches to our experiences in a non-intuitable manner — namely our own mental activity — belongs to psychology and logic, and must be investigated by psychological and logical means.

The ancient philosophers, in particular Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, knew that the mental activity of man is non-intuitable, and they did not fancy that they could come to understand their own thinking through any kind of intuition. They were conscious that whoever wishes to come to know his own thinking must think about it. Only modern psychologism believes it has found a path that makes it possible, without thinking, by way of a peculiar "inner perception," to investigate one’s own thinking "empirically" — failing to notice, to be sure, that the path it found is the vitalistic path to the perception of one’s own animal vital processes. It would therefore not be advisable to draw a comparative parallel between the self-knowledge of the ancient philosophers and that of the modern psychologists, for such a comparison could turn out to be but little flattering for the latter.

Two directions of thought there are principally through which the modern spirit distinguishes itself from the ancient: through mechanism [Mechanistik] and through psychologism [Psychologistik]. As regards mechanistic thinking, which proceeded from Copernicus, Galilei, and others, there lives in it an incomparably fruitful and rigorous sense of truth, to which we owe our superiority over the ancients and for which they could envy us. The same cannot be said of psychologism and its extreme elaboration, Berkeleyan idealism, even with the best of wills. For the confusion of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge is no mere illusion among other sister-illusions; it must be designated outright as the mother of all human aberrations, because it makes man go astray in his very humanity. For that animal species which we designate as "Homo sapiens" is characterised precisely by the fact that it would, despite immeasurable contrary temptation, ever and again distinguish the merely living from the mental in its own hermaphrodite nature. A doctrine, however, such as psychologism, which is expressly directed towards the confusion of the living and the mental, necessarily marks a decadence of the human spirit in science as well as in the fine arts and in social convictions.

Nevertheless I am far from failing to recognise the extraordinary historical significance of modern psychologism. Precisely because it raises the source of all aberrations of human thinking to a system of philosophy with a stupendous endurance and energy, its ultimately necessary failure must lead to new intellectual evolutions that could not have come about without it. For the more one loses oneself in the fervent striving to fashion a hybrid concept of the living and the mental, the richer the stimulus received by genuinely vitalistic and genuinely psychological thinking. There are indeed great errors in the face of which one consoles oneself with the hope that they must lead to great truths.

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b) If the hybrid concept of the psychical, as it stems from English philosophy, is to be definitively overcome, one must decompose it into its natural two components: the vital and the mental component. For this, however, it does not suffice to regard consciousness-activities as something non-intuitable, as indeed the great thinkers of antiquity also did, because upon the basis of a merely negative characteristic — namely non-intuitability — a science of consciousness cannot be built. A psychology as science is possible only if a positive characteristic of our consciousness-activities can also be found — to be sure not in the sense intended by Locke when he ascribed to psychical activity the positive character of intuitability, which can never belong to it. I believe I have found this positive mark of all psychical activities in their peculiarly intermittent [intermittierend] character. Intermittierend — intermittent; the core thesis of Palagyi’s psychology: consciousness does not flow continuously but proceeds in discrete, pulse-like acts separated by temporal intervals.

The intermittency [Intermittenz] of our mental activity becomes most easily noticeable in our acts of will. Intermittenz — intermittency; the positive characteristic distinguishing consciousness-activity from vital processes. Consciousness pulses rather than flows.

Our willing, namely, is no unceasingly flowing willing; for were it to have an uninterruptedly continuous flow, we would, from sheer willing, never arrive at the execution of any determinate individual volition. In other words: we cannot, in any given time-interval — let us say, for example, in a second — issue arbitrarily many, not millions and billions of movement-impulses; that is, a time must elapse — even if only a quite brief time — before we come from one movement-impulse to another. Now the fact that we do not produce arbitrarily many immediate impulses of will (movement-impulses) within a determinate duration of time — that is, that our immediate impulses of will can follow upon one another only at certain temporal intervals — I call their intermittency. Corresponding to this intermittency, our genuinely voluntary movements have a strikingly periodically articulated character. Consider the gait of a human being: it does not have that character which the purely mechanical movements of a ball rolling, a stone falling, or the flowing and streaming of liquids and gases display. For since human movement is to be regulated by intermittent impulses of will, it must have a periodically articulated character.

Consider, further, not only the physical but also the mental gait of a human being, as it expresses itself in his speaking, and one will have to admit that all the trains of thought of the human mind have the same character as its impulses of will. Were the thinking activity of man not an intermittent but a continuously flowing one, the sense of one word would not be able to stand out from the sense of another, the content of one sentence from the content of another sentence — that is, our speech could also not be an articulated speech.

Finally, the acts of our sense-perception, too, are by no means of a flowing nature, although they most readily create the illusion of continuity. For we cannot perform arbitrarily many — not even a thousand, not even a hundred, not even ten — perception-acts in a single second. It takes a certain small time, a fraction of a second, before we arrive from one perception-act to another. Of this one convinces oneself very easily by the most manifold experimental means — for example, through the well-known experiments with the colour-wheel [Farbenkreisel]. If the disc turns slowly, the individual coloured sectors can still be distinguished; but if the speed of rotation exceeds a certain magnitude, the colours of the sectors fuse into a mixed colour, because before the perception-act by which we could apprehend the one sector-colour has been completed, the remaining sector-colours have already flown past our gaze. Animal vital processes, such as colour-sensations, have a flowing character and can under certain circumstances flow together; but mental acts, because they are intermittent, cannot be brought to flow together. For whoever finds even the perception-acts of his mind already flowing together is approaching unconsciousness; and of whoever confuses, or more accurately conflates, the higher mental acts with one another, we say that he is in a logical error or else is guided by a consciously sophistical intention.

Our animal vital processes — such as sensation-processes, for example — have a flowing (continuous) character, but our perception-acts do not flow along, as the so-called "psycho-physical parallelism" [psychophysischer Parallelismus] would have it. There are no psychical processes running parallel to the physical processes. The theory of "psycho-physical parallelism" is but a modern expression for the psychologistic conceptual confusion, originating from England, that is unable to make any distinction between vital process and mental activity, inasmuch as it holds both to be flowing. The animal vital processes have an intuitable flow; mental acts, by contrast, are non-intuitable, because they have no flow at all, but are distinguished by a wholly instantaneous character and precisely for this reason are intermittent. Mental acts take up no duration of time; they are merely the temporal end-points of some vital process or also the temporal starting-points thereof. Animal vital processes pour themselves, as it were, into the mental act — as for example in perception — or they stream forth, as it were, from the mental act — as for example in the impulse of will. In short, mental acts delimit the vital processes and give them articulation and form. Were the mental acts also flowing, our world would be an absolutely formless stream — that is, something unthinkable. Two temporally successive mental acts, connected with one another by a vital process, I call a mental pulse-beat [geistiger Pulsschlag]. If this metaphorical expression is allowed, then psychology can be conceived as the science of the mental or consciousness-pulses [Bewusstseinspulse], and then its mediating position between biology and logic also emerges in an intuitable fashion. Geistiger Pulsschlag — mental pulse-beat; the unit of consciousness: two successive mental acts connected by a vital process. Psychology is thus the science of these consciousness-pulses.

Were our capacity for perception not an intermittent but a flowing one — could we thus perform infinitely many perception-acts in a second — the natural processes would betray their last secret to our beholding gaze; for we could penetrate into the smallest temporal divisions of every happening, we could learn what takes place in the millionth and billionth parts of a second, indeed ultimately even the infinitely small could not remain hidden from us. Moreover, for a mind that could perform arbitrarily many acts in an arbitrarily short time, a time would no longer exist at all; in a timeless instant it would have performed infinitely many mental acts; a world of phenomena in the sense that it exists for us could not exist for it — it would be an all-encompassing, world-exhausting mind. Our human limitation rests precisely upon the fact that we are not capable of producing in a second as many perception-acts, as many impulses of will, and as many mental acts in general as we please — that is, that our psychical activities have an intermittent character. We must, equipped with a merely intermittent mental agility, seek to do justice to a continuously flowing world; or, more precisely formulated: it follows from the intermittent character of our mind that the world in which we are confined must be a continuously flowing world of phenomena — a state of affairs that can also be expressed conversely: it lies in the nature of a continuously flowing world of phenomena that it must necessarily be supplemented and apprehended by an intermittent mental activity. Flowing phenomena and intermittent consciousness of them condition one another mutually.

Now it scarcely needs any further special emphasis that a flowing or continuous process can never be fully investigated and fathomed by a mind active in an intermittent manner. Of the unfathomability of the continuous, the mathematicians in particular know how to sing a song; for even the sharpest and most ingenious means of higher analysis come to grief upon the continuous, because ultimately even the sharpest and most ingenious mathematical thinking has an intermittent character and consequently can never in all futurity be finished with the concept of continuity.

Our investigation thus leads us directly to the limits of human knowledge, by showing wherein it actually lies that our knowledge must be, now as in all futurity, a limited one. In my view the "critique of knowledge" [Erkenntniskritik], desired by Locke and Hume and experimentally carried out by Kant, as the science of the limits of human knowing, is in truth still a pium desiderium. Kant’s grand attempt to found a critique of knowledge was bound to fail because he allowed himself, despite his energetic resistance, to be taken captive by English psychologism. For by presenting the "things in themselves" as the unknowable, Kant created the appearance that the phenomena, or rather our sensations, were something thoroughly knowable. But this is precisely the essence of the psychologistic aberration: that, taking offence at the non-intuitability of things in themselves, or rather of substances, matters, and forces, it regarded the phenomena, or rather the sensations, as something completely known, thoroughly manifest. To be sure, nothing is more familiar to us than our own sensing, but this familiarity changes nothing about the most peculiar state of affairs, namely that every sensation temporally flows together from boundlessly many sections, and that we are unable to apprehend these boundlessly small sections in their separateness. Thus every flowing process consists of boundlessly many, entirely unknown elements or differentials, which are known to us only through their sum, only through their integral. Through the semblance of the senses, there is thus, as it were, the miracle accomplished that an unfathomable mystery spreads itself out before us as though it had been completely unveiled. Only whoever pursues no genuine critique of knowledge allows himself to be deceived by this semblance. There is in the whole world for us humans nothing more mysterious than the uninterruptedly flowing, eternally fleeting, never wholly capturable phenomenon that slips away from the cunningest experiments. Herein the genuinely modern spirit distinguishes itself from the ancient: in that it lets the substance be substance, but instead immerses itself in the riddle of the infinitely fleeting with a passion unknown to the ancients. We pursue the fleeting phenomenon with an incomparably exciting wild chase (of observation, experiment, and calculus) in order to catch its lawfulness by stealth and bring it to formulae, and are all the while perfectly aware of never being able to capture the last secrets of the eternal fleetingness. I now show wherein this lies. An intermittently active mind will always only be able to fumble after and limp behind the uninterruptedly flowing-fleeting phenomenon, however nimbly it may apply itself in doing so. But if someone complains to us that the "things in themselves" must after all remain hidden from us for all time, we shall endeavour to console him in the following manner: A so-called "thing in itself" has the good and unassailable right to be a mystery, for it is from the outset something non-intuitable and is, by virtue of our definition, to remain forever non-intuitable. It is quite otherwise, however, with the phenomena; for these are from the outset intuitable and present themselves as though they could be entirely seen through — whereas reflection shows that they conceal an unfathomable mystery in their ceaselessly restless flow. Before one would take any offence at the unknowability of the "things in themselves," then, let one first seriously halt before the unfathomability of the "phenomena in themselves." The unknowable thus begins by no means where psychologism and also Kantianism place it (namely in the substances, or rather the things in themselves): for the "unknowable") dwells already everywhere in the phenomenon itself — namely in the continuous flow thereof. [Author’s note:] More correctly: the non-intuitable.

Although the fundamental tone of the following investigations is an epistemological-critical one, so that in them a system of the critique of knowledge is, so to speak, contained in a latent manner, it was nevertheless not my intention to bring this system also to the fore. I confine myself merely to demonstrating the inner contradictions of psychologism and to replacing its hybrid conceptualisations with pure conceptions. Hereby, on the one hand, an exact vitalism is to be founded; on the other hand, the way to a rigorous science of mind is to be opened. In what sense I mean this, may I be permitted to make some further remarks here at the close of this Introduction.

We call a science exact that is not content with the mere perception and observation of facts, but advances to a measuring and calculating investigation of their lawfulness. Measurable — directly measurable — are, however, only material things, or rather the mechanical (physico-chemical) processes of the material world. For it lies in the very concept of a measurement-operation [Messungsoperation] that it shall be capable of being repeated and controlled by any number of observers. Now there exist, however, besides the mechanical (physico-chemical) processes, no processes whatsoever that would be accessible to any number of observers; hence only mechanical processes can be subject to direct measurement [Messung]. Messung — measurement; only mechanical processes, being accessible to multiple observers, are directly measurable. Vital processes are accessible only to the single witness who experiences them.

Vital processes, on the other hand — particularly feelings, sensations, and phantasms — can only ever have one witness, are thus always inaccessible to a direct measurement and are in general subject only to a so-called estimation of magnitude [Grössenschätzung] by the single witness who perceives them. Grössenschätzung — estimation of magnitude; the subjective counterpart to objective measurement. What is mechanical is measurable; what is vital is merely estimable.

The significant difference between mechanical and vital processes thus comes to light in the difference between measurement of magnitude and estimation of magnitude, for the mechanical, because it can have any number of witnesses, is something measurable, whereas the vital, because it can in the best case have only one witness, is merely something estimable. Now, since the difference between the mechanical and the vital has been suppressed everywhere by psychologism, it never came to a philosophical investigation of the difference between measurement and estimation of magnitude. For hidden in the difference between measurement and estimation is the entire riddle of the non-living and the living.

Now, just as the living and the non-living stand in a relation of correlation or mutual conditionedness to one another, so too are measurements and estimations interwoven in the same correlation with one another. Into every measurement-operation there intrude, namely, in a most unwelcome manner, moments in which it is no longer a matter of an actual measuring but of an exact perceiving, a mere fixing, and the like — where, therefore, the vital process of the person carrying out the measurement begins to influence the entire measurement-operation in an undesired manner. On the other hand, every mere estimation of magnitude always takes place under certain external conditions that can be altered and subjected to a measurement, so that the changes in the estimation-results can be set against the changes in the external conditions found by measurement.

From this highly complicated state of affairs it follows, on the one hand, that a vital moment mingles itself into all of our measurements, becoming the source of so-called errors of measurement; but on the other hand, also, that these errors can be subjected to a comparative and verifying measurement. Thus the animal-vital process, precisely because it necessarily obtrudes itself upon our measurements, can be made the object of an indirect measurement through comparative and verifying methods. The most significant impetus to such indirect or vitalistic measurements proceeded principally from two great researchers of modern times: the astronomer Bessel and the physiologist Donders. Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1846), astronomer, discoverer of the "personal equation" — systematic individual differences in observational timing. Franciscus Cornelis Donders (1818–1889), physiologist, pioneer of reaction-time measurement.

While the mechanical processes are directly, and the animal-vital processes only indirectly, measurable, psychical activities can never be subject to a measuring investigation (neither in a direct nor in an indirect manner). The psychologistic conceptual confusion has, to be sure, gone so far as to want to measure even the psychical, but in this presumption there comes to characteristic expression precisely the incapacity of psychologism to make a distinction between mechanical and vital processes on the one hand and mental activities on the other. Psychical acts are non-intuitable and have, as we added, an intermittent character; they are thus something merely countable [Zählbares], but can never be measured. To the extent that we come to know the vital processes by which the mental acts are connected with one another, and learn to measure them in a vitalistic manner, it will also become possible to proceed to a counting of the mental acts that were performed during a determinate psychical achievement. The development of vitalistic measurement-methods, or rather the experimental investigation of the pulses of our consciousness, can with time lead to psychical countings and thereby also make possible an application of mathematics to the science of mental activities.

From this, however, we are still very far removed. There must first be created a proper branch of the critique of knowledge that investigates measurement of magnitude and estimation of magnitude in their relation to one another and undertakes to clarify the fundamental concepts of direct or mechanistic and indirect or vitalistic measuring. I reserve the treatment of this difficult task for a separate work, in which I also intend to publish my vitalistic measurements.

For the present I had to content myself with conceptually separating measuring perception from merely estimating perception, through which I was led to a new theory of sense-perception. In measuring perception, certain movements of the body are necessarily performed; in merely estimating perception, one part of these movements — such as the adjustment of the sense-organs — is indeed retained, but another part is replaced by movements "performed merely in the imagination" [in der Einbildung vollzogene Bewegungen]. In all of our perceptions, indeed in all mental activities whatsoever, real or also merely imagined movements play a decisive role. I believe I have furnished in the following lectures (8th–14th lecture) the proof that without real or imagined movements, perception-acts and mental activities in general could never be carried out. Psychologism believes it can build a world of perceptions out of sensation-elements; against this error it had to be shown that movement can never be reduced to sensation, and that without real or imagined movement nowhere and never could a sense-perception come about. Eingebildete Bewegung — imagined movement; a vital process (not a thought about movement) that replaces actual bodily movement in estimating perception; decisive for all perception and mental activity.

If a sensation is to come to consciousness, it must awaken an imagination-process [Einbildungsvorgang] through which the nerve-waves proceeding from the periphery are thrown back to their point of origin, so that the nerve-process underlying every perceptual activity must be conceived as a self-enclosed process — that is, as a circular process [Kreisprozess]. Kreisprozess — circular process; the closed feedback loop in which nerve-excitation travels from periphery to centre and back again, forming the physiological basis of perception.

To be sure, this new theory of perception requires a scientific proof, which, however, has been in the main actually furnished by the great histologist Stephan von Apathy. Stephan von Apathy (1863–1922), Hungarian histologist whose gold-staining methods revealed continuous neurofibrillary networks in the nervous system, challenging the prevailing neuron doctrine.

The investigations of this reformer of nerve-histology, distinguished by a rare degree of exactitude, have indeed furnished the indubitable proof that there are nowhere in the nervous system so-called "nerve-endings," but rather that those nervous structural elements that serve the conduction of excitation — and thus represent, as it were, the actual conducting wires of the nervous system — and which are designated by Apathy as "neurofibrils" [Neurofibrillen], form a self-enclosed system of conducting pathways, so that, proceeding from any arbitrary point of a neurofibril and advancing with continuous organic continuity, one can arrive again at the point of departure. Like the system of the blood-circulation, the nervous system too is a self-enclosed whole: a fact through which the entire life of the nerves appears to us in a completely new light. The doctrine of nerve-functions — that is, nerve-physiology — will have to be reworked in the sense of the great Apathian discovery, and this circumstance makes it comprehensible that its recognition still encounters a vehement resistance in some physiological circles. Its eventual victory is, however, beyond doubt, because the closure-doctrine [Geschlossenheitslehre] of the neurofibrils was established with microtechnical methods that are universally acknowledged as the sharpest methods of modern microtechnique. ("Apathian gold-method.") A closer report on the closure-doctrine of the nervous system I furnish in the 15th lecture. Moreover, the reader may also find that all of my investigations into the relation of consciousness to the life-process press with logical necessity towards the closure-doctrine of the nervous system and represent, as it were, a philosophical proof of the Apathian principle.

First Lecture: The Principle of Intermittency#

Whether consciousness has discontinuity-points and whether there are consciousness-empty intervals in the course of life? The strict continuity-hypothesis of consciousness already includes within itself the assumption of immortality. The question of the continuity or the discontinuity of consciousness is the fundamental question of the theory of consciousness. Descartes as representative of the continuity-doctrine. He delivers, however, nowhere a proof of his continuity-hypothesis. Gassendi and Locke combat the continuity-doctrine without, however, breaking through to a principle of discontinuity. Locke holds the continuity of consciousness-activity to be the essence of waking. This is, however, an unfounded dogma. The articulated structure of human speech is a proof for the intermittency of consciousness-activity. One confuses the unity of our consciousness-activity with its alleged continuous flow. The "form" or articulation of human consciousness-activity. Also the perceptual activity of consciousness is an intermittent one. We cannot continuously follow a continuously flowing process with our perception-acts and consequently cannot penetrate into arbitrarily small fractions of a second. Pulse of the perception-acts. Heightening of the pulse-frequency through attention. This heightening very soon reaches its upper limit. The principle of intermittency is at the same time also the progress- or evolution-principle of human consciousness. To every system of consciousness-pulses belongs a world corresponding to this system. Historical predecessors of the intermittency-idea. Related thoughts in Karl Ernst von Baer. Each lecture opens with a synopsis composed by Palágyi himself, outlining the argument that follows.

Gentlemen! M. H.! — abbreviation of Meine Herren! ("My Gentlemen!"), the standard academic address in early twentieth-century German universities. Of all riddles that human consciousness is able to pose to itself, consciousness itself is no doubt to be regarded as the greatest riddle. How little we know it comes immediately to light when we attempt to give ourselves an account of even the most ordinary transformations of the same. It belongs, for example, to the nature of human consciousness that it cannot be maintained in waking activity beyond a certain duration of time. What is the reason for this? And what shall we think of that alteration which consciousness suffers through sleep? May we perhaps make the assumption that the activity of our consciousness suffers a complete rupture through sleep? Does consciousness-activity have somewhere, in the transition from the waking to the sleeping state, a discontinuity-point?

By a discontinuity-point would be meant precisely the complete tearing-off of the thread of consciousness.

The assumption that consciousness could suffer complete interruptions in sleep, that there would thus have to be periodic consciousness-empty intervals in the course of life, is already at first glance treacherous in the highest degree. For if the activity of consciousness were to suffer a complete rupture (that is, an end), it is not to be seen how it could begin anew and nonetheless be the continuation of an activity that had already come to a complete standstill. We harbour furthermore reservations about conceiving of sleep as a complete cessation of consciousness-activity, because indeed within sleep that kind of consciousness-activity which we designate as dreaming remains possible. Nothing, however, is so suited to plunge us into the highest confusion concerning the nature of our consciousness as the enigmatic fact of dreaming. For one can easily form the idea that even the deepest sleep is not dreamless, indeed that it consists of an unceasing series of extremely brief and extremely incoherent dreams which so completely displace one another that not the slightest trace of them remains lodged in our memory.

Then the activity of our consciousness would be a continuous one. And we should no doubt have to extend the continuity-hypothesis also to those "unconscious" states into which the organism falls, for example, in fainting or in narcosis. But what one is to make of such a consciousness-activity, which gives not the slightest report even of the gravest surgical interventions upon the organism — that no mortal can say. It is in the highest degree precarious to present consciousness-activity as a continuous one, because one is finally driven to the view that it persists uninterruptedly even in apparent death or indeed in death itself, and that it had existed already before birth, in the embryonic state, no less than during and before fertilisation. In short, the continuity-hypothesis of consciousness-activity is not easily to be brought into harmony with the fact that human consciousness can undergo many a difficult crisis. It also seems in its ultimate consequence to press towards the assumption that individual consciousness-activity has existed from eternity and must endure into eternity. For if one assumes that individual consciousness-activity took an absolute beginning at some time alpha and will take an absolute end at some time omega, then alpha and omega are discontinuity-points of individual consciousness, and whoever holds these two discontinuity-points to be possible can well also concede that the consciousness-activity of an individual might exhibit arbitrarily many discontinuity-points. The strict continuity-theory, however, entirely excludes the existence of any discontinuity-point whatsoever, that is, it includes from the outset within itself the immortality-doctrine of individual consciousness. Whoever therefore wishes to maintain the standpoint of a strict continuity-doctrine of human consciousness is unconditionally obliged to furnish a strict proof for the eternity of individual consciousness-activity, because this eternity is already comprised within the continuity-hypothesis proper.

On the other hand, however, one cannot easily content oneself with a discontinuity-hypothesis of consciousness either. If one assumes that the activity of consciousness can completely cease in sleep, it is not to be seen what difference regarding consciousness-activity could exist between normal healthy sleep and fainting or narcosis? It is furthermore to be noted that the assumption of consciousness-empty temporal intervals of consciousness-activity may by no means yet be designated as a pure discontinuity-hypothesis. In certain periods of time consciousness would be uninterruptedly active, in other periods of time it would be completely inactive, as the following figure shows:

a --- b --- c --- d --- e --- f --- g --- h where the segments (ab), (cd), (ef), (gh) would signify the continuous activity of consciousness during waking, while the segments (bc), (de), (fg) would signify consciousness-empty intervals during sleep. In the sense of such a conception, consciousness would thus be at times continuous and at times discontinuous, which certainly cannot be designated as a unified mode of thought.

The question whether human consciousness-activity is a flowing or a leaping one, and how in the latter case we should have to represent this leaping character to ourselves, has in philosophy never been raised with determination and discussed thoroughly — that is, taking into consideration all possible cases. And yet it is the most significant question that we can formulate with regard to the nature of human consciousness, for it extends to the entire history of human consciousness, to every segment and every interval of this for us human beings so interesting history, and encompasses all possible, severe as well as mild crises by which human consciousness can be affected; indeed it spans altogether all possible normal transformations that our consciousness undergoes in the course of life. The question whether our consciousness has a flowing or leaping character contains in such manner all in any way significant problems of human destiny within itself: it is the scientific, so to speak mathematical formulation of the fundamental problem of a theory of consciousness [Bewusstseinslehre]. Bewusstseinslehre — theory (or doctrine) of consciousness; Palagyi’s term for the systematic investigation of the structure and limits of consciousness, distinguished from both empirical psychology and Kantian epistemology. Precisely for this reason I place it at the head of the investigations with which we wish to occupy ourselves here.

That such a question could not remain entirely unnoticed need scarcely be said. It forced itself upon thinkers involuntarily and plays in the philosophemes of Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz, if not a leading, yet a most noteworthy role. In particular, Descartes is to be regarded as the originator of the continuity-hypothesis of human consciousness. To be sure, he nowhere expressly asserts that the activity of our consciousness is a continuous or flowing one, but his famous proposition — the soul always thinks — admits of no other interpretation than that we must conceive of the activity of our consciousness as an uninterrupted, that is, steadily flowing one. In the sense of Descartes, it belongs to the nature of a mind to be engaged in unceasing thought-activity, just as it belongs to the nature of corporeal substances to possess extension unceasingly. Quite as a body cannot exist without extension, a mind is unable to subsist without thinking. The soul of the human being always thinks; for its being, its essence, is precisely this perpetual thinking.

This proposition Descartes has of course nowhere proved. It steals in, as something self-evident, into his Meditations. As is well known, Descartes proceeds in his philosophy from the principle of the certainty of thought. Nothing can be more certain than the existence of our thought-activity, for if we doubt this existence, the fact that we doubt is precisely a proof that a thought-activity really and indubitably exists. This real and indubitable existence of thought-activity becomes in Descartes, in the twinkling of an eye, a continuously subsisting existence. A proof, however, that our thought-activity not only exists but also exists uninterruptedly, is nowhere to be found in Descartes. The peculiar idea of a restless, never-tiring, incessantly active thinking is in the highest degree characteristic of the individuality of this admirable, grand-minded thinker. One should set upon his monument the inscription: Semper cogitare.

Against this fundamental principle Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), French philosopher and priest whose objections to Descartes’ Meditations constitute the Fifth Set of Objections (1641). remarks that lethargic states must indeed count as unconscious ones, and that in the mother’s womb one could not yet have had consciousness either. But this rejoinder is rather feeble, because Gassendi lacks the courage and strength to seriously contemplate the thought of an interruption of consciousness-activity (through sleep, stupefaction, etc.). But what use is it to contend against the continuity-principle if one shrinks from openly pronouncing and somehow grounding the discontinuity-idea? Something similar holds for the later and historically most significant position taken by Locke against the Cartesian high-tide of spirits. Locke’s polemic is directed not merely against the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas; rather he combats also — what is little noticed — the Cartesian continuity-theory as such. "I for my part," says the upright founder of modern "empiricism," "confess that I have one of those dull souls that does not always busy itself in the contemplation of ideas, and holds the incessant thinking no more necessary for the soul than incessant motion for the body. Thinking is not the essence of the soul, but one of its operations, and however much it may be regarded as the proper activity of the soul, the soul need not be assumed to be always thinking and in activity. This may be the privilege of the infinite Author and Preserver of all things, who never slumbers and sleeps; but it is not fitting for a finite being, at least not for the human soul."

Locke notes quite rightly that the Cartesian continuity-principle contains no sober characterisation of human consciousness, but is rather to be conceived as a hymn to the eternal nature of thought-activity as such. But Locke too takes no principled position against the continuity-doctrine, for he does not venture to profess any discontinuity-doctrine of consciousness whatsoever; indeed he concedes that the essence of waking consciousness consists in an unceasing thought-activity: "I grant that in a waking man the soul is never without thinking, because this is the condition of waking."

Locke here uncovers in a few words a fundamental defect [Grundgebrechen] of modern theory of consciousness (psychology and epistemology). He pronounces it as a self-evident truth that the essence of waking consciousness consists in a continuous thought-activity, and consequently holds it unnecessary to prove the proposition in any way. It does not occur to him to consider that we human beings sometimes have coherent dreams, for which a continuous consciousness-activity can be claimed just as much as for waking experiences. If, for example, someone dreams that he steps into a boat, pushes off from the shore, leaves the vessel to the play of the waves, but the same capsizes as a result of a violent surge and he himself plunges into the water, etc.:

it is not to be seen why to these dream-experiences there could not correspond a continuous consciousness-activity just as well as to any waking experiences whatever. It is not the continuity of consciousness-activity through which a waking experience distinguishes itself from a coherent dream-experience. One readily concedes that between a waking experience and a dream-experience, however coherent (respectively, between the corresponding consciousness-activities), some most significant difference must exist; but we do not have the slightest grounds for supposing that the activity of consciousness in dreaming could not at least for a while have just as well a continuously flowing character as in the waking state.

It is, however, altogether an entirely unfounded dogma that waking consciousness-activity has a continuously flowing character and that its distinguishing mark consists in precisely this continuous flow. Such a dogma could only arise because we do not yet possess a truly critical investigation of human consciousness at all. It is thoroughly questionable and cannot be decided affirmatively from the outset whether waking consciousness-activity is a continuously flowing one. Undoubtedly we all live in the illusion that the waking consciousness of the human being is engaged in a continuously flowing activity; indeed it is not to be denied that a stronger illusion than this cannot exist at all: but permit me already here in the introduction to point to two series of facts which are suited to shake the naive belief in the continuous flow of waking consciousness-activity.

1. Human speech, as the foremost sensibly apprehensible expression of our thinking, testifies a thousandfold through its wonderfully finely articulated structure that our consciousness-activity is by no means a flowing one, but on the contrary one that is articulated in the eminent sense of the word. Human speech moves forward in articulated unities which we call sentences, and however intimately the sense of one sentence may cohere with the sense of another, each individual sentence nevertheless asserts also its own, independent sense. A series of many thousands of sentences can cohere so intimately that it becomes the bearer of a single fundamental thought; for this, however, it is by no means required that each of the many thousands of sentences give up its own independent sense and that all sentences together flow into an unarticulated thought-porridge: on the contrary, each individual sentence must inalienably assert its own distinct sense, so that it may have its own share in the production of that unitary fundamental thought which is borne by many thousands of sentences.

In short, the unity of our thought-activity is not maintained through the memberless continuous flow of the same, because through such a memberless continuity no thought whatsoever could come about. Just as little as the gait of a human being is comparable to the flowing of a stream, so too the course of his thoughts is not at all similar to a continuous flow, but is composed of well-articulated thought-steps or thought-acts. Only the invisibility of thought-activity led to the formation of such metaphorical expressions as "thought-flow" or "stream of thought." But every intelligible discourse shows clearly that an intelligible sense must articulate itself into independent sentences which precisely through their distinctness yield a unitary sense. And if we write these sentences down, then our punctuation marks (full-stop, question-mark, semicolon, comma, etc.) are precisely the sensible proofs that our thought-activity is distinguished by a temporal articulation or temporal architectonic which we shall have to investigate thoroughly.

If we consider furthermore the structure of a single sentence, we find that within it the meaning of each word stands out sharply from the meaning of every other, and that this is nonetheless no hindrance to the meanings of several words uniting into a completely unitary sentential sense. The sense of a sentence never comes about through the words which are the bearers of this sense giving up their own meaning and flowing together into an unarticulated sentential porridge; rather, words are suited, only by virtue of their fixed, inalienable meaning, to become bearers of some determinate sentential sense. If the word, because it is used within a sentence, were to lose its proper meaning, it could no longer be employed in another sentence, and it would be the end of the possibility of a sensible human discourse.

One ordinarily confuses the unity of our consciousness-activity with its alleged continuous flow, and one believes that a unity of our consciousness can only be maintained through the steady flow of its activity. This nowhere clearly pronounced, but for precisely this reason all the more dangerous, universally prevailing prejudice we shall have to oppose in the most determined manner, in order to prove at length that through a steadily flowing activity thoughts can never be produced and that the unity of consciousness consists only through a well-articulated activity of the same. In subjecting this articulation to a thorough examination, a morphology or theory of forms of human consciousness will result for us, wherein, however, we take the expression "form" by no means in the scholastic sense in which the epistemologists have used it especially since Kant. We speak here of the real form of human consciousness-activity, that is, of the really existing temporal articulation of the same, which can only be investigated by above all raising the question of the flowing or non-flowing character of consciousness-activity: a question that for Kant and his followers did not yet exist at all.

But perhaps one will raise against our endeavour, right at the start, the objection that one may very well speak of an articulation of the sensibly apprehensible linguistic expression, but not at the same time of an articulation of thought-activity itself. That would now indeed be a most peculiar view of the relation of language to thinking; but I scarcely believe that a philosopher could be found who would have the courage seriously to maintain the standpoint that our thought-activity is in itself a memberlessly flowing, so to speak formless one, and that only its linguistic expression possesses an articulation and architectonic. For on this view one could never speak of individual judgements and individual concepts as members of our thinking, and there would exist an absolute incongruity between thought-activity on the one hand and the structure of human speech on the other.

But whoever nonetheless harbours doubts as to whether human thought-activity could in itself be an articulated one, to him we recommend the consideration of a second series of facts, which is suited to grant a far deeper insight into the nature of human consciousness-activity than the cursory observation of the structure of human speech was able to offer.

2. That consciousness-activity which we develop during seeing, hearing, etc., in short during sensory perception, respectively during the sensory observation of arbitrary processes and phenomena, is never a continuously flowing activity. The process itself which we observe may very well be a continuously flowing one, but it is not given to us to take cognisance separately of the infinitely many phases of any steadily flowing process. We strain our attention altogether in vain in order to distinguish as many phases as possible in the leap of an animal, for example a horse, and the instantaneous photographs of such a movement instruct us in a humbling manner as to how little we perceive of what happens before our eyes. We are simply not able to penetrate with our perceiving gaze into small fractions of a second: quite as we are also incapable of grasping with unaided eyes what lies spread before us in small surface-portions of 1/100, 1/1000, etc. of a square millimetre. Were the observing activity of our consciousness a steadily flowing one, nothing of what takes place in the hundredth or thousandth parts of a second or of a millimetre could in any way remain hidden from us.

The acts of our observing attention have, as it were, a pulse [Puls]. Puls — pulse; the rhythmic, intermittent beat of consciousness-acts. Palagyi’s central metaphor: just as the arterial pulse marks discrete beats of the heart, the consciousness-pulse marks discrete acts of awareness separated by gaps. Our attention leaps away from the phenomena only to return swiftly to them again, and because this letting-go and re-seizing of the observed process takes place with great rapidity in fractions of a second, there arises for us afterwards the illusion as though our attention had been at work in a steadily flowing manner. If one considers, however, that for a steadily flowing attention not even the smallest temporal intervals of an occurrence could remain hidden, one sees at once that such an attention was not granted to us human beings. We are able to strain our attention, that is, we can accelerate the succession of our consciousness-acts [Bewusstseinsakte] Bewusstseinsakt — consciousness-act; a single, discrete act of consciousness, non-intuitable and instantaneous, contrasted with the continuous flow of vital processes. or, figuratively speaking: we can heighten the pulse-frequency of our consciousness-activity, and then it becomes possible that we perceive more phases of a process, more details of a visual field, than otherwise; but beyond a certain measure it would be in vain to wish to strain our attention, that is, there exists for us human beings an upper limit of the pulse-frequency of our attention which we cannot exceed with the best will and the most sustained practice. In particular, the pulse-frequency of our attention cannot become an infinite one, which would be unconditionally required for attention, filling all the smallest time-particles, to become a steadily flowing one. Nor can the pulse-frequency of our attention sink below a lower limit if we are to remain in the waking state. It will, however, be our task to study thoroughly the nature of our consciousness-pulse, for what we are properly concerned with is the grounding of a pulse-theory of human consciousness.

It is an error to believe that the consciousness-activity of the human being is comparable to a flowing stream. It is not the acts of our consciousness but the processes of nature that have a steady, uninterrupted flow. Heraclitus expresses with his "Panta rhei" merely one half of a fundamental truth; one ought to supplement the famous dictum in the following manner: Everything flows, only consciousness of this flow is itself nothing flowing. The events storm, rage, and race on without pause, but the acts of human consciousness do not storm, rage, and race without pause along with them. To be sure, our consciousness-activity is caught up in the all-encompassing temporal course of the universal process of nature, but the temporal course of our consciousness-acts is not to be conceived as a flowing-along with the phenomena, but merely as a pulsating-along [Mitpulsieren] with them. I ask not to be misunderstood: for in "opposing" the intermittent activity of consciousness to the stream of phenomena, I am far from wishing to found a "dualistic doctrine" of the process of nature on the one hand and human thinking on the other; rather, my entire endeavour is directed towards the elaboration of a unity-doctrine of the two. In the midst of the eternally streaming ocean of phenomena a human consciousness pulsates; but that eternal stream is only a stream because it presents itself as a stream to a pulsating consciousness; and this consciousness-pulse is only a pulse because it is borne by that stream to which it relates itself by means of its acts in thinking.

Our consciousness-activity distinguishes itself from the flow of phenomena through its intermittent character. Were our thought-acts not to have an intermittent character but to flow along with the phenomena, consciousness itself would not be distinguishable from the phenomena — that is, there would then be no consciousness at all. To be sure, neither could there then be any talk of a stream of phenomena, because where consciousness is lacking, there can be no talk of anything at all. Both our consciousness and the flow of events are made possible only through the fact that consciousness, through its intermittent activity, distinguishes itself from the continuous stream of these events.

We owe it to the intermittent nature of our consciousness-activity that we are conscious beings and can speak of a world that appears to us. But upon precisely this intermittent nature of our consciousness-acts it also rests that our consciousness is a limited one, or as we are accustomed to express it, that certain limits are set to our capacity for cognition. There is much talk in modern philosophy of the limits of human cognition, and we owe it chiefly to the efforts of Locke, (Hume,) and Kant that modern epistemology regards it as a chief task to investigate the so-called limits or bounds of the human capacity for cognition: but it seems to me that this "criticist" direction of modern philosophy, despite the great acumen that was expended upon its development, was bound to remain unfruitful, because it could not rouse itself to the openly posed, clear question — upon what, then, does the limitedness of human nature actually rest? I believe that in the investigations which follow I shall be able to furnish the proof that the limitedness of human consciousness rests precisely upon the intermittency of its activity, and that the examination of the so-called limits of human cognition receives a clear scientific sense only when one conceives of it as an examination of the peculiar nature of our mental acts. Geistige Akte — mental acts; the non-intuitable, instantaneous acts of consciousness (thinking, judging, perceiving) that cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Distinguished from vital processes, which are continuous and flowing. An intermittent consciousness-activity is namely never capable of doing full justice to the continuous flow of phenomena, and all flowing occurrence in nature retains for the human understanding a most disquieting irrational character, because it is simply impossible by means of pulsating and articulating mental acts to fully master the continuous course of events. It lies, however, at the same time in the intermittent nature of our consciousness-activity that we are able to investigate the course ever more and more precisely, and to approach the ideal of an absolute cognition ever more and more closely, without ever being able to realise this ideal. The principle of the intermittency of human consciousness thus contains within itself not only the principle of its limitedness, but wishes to be at the same time the expression of the peculiar boundless capacity for progress by which human inquiry is characterised.

Were it possible to accelerate our consciousness-pulse beyond the limit of the human, the world-picture that unrolls before us would undergo an essential transformation. To every system of consciousness-pulses belongs a world corresponding to this system. Upon this belonging-together of mental pulse and appearing world rests what we interpret now as objectivity, now as subjectivity of our world-views. We say: an objective world appears to us in which we live, and the sense of this statement is in the first instance that those mental pulses which are our own are in fact and necessarily co-ordinated with that world which precisely appears to us. But we say also that our world-picture is a merely subjective one, and the sense of this assertion is that if our mental pulses were to change, the world that appears to us would also have to become a different world in kind. With the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity (as also of ideality and reality) much abuse has been practised in modern philosophy, and we shall have to be particularly on our guard against the careless use of these expressions. Here it shall only be emphasised that in my view the said expressions assume a determinate sense only when we conceive of consciousness-activity as an intermittent one and especially take into account that various conscious beings are equipped with various pulses of consciousness.

For the rest, we wish to leave the great problem whether our consciousness-activity is a steadily flowing one or not for the time being as an open one, and to reserve it for our later investigations to take a definitive position on the matter. Should it turn out, for example, that with an intermittent consciousness-activity the construction of a logically coherent series of thoughts is impossible, then the doctrine of the intermittency of our mental acts would indeed have to be dropped at once. Or should it emerge that our sensory world-picture would have to be quite differently constituted than it actually is, if our sense-perception were a pulsating one, then a pulse-theory of attention could not remain in force for a single moment. I hope, however, to be able to furnish the proof that not only do all facts of our mental life agree very well with the principle of intermittency, but that a science of consciousness can only be erected upon the foundation of this principle. Should I, however, find myself in error, I hope even through this error to render a service to science. For in working towards the most binding proof possible of the intermittency-doctrine of consciousness, I compel the researchers who may set out from an opposing view to found a clear and convincing continuity-doctrine of consciousness. For the present we unfortunately possess no exact theory of consciousness at all, whether it take a position for or against the continuity-principle.

In closing this lecture I should like to remark that the doctrine of the intermittency of human consciousness-activity is nothing quite so new as might appear at first glance. Every thought that emerges in the course of the historical development of science has been stimulated by forebears in manifold ways, indeed also divined and fleetingly grasped, or at least somehow prepared. It would therefore not surprise me if philosophical-historical research were to demonstrate the germs of the intermittency-principle in a whole series of systems; for I find afterwards, myself, in a multitude of thinkers, intimations which can without compulsion be interpreted as an inkling of the intermittency-idea. It is especially the psychologists of more recent times who have expressed this thought in a peculiarly restricted formulation. They say that our "time-sense" does not have a continuous character, and mean by this that we are able to follow the flowing time-stream with our perception not in a flowing manner, but only in intermittent intervals. Were these authors to express themselves better, they would have to say that we conceive of the time-stream now as flowing, now as intermittent; and indeed, we regard time as steadily flowing when we place the stream of natural phenomena within it; we regard it, however, as intermittent when we think of the temporal course as posited through the acts of our consciousness. For the phantasy [Phantasie] time is flowing, for phantasy places phenomena within time; for the understanding, on the other hand, the temporal course is composed of discrete time- points drawn together as closely as possible, for the understanding generates time through discrete acts that cannot flow together with one another. Something similar holds also for the phantasy-based and the rational conception of space.

It should be mentioned finally that the great embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer, Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876), Baltic German naturalist and embryologist. The address Palagyi references was delivered in 1860 to the Russian Entomological Society and published as "Welche Auffassung der lebenden Natur ist die richtige?" ("Which Conception of Living Nature Is the Correct One?"). in an address delivered at the opening of the Russian Entomological Society (1860), pursues a train of thought that touches upon the one set forth above at one point. Of an intermittency of human consciousness he is admittedly not thinking, but he speaks of the "6, at most 10, life-moments" that we have per second. He stands, namely, under the impression of the "reaction-experiments" or "psychical time-measurements" that had then come into vogue, and attaches exceedingly poetic, imaginative reflections to the fact that a certain time (the fraction of a second) is required before we perceive a sense-impression acting upon us. He contemplates human beings of the same mental kind as we, who would, however, have a thousand-fold or million-fold faster, respectively slower, arterial pulse than we, and describes with incomparable vividness how the sensory world would take shape for such "month-persons," "minute-persons," etc. He does indeed indulge in thoroughly adventurous assumptions and conclusions, for he wishes to "condense" the life-content of a human being so that it extends over only minutes, or also to "thin it out" so that it extends over millennia: nevertheless, within this whole phantasmagoria there is also a scientific content. It seems to me that the great researcher came close to the concept of the consciousness-pulse, but so thoroughly conflated it with the arterial pulse, and held the concepts of life-process and consciousness so little apart, that he thereby deprived himself of the actual scientific yield of his poetic visions. In any case I wish to draw attention most emphatically to his work "Which Conception of Living Nature Is the Correct One."

Second Lecture: The Problem of the Continuity or Intermittency of Consciousness-Activity#

The problem of the continuity or the intermittency of consciousness-activity presses towards a thorough investigation of the entire history of human consciousness. Importance of the investigation of the periodic transformations of consciousness in the waking state and in sleep. The abuse which mystics and sceptics practise with dream-consciousness. The alteration which consciousness undergoes through sleep, through fainting, etc., proves that we must distinguish the life-process from consciousness-activity. In the alert state the life-process acts in a promoting manner upon consciousness-activity; in the turning towards drowsiness this influence becomes an inhibiting one. There are no consciousness-processes, but merely consciousness-activities. The rapids of the life-stream. The confusion of consciousness and life that is contained in the principle: percipi esse. If all processes were consciousness-processes, then sleep, fainting, and death would have to be perceptions of the sleeping, unconscious, or dead person. There are life-processes that exclude the consciousness of their taking place. Even sensation-processes can be cut off from consciousness when the latter is too greatly occupied by other sensations. Enthusiastic character of the doctrine that the world of appearances is a product of consciousness. The sophistry that insinuates itself into this enthusiasm. The sound vitalistic kernel that is contained in "empirical idealism."

Gentlemen! We raised in the previous hour the difficult problem of the continuity or the intermittency of human consciousness, and must now say to ourselves that, if any decision in this question is to be reached at all, we must necessarily survey the entire history of an individual consciousness and come to know it in all its essential features, in order to arrive at a definitive judgement as to whether the activity of consciousness is a steadily flowing or an unsteadily intermittent one. Therein consists precisely the significance of that problem hitherto rather neglected in philosophy, that it compels us to investigate in exact fashion the general history of an individual human consciousness in all life-stages from birth to death, because, were there even a single minute in life in which consciousness-activity were a continuous one, we should have to become doubtful of the principle of intermittency, or conversely should have to lose faith in the continuity-principle, were there to be found even a single minute in life in which the activity of consciousness proved itself to be intermittent. Were someone, however, to wish to resolve the problem raised in such a sense that the activity of our consciousness could in certain segments of our life show a continuously flowing, in other segments on the contrary an intermittent character: then it would be all the more his duty, investigating all life-segments precisely, to show what the reason might be that it pleases consciousness to prove itself now as flowing, now however to exhibit a capricious intermittency.

Our highest interest is naturally aroused by those critical moments or intervals of the course of our life in which our consciousness-activity appears to suffer an interruption, as for example in sleep, in fainting, or in death. A being that would know neither sleep, nor fainting, nor death, but would be conscious of itself from eternity to eternity, would certainly not need to become reflective about its own consciousness in such a manner as we human beings, who must ask what the matter may be with the light of our consciousness, since this light can to all appearances be extinguished, and what is still more remarkable, can in spite of its extinction light up once more. Quite especially it is the periodic transformation of our consciousness, brought about by the alternation of waking and sleep, that must above all arouse our interest, for it is after all in the first instance this everyday periodic transformation that suggests to us the thought that the light of our consciousness could have in all its segments a periodically extinguishing and re-igniting character.

"Psychology," however, appears to avoid if possible the question whether our consciousness-activity everywhere has a necessarily periodic character. It concerns itself only incidentally and by way of appendix with dream-consciousness, and brings the same into such close connexion with hallucinations that it almost gains the appearance as though dreaming were a pathological process which would not have to be taken seriously into consideration in the doctrine of normal consciousness. Now it scarcely needs saying that it belongs to the nature of our life-process to fluctuate necessarily between the states of waking and sleeping, so that we form for ourselves a wholly false concept of our life-process if we leave out of account the fundamental law of this its necessary periodicity. Going further, however, I should also like to maintain that it belongs not only to the nature of our life-process but also to the nature of our consciousness-activity to undergo periodic transformations and to rock itself now upon the waves of waking activity, now upon those of dream-consciousness. If there are persons who according to their own statement seldom or never at all dream, this is of little significance, for one dreams far more than one is inclined to believe. Nor have I ever yet encountered a human being who would have maintained that he has absolutely no notion of what is meant by the word "dream," since he knows nothing of the sort from his experience. A human being who did not have the concept of the "dream" would be a human being of unsound mind, because he could also have no concept of what we mean by the word "reality." Only the contrast between dream and waking consciousness instructs us properly about the contrast between "chimera" and "reality," and it is accordingly a most important chapter in the mental developmental history [Entwickelungsgeschichte] Entwickelungsgeschichte — developmental history; the term encompasses both ontogenetic (individual) and phylogenetic (species) development, characteristic of post-Darwinian German scientific vocabulary. of the child, where it arrives at a distinction between dream-image and reality-image. We remain, alas, with respect to this distinction in a certain sense always children, that is, we arrive even in philosophy at no genuine concept of reality, because we do not take the trouble to establish scientifically, with all the power of our discriminating understanding, the difference between dream-consciousness and waking consciousness. We fall upon the byways of mysticism and scepticism chiefly for the reason that we have no scientific theory of the difference between dreaming and waking consciousness.

[Author’s note:] The difference between dream-image and perception-image is discussed in the 13th Lecture.

All mysticism rests, namely, in the last ground upon the fact that we are beings who have dreams, and thus fall into a peculiar second state of consciousness that runs along intermittently beside waking consciousness and that is no doubt able to insinuate itself for brief moments into the midst of waking life. If now there exists such a mysterious second consciousness, the thought lies near that in some individuals it could be far more strongly developed than in others, and that through methodical cultivation it could be led towards a still higher development. We neglect our dream-consciousness — so a mystic might speak — and let that wonderful talent which manifests itself in the formation of dream-intuitions wither away: were we, however, to bestow upon dream-life the cultivation due to it, as we do with waking consciousness, then the dream, at the highest stage of development where it becomes the "clairvoyant dream," would grant us not only higher raptures but also higher insights than any waking consciousness is able to afford. Spatial distances that remain closed to the waking eye would open themselves to us at will; we would be able to gaze prophetically into arbitrarily distant future times; indeed, we could, elevating ourselves above space and time, enter into commerce with the realm of spirits, etc. etc. Who does not know these seductive siren-calls of the various "spiritistic" and "occultistic" schools: but where has there ever been a mystic who bestowed upon us a genuine science of the difference between waking and dream-consciousness and of their relation to one another? To be sure, we must also confess that the opponents of the mystics, the men of the "Enlightenment," instruct us even far less about the fundamental question of what we are to make of dream-consciousness in distinction from waking consciousness.

All mystical doctrines rest in the last ground upon a competition that dream-consciousness wages against the waking consciousness of the human being, and indeed, as the history of the world shows, very often with great success. But not only the mystic, the sceptic too makes use of the fact of dreaming in order to confuse and undermine our conception of waking consciousness. The mystic wishes to trump waking consciousness with a mysterious, dream-kindred gift; the sceptic, on the contrary, wishes in the reverse manner to devalue waking consciousness precisely by making it into a worthless dream. It is, for example, in the highest degree characteristic how Descartes Rene Descartes (1596–1650). The dream-argument appears in the First Meditation (Meditationes de prima philosophia, 1641). makes use of the fact of dreaming in order to ground his theoretical doubt concerning all waking sense-perception. There is simply no stronger argument against the reality of our waking sensory world than its kinship with the dream. The images, namely, which the dream conjures up, vie especially in youthful years in splendour of colour and sensuous glow with the most vivid images of waking sight, so that they suggest the thought that our waking intuitions too are nothing more than a kind of dream-intuitions, and that the things which waking life conjures up before us would be just as unreal as the things that appear to us in the dream-vision. Waking life would be a second dream-state, with the difference that we could not at all free ourselves from its terrible oppressive weight, and perhaps only death could bring a deliverance from the same.

In vain does Descartes then wish to prove to us that we can be certain of our own thought-activity, because the doubt concerning it — since it too represents a thought-activity — refutes itself. For if there is no fixed difference between dreaming and waking consciousness, it could well be that all our thinking is an activity merely of dream-consciousness, and that consequently the certainty of the proud Cartesian "Cogito" etc. would be no more significant than any arbitrary dream-certainty. If one does not show us that waking consciousness is something essentially different from the dream, one reasons in vain against scepticism. Since now Descartes nowhere demonstrates that waking certainty is something quite different from the certainty which a dreamer believes himself to have, his "Cogito" too remains a principle of which one does not know whether one may ascribe to it waking or dream-certainty.

From this it is to be seen what fundamental significance belongs to the distinction between waking and dream-like consciousness-activity. Here the intimate connexion of this problem with another no less significant problem shall first be set forth.

It is a universally known fact that we are able to struggle against drowsiness, partly by executing physical movements, partly by seeking to occupy our mind with stimulating objects that interest us in the highest degree. In the end, however, all such galvanising [elektrisierende] Elektrisierende Mittel — literally "electrifying means"; Palagyi uses the word figuratively for stimulants that rouse wakefulness, with a nod to the galvanic experiments of the period. means fail, and it becomes an impossibility for us to keep waking consciousness-activity going. Such experiences convince us in an immediately felt manner that there is something against which our consciousness-activity must struggle in order to be able to maintain itself. This something is our own life-process, which can undergo such an alteration that it inhibits, impedes, suppresses our consciousness in its activity, and under certain circumstances leads it over into a second kind of activity, namely the dream. When the organism has rested in sleep, the life-process swells up in such a manner that it acts upon consciousness in a stimulating, promoting, and directly dream-awakening fashion. From this it is to be gathered that we may never confuse the activity of our consciousness with our vital process. The life-process can exert a promoting influence upon our waking consciousness-activity, but it can also inhibit it and, despite the highest exertion of our will, in mysterious fashion paralyse it, respectively lead it over into the dream-state. Already this universally known fact contains within itself a wholly sufficient ground for prudently keeping apart the activity of our consciousness and the course of our life-process as two concepts different from one another. It is something quite different merely to live and again something different to live with consciousness, namely with waking consciousness. For however extremely closely our consciousness may hang together with our life-process, that feeling of exertion [Anstrengungsgefühl] Anstrengungsgefühl — feeling of exertion or effort; the subjective sense of strain experienced in struggling against drowsiness, which Palagyi takes as direct evidence that consciousness-activity and life-process are distinct. which we experience in the struggle against sleep teaches us that consciousness-activity is something that can be overpowered, and periodically also is necessarily overpowered, and therefore must not be confused with its overpowerer. Sleep is no deed of our consciousness, no act of the same, but rather an overcoming of its activity through a mysterious turning of our life-process, which has been elucidated by physiology only in a very inadequate measure.

All crises of consciousness: deliria, states of fainting and narcosis, etc., show plainly that alterations which take place in our life-process can draw the activity of our consciousness into sympathy, by constricting, confusing, disrupting it, or even bringing it to a complete standstill. Although, therefore, our waking consciousness-activity could not subsist without being borne and promoted by the life-process, we shall nonetheless have to guard ourselves against confusing the two concepts, for experience teaches that the life-process can take turnings which lead to enigmatic catastrophes of consciousness.

The unconscious person and the narcotised one are alive, although according to the universally prevailing view they must be regarded as "unconscious," that is, as not evincing even the slightest trace of consciousness-activity. It is universally held that life can still continue without consciousness having to be active in even the slightest degree. It is a popular conviction that the life-process must be a steadily flowing one, for when the light of life is truly extinguished once, that is, when death truly sets in, there can be no further talk of a new flickering-up of the life-process in question, whereas the activity of consciousness can very well suffer a temporary interruption and nonetheless set in anew. I confess that I share this conviction, and that I am filled with the endeavour to procure for this popular conviction a scientific validity. To be sure, I diverge from the popular view in this, that I regard consciousness also in all its waking activities as pulsating. The life-process is, so long as it lasts, an uninterruptedly flowing one; consciousness-activity, however, does not flow along with it, but merely pulsates along with it, and such states as, for example, fainting have merely the significance that during their duration the consciousness-pulse ceases.

But however this may be, so much may be taken as established: that sleep and fainting are not deeds or acts of our consciousness, but rather states in which something befalls our consciousness, in which it conducts itself passively [leidend] Leidend — literally "suffering"; Palagyi’s use here carries the dual sense of passivity and suffering, underscoring that consciousness in sleep or fainting is not acting but undergoing something imposed upon it by the life-process.: passively in consequence of such a turning of the life-process as suppresses our waking consciousness-activity in a manner still to be investigated.

We shall therefore take care not to confuse the activity of consciousness with its passivity, that is, we shall have to make a sharp distinction between the moments when consciousness does something and the temporal intervals when something happens to consciousness. For it is, as I shall presently show, a chief defect [Hauptgebrechen] of modern philosophy and especially of modern psychology that it speaks in a careless manner of consciousness-processes [Bewusstseinsvorgänge] Bewusstseinsvorgänge — consciousness-processes; the term Palagyi objects to, on the grounds that consciousness properly has acts (active, intermittent), not processes (passive, flowing). The distinction is central to his critique of modern psychology. and creates the appearance as though the investigator of human consciousness always had to do with "consciousness-processes," when after all the essence of our consciousness manifests itself first and foremost in its acts, whereby I understand by consciousness-acts not only the activity of sense-perception but also the phantasy-acts (of the artist), the thought-acts (of the researcher), the will-acts (of the practical human being). I employ the cumbersome expression "consciousness-activity" only for the reason that there exists no other expression encompassing all kinds of activities of the human mind.

To be sure, the human mind is not pure, not absolute activity, as it would have to be in the sense of Descartes if the soul were always to think, that is, to perform acts continuously. In all its activity, in all its acts, our consciousness is supported and borne by our vital process, just as the oarsman with his skiff is supported and borne by the stream. As the work of the oarsman is not a flowing but a rhythmic one, so too the acts of our consciousness during the mental voyage are not a flowing but a pulsating one; but as the stream that bears the skiff is a steadily flowing stream, so too the life-stream that bears our mental activity, as it were, upon its back is of a steadily flowing nature.

As further an oarsman, because his skiff does not stand still during the brief pauses he requires in order to take a fresh stroke, can surrender to the illusion that his work-activity is not an intermittent but a flowing one: so too the mental oarsman can surrender to the illusion that it is not the vital stream that makes his mental oar-strokes possible which has a flowing character, but that these intermittent oar-strokes themselves are of a flowing nature. In this illusion we are all commonly caught up: we confuse the stream of our own life-process with the mental oar-stroke of our own consciousness. We do not keep apart the concepts of the vital and of the psychical.

How, then, does one bring the mental oarsman to his senses, so that he does not confuse his mental work with the vital work of his organism? Quite simply, by proceeding with him in a manner similar to that used with an actual boatman who would be unable to distinguish the strength of his arm from the strength of the stream bearing him! One brings him to a rapid. For so long as the surface of the stream is gentle and smooth, the oarsman can easily leave out of account the difference between the strength of his arm and the strength of the stream; but if the stream carries him into the depths, it will become clear to him what difference exists between his muscular strength and the power of the stream. Now our life-stream too has its peculiar periodic rapids, namely there where it draws our consciousness from the luminous realm of waking into the dull realm of dreams. Truly, a being whose consciousness is subject to sleep ought not to confuse its mental activity with that life-stream which tears its thinking into the whirl of confused dreams.

Nevertheless, the history of modern philosophy shows us that characteristically modern thought is above all characterised by the passionate propensity to confuse the concepts of consciousness and of the vital process with one another, and thereby to create a ruinous mental confusion such as was wholly unknown in antiquity. Quite especially the British philosophy, as it is represented pre-eminently by Locke, Berkeley, George Berkeley (1685–1753), Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop, whose esse est percipi ("to be is to be perceived") is Palagyi’s principal target in this lecture. His chief philosophical works are A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). and Hume, David Hume (1711–1776), Scottish philosopher. Together with Locke and Berkeley, he forms the British empiricist tradition that Palagyi here characterises as confounding vital and mental categories. is distinguished by the fact that it has developed the conceptual confusion of life and consciousness (or experience [Erlebnis] Erlebnis — experience in the sense of lived experience; a vital event or occurrence, as distinct from a mental act. Palagyi’s point is that British empiricism conflates the lived event (Erlebnis) with the mental act (geistiger Akt) that takes cognisance of it. and mental act) into a proper art and science, from which modern psychology and epistemology [Erkenntnislehre] Erkenntnislehre — theory of knowledge, epistemology; literally "doctrine of cognition." Palagyi views modern epistemology as vitiated by the same confusion of vital and mental that characterises British empiricism. have issued.

This characteristic conceptual confusion, with which we shall have to concern ourselves repeatedly and very thoroughly, emerges most clearly in Berkeley. Corporeal things, a so-called matter — so the paradoxical Irish philosopher notoriously teaches — do not exist. What we perceive with our senses are always only states and properties, such as warmth, cold, hardness, colour, odour, etc., but never an alleged substratum that would underlie these properties. A so-called material bearer of these properties no mortal has ever yet perceived with any one of his senses, for what presents itself to the senses are always only states and properties or some alteration in the same. That which we call a corporeal thing is nothing more than a complex of properties. But as concerns these sensory properties, they have existence only within a perceiving mind. Warmth, cold, colour, density, magnitude, etc. are present only for one who feels, senses, represents them, that is, they are nothing more than consciousness-contents of a mind, which bring tidings of nothing of the sort that allegedly takes place outside consciousness. All our experiences [Erlebnisse] run their course wholly within our consciousness: they are born in consciousness, unfold within the same, and find in the same also their grave. Berkeley takes the Lockean principle that sensations are ideas in bloody earnest; he makes the vital process, skin and all, into a psychical happening. "Esse est percipi." Or as Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860). "Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung" ("The world is my representation") opens his principal work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1818/1844). says: "The world is my representation."

What consequences it has when one lets experiences run their course within consciousness, and consequently denies the vital process falling outside consciousness which comes to consciousness only afterwards: this may be shown by some examples. Sleep is an experience, hence it would have to run its course within the consciousness of the sleeper, that is, the latter would have to have an uninterrupted consciousness of his sleeping state. Since, however, sleep cannot be a consciousness-content of the sleeper, nothing remains but to deny its existence. For in the sense of "esse est percipi" only that can exist which runs its course within consciousness. There would also have to be no fainting and no death, because fainting is no consciousness-content of the unconscious person and death is no consciousness-content of the corpse. By ascribing existence only to consciousness-contents one abolishes all catastrophes of consciousness and quite especially death from the world. One becomes God.

Everyone knows that sleep is a segment of our life-process, and everyone sees that this segment of our life-process cannot combine itself with the consciousness of its taking place; hence it is clear that the life-process is something other than the consciousness of its taking place. This holds not only for sleep but in general for all segments of our life-process, quite especially also for the life-processes of waking. Only it is a rather difficult task to make, within waking, a distinction between what in waking is mere life-process and what in it is mere consciousness-activity. The life-process in the waking state is so bound up with the consciousness of this waking that one easily falls into the temptation of confusing the concepts of the waking life-process and of waking consciousness-activity. Precisely for this reason it had to be pointed out that the life-process also has such segments (as for example sleep) where it is not combined with a consciousness of its taking place, in order to draw attention to the fact that a life-segment and the consciousness of the same are not identical concepts.

The sensations that we have in the waking state are, considered in themselves, nothing more than waking experiences, that is, segments of our waking life-process; to be sure, they are commonly combined with the consciousness of their taking place, so that one easily falls into the error that the sensation-experience is identical with the consciousness-acts through which we have tidings of it. Now there are, however, universally known experiences in abundance which warn us against confusing the sensation-experience with the consciousness of its taking place. A single example may suffice here. Everyone knows that during some interesting occupation the ticking of the clock on the wall is not heard, but that it emerges very readily as soon as one breaks off the work. The sensation-processes which the ticking of the clock calls forth in us were, however, also taking place at the time when we could not become aware of them, because our consciousness-activity was set in connexion with other life-processes. In general, a number of simultaneous sensation- and feeling-processes are always knocking at our consciousness; the latter, however, can at a given moment set itself in connexion only with coherent life-processes belonging to the same kind, so that the remaining life-processes which press towards consciousness must meanwhile persist in an unperceived state. From this it is to be seen that we must take care not to confuse the vital processes of sensation and feeling with the acts of consciousness through which they are made known to us.

Consciousness-acts are our most properly mental doings; sensation-processes, however, are not at all our doings, but mere processes which, by virtue of their mysterious (and still to be investigated) union with our consciousness, can stimulate the activity of the latter to perceptions, but which can also, especially when they are very intense, impede, inhibit, or altogether bring to a standstill consciousness-activity. With genial depth of insight [genialem Tiefblick] Plato The reference is likely to the Theaetetus (184b–186e), where Plato distinguishes the soul’s own activity in judging from the passive affections of the senses. says that our sensations are, as it were, the springboard [Schwungbrett] of our mental activity; to be sure, they are under certain circumstances also the brake-shoes [Hemmschuhe] of the same. In general there exists between life-process and consciousness-activity such a union that the former exerts now a promoting, now an inhibiting influence upon the latter; conversely, our consciousness is called upon to give our life-process a conscious direction, and this directing activity of consciousness can be now salutary, now also injurious to the welfare of the life-process.

Youthful enthusiasm [Schwärmerei] Schwärmerei — enthusiasm, rapture, or fanaticism; a term with a long history in German philosophy (cf. Kant’s Schwarmerei), denoting an excessive, uncritical exaltation of sentiment over reason. does indeed find pleasure in letting the concepts of consciousness and life-process blur into one another, because thereby everything that befalls us may count as our own deed, everything experienced as the work of our creative mind. We advance by the shortest route to godhood. One need only confuse two concepts with one another and thereby becomes God. Everything that appears in heaven and on earth is, in so far as it precisely appears, nothing more than my representation, that is, the work of my mind. What an exaltation lies in such a conviction! To be sure, one must be young, divinely young, to be able to harbour such a conviction in one’s swelling breast. One need only say to oneself that sleep, fainting, and death are nothing more than my mere representations, works of my own mind, in order to hover in godlike sublimity over the universe. One cannot hold it too much against the young blood that it inclines to such enthusiastic excess, for to be a little mad will always remain the prerogative of youth.

Berkeley seems himself to notice that what befalls us — that is to say, the sensation-process — is after all not our own mental deed, for he teaches that all our sensations are impressed upon us by God, that is, he makes our mind into something purely passive. On the other hand, he does indeed maintain that all our sensations are our own mental products, so that it gains the appearance as though our mind were the purest activity. Thus his idealism shows a peculiar Janus-face, because his fundamental principle admits of a twofold reading. The principle esse-percipi, the sense of which can also be expressed thus: life-process = consciousness, or: sensation = idea, signifies, when read from left to right, that all sensory appearance is something mental, and then has an idealistic colouring; read from right to left, however, it signifies that everything mental is in the last ground nothing more than sense-sensation, and is then the expression of the extremest sensualism [Sensualismus] Sensualismus — sensualism; the philosophical doctrine that all knowledge originates in sensation. Palagyi’s point is that Berkeley’s "idealism" is in truth an inverted sensualism, since it reduces all mental content to sense-impressions.. An idealism that is at bottom only an exaggerated sensualism has never existed in antiquity nor in the Middle Ages; it is par excellence a product of the modern age. Its founder is Berkeley, who is thus in a certain sense to be regarded as the "most modern" among all modern thinkers. In fact he has exerted a deep influence not only upon Kant and Schopenhauer, but he also commands a following among the physicists and physiologists of our day. (Mach, Ernst Mach (1838–1916), Austrian physicist and philosopher whose Die Analyse der Empfindungen (1886) reduces physical objects to complexes of sensations in a manner Palagyi regards as neo-Berkeleyan. Verworn, Max Verworn (1863–1921), German physiologist known for his "conditionalism" and psycho-monist tendencies. etc.)

Some thinkers appear to believe that the Berkeleyan idealism is a monistic doctrine. The proposition, namely, that all appearance is consciousness-content would have the significance that we had traced back everything physical to something psychical and had thus arrived at a panpsychism [Panpsychismus] Panpsychismus — panpsychism; the view that all of reality is fundamentally psychical. Palagyi regards it as a pseudo-monism achieved by verbal equivocation. or psycho-monism [Psychomonismus] Psychomonismus — psycho-monism; a term for the position that reduces all reality to the psychical. Palagyi treats it as equivalent to panpsychism.. This panpsychism, however, is all the more alluring because it also admits the reverse reading, in which everything psychical becomes something physical (sensory). One proclaims that everything is psychical and understands by the psychical always only the physical. Thus one becomes a monist through equivocation and conceptual confusion. To be sure, unification of our cognition, that is, monism, is the highest aspiration of every genuine philosopher; but if monism is to consist in giving up the distinctness of our concepts, and hence also our capacity for distinction, who would then still wish to be a monist?

But although the Berkeleyan idealism (as indeed British sensualism in general) rests upon a confusion of the most fundamental concepts of the human mind, namely vitality [Vitalität] and consciousness [Bewußtheit] Bewußtheit — consciousness in the abstract sense, conscioushood; here paired with Vitalität (vitality) to mark the two fundamental categories whose confusion Palagyi diagnoses as the root error of British empiricism.: it has nonetheless exercised an immeasurable influence upon the development of modern thought. There is contained in Berkeley’s doctrine the kernel of a most significant truth which must be extracted from it. An easy task this is, to be sure, not.

We can, namely, receive immediate tidings of the processes of the inorganic natural process surrounding us only in that the same call forth alterations in our own life-process. What calls forth no alteration in our life-process, awakens no echo in the same, is for our immediate perception as good as non-existent. Everything "given" must necessarily be given to us through some process of the life-process. One can therefore say, with a reservation, that everything happening in the world is in the first instance nothing more than a process within our own vital process. This is the vitalistic kernel of truth [vitalistische Wahrheitskern] of Berkeley’s doctrine, which falsely gave itself the appearance of an "idealistic" doctrine. To be sure, the vitalistic truth which is contained in Berkeley’s doctrine, as it were in disguised form, must also be supplemented by the other truth: that the processes of our own life-process do indeed represent the whole world to us, but that they are able to bring this about only because they are called forth by mechanical processes of the external world and are referred to these through the activity of our consciousness. We wish to come to a more precise understanding about this in the next lecture.

Third Lecture: The Three Classes of Events That Are Not Reducible to One Another#

The three classes of events that are not reducible to one another. The false monism that confuses unity with absence of distinction. Its two principal varieties: psychologistic and mechanistic monism. The logical perversity involved in proceeding from the existence of mechanical processes and afterwards searching for vital processes. Vital processes that can have only one witness. Principle of vital and mental individuality. Mechanical processes can have arbitrarily many witnesses. Life-processes that can have no immediate witness at all. The vitalistic and the mechanistic investigation of life-processes. Critical situation of biology.

Gentlemen! The totality of all that may occur in the universe divides, for the cognising human mind, into three classes of events: a) consciousness-acts, b) vital processes, c) mechanical occurrences. Each of these three classes of events has so very much its own specific character that any one of them can never be "reduced" to any other. It is rather the task of human inquiry to fathom the incomparable peculiarity of these three realms of happening as far as possible; I say "as far as possible" because it is not given to the human mind ever to exhaust completely the peculiar character of mental activity, of the life-process, or indeed of mechanical happening. But however inexhaustible the specific differences of the three realms of happening may be, they nonetheless form a single, absolutely unified realm, and it must be regarded as the chief task of philosophy to set forth this absolute unity as far as possible. A complete and conclusive exposition of the same — that is, the definitive construction of a monistic philosophy — can never succeed, because the differences, the manifoldnesses, that are to be unified are inexhaustible.

Only this much is certain, and this will prove to be an outflow of the highest logical principle: that on the one hand we may never rest content in the distinguishing of diversities that must not be "reduced" to one another, and that on the other hand we must never cease in the endeavour to set forth the absolute unity of all specific diversities. Whoever has not yet grasped the supreme principle of logic, the principle of identity, will to be sure find a contradiction in the fact that we distinguish, for example, three realms of happening which cannot be reduced to one another and that we nonetheless wish to set forth the absolute unity of the three realms: but for the present we can only recommend to him that he reflect upon whether it has any sense to speak of unity where a manifold is in reality not present at all, or whether conversely a manifold could exist in reality if it were not comprehended into a unity. Only he who has become clear about this is able to press through to the supreme principle of logic and will be able to avoid falling at every moment into a new logical contradiction.

Unfortunately, most modern investigators believe that a unification of specifically different processes is possible only through the abolition of their difference, that they must therefore deny the real being of the manifold in order to be able to secure the validity of the unity-principle. This singular mode of thought has the consequence that whoever wishes to unify all differences must of necessity deny the existence of every difference. But whoever denies the existence of every difference abolishes the activity of every power of discrimination, and consequently all human cognitive activity as well, because without distinctions there is no cognition. Thus the falsely understood drive towards unity in philosophy presses towards a denial of differences and towards an annihilation of the discriminating human understanding. This self-destructive monism, which confuses the concepts of unity and absence of distinction, appears in modern science in quite manifold guises. Among its principal forms belong: 1. psychologistic monism, 2. mechanistic monism; both of which currents of thought must be regarded as the true sources of the specifically modern Babylonian confusion of minds.

As for psychologistic monism, whose actual originator we may regard as Berkeley, George Berkeley (1685–1753), Irish philosopher and bishop. His esse est percipi ("to be is to be perceived") dissolved the physical world into ideas in the mind, making him the forefather of what Palagyi here calls psychologistic monism. it dissolves all happening into psychical happening. In the sense of this doctrine there can properly be no vital processes and no mechanical occurrences in nature at all, because all happening of which we have knowledge takes place in our consciousness and must therefore be psychical happening. It belongs to the peculiar character of this theory that it exercises a paralysing influence upon the human capacity for discrimination, by preventing its adherent from reflecting upon the different realms of happening, and quite especially by systematically teaching one to confuse the vital with the mental. It bears, to be sure, an idealistic, or as one also expresses it, a spiritualistic character on its face, but is, as has already been remarked, scarcely to be distinguished from an absolute sensualism; for whoever identifies physical happening with psychical happening has, upon a reversed reading, identified psychical happening with physical happening. Thus psychologistic monism actually tips over into a mechanistic monism, with which it in fact gets along very well indeed. Thinkers who are originally mechanistic monists need only practise the reversed reading of their own doctrines in order to be able to comport themselves like psychologistic monists.

As for mechanistic monism, it asserts in the first place that all vital processes are in truth distinguished by nothing from mechanical ones, or at least promises that in time it will prove possible to "reduce" all phenomena of life to mechanical processes. It belongs to the character of this doctrine that it is not sparing with promises, and consequently enjoys great popularity everywhere where one meets its eternal prophecies with a naive faith. Mechanistic monism can go so far as to wish to reduce not only vital processes but also mental activity to mechanical happening, and then, in this extreme — or, as one sometimes expresses it, materialistic — elaboration, it is scarcely to be distinguished from psychologistic monism; for whoever presents all mental activity as mechanical happening arrives, upon a reversed reading of his own conception, at the view that all mechanical happening is a psychical activity. Ordinarily, however, the mechanistic monists shrink from the last step, from the "reduction" of mental activity to mechanical processes, and persist merely in the view that vital processes must indeed be reduced to mechanical happening, but that the psychical (sensation, representation, etc.) is something apart, whose relation to the physical will never be comprehended. (The famous Ignorabimus of E. Du Bois-Reymond.) Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896), German physiologist. In his celebrated lecture Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens (1872), he declared that the relation between brain processes and consciousness constitutes an absolute limit of natural knowledge — hence the lapidary Ignorabimus ("we shall never know").

Upon an attentive comparison of the two principal forms of monism one will find that both mechanistic and psychologistic monism agree in this: that they will on no account allow the specific peculiarity of vital processes to come into its own; the former because it would dissolve the vital into the mechanical, the latter because it would dissolve the vital into the psychical. Indeed, even in those monistic systems that one might designate as rationalistic (Spinoza, Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), Dutch philosopher whose Ethics (1677) treated thought and extension as parallel attributes of a single substance. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), whose system of Absolute Idealism subordinated nature to the self-development of Spirit (Geist), leaving the specifically vital, in Palagyi’s view, without its proper standing.), the living, the vital, never comes into its peculiar right. It may quite simply be designated as a chief defect of all modern science and philosophy that, out of their predilection for the mechanistic and the psychologistic, they cause the specific peculiarity of vital processes to vanish. This grave aberration is what has already often divided minds and leads, especially in our own day, to a far-reaching crisis in the natural sciences and in philosophy.

It is therefore in the highest degree gratifying that biologists such as H. Driesch, Hans Driesch (1867–1941), German biologist and philosopher of nature. His experiments on sea-urchin embryos (1891 ff.) led him to revive vitalism, arguing that no machine-model could account for the regulative capacities of developing organisms. He later elaborated a philosophical "entelechy" concept. G. Wolff, Gustav Wolff (1865–1941), German zoologist known for his experiments on lens regeneration in the newt, which he took as evidence against purely mechanistic accounts of development. J. Reinke, Johannes Reinke (1849–1931), German botanist and natural philosopher who argued for a non-mechanistic conception of vital forces, which he termed Dominanten (dominants). R. Neumeister, Richard Neumeister (1857–?), German physiological chemist who questioned the reducibility of biochemical processes to ordinary chemistry. K. Schneider, Karl Camillo Schneider (1867–1943), Austrian zoologist and vitalist philosopher. His work on animal behaviour emphasised the irreducibility of vital functions to mechanical models. etc. stand up with deep insight into the nature of life-processes for the specific character of the vital as against the mechanical, and seek to show, by way of developmental-physiological and chemical-physiological experiments, that the functions of an organism must not be confused with the performances of an artificially constructed machine. Nothing can be more conducive and fruitful for the investigation of the functions of life than to set them in parallel with mechanical machine-performances, in order in such manner to make the intimate connexion, but also the fundamental difference between them, as comprehensible as possible: nonetheless I scarcely believe that on this path a binding proof of the specific character of vital processes could ever be furnished. And for the following reason:

This is precisely the perversity of the one-sidedly mechanistic mode of thought, that, proceeding from the existence of mechanical processes, it afterwards sets out in search of peculiar vital processes. Whoever enters upon this path will never be able to penetrate through to the existence of life-processes. For what lies nearer to a living being: its own life-process or the mechanical world of appearances standing over against it? I believe the answer to this question will be difficult for no one. But if a human being has occupied himself so long with mechanical natural sciences that ultimately the mechanical world of appearances comes to seem something nearer to him than his own life-process, then there will be no more helping him, for he will sweep through all the spaces of the heavens to search for something living, and he will be able to find it nowhere, because he did not find it in himself. Even the neo-vitalists, however great the services they may otherwise have rendered to the deeper investigation of life, seem to me to fall into the comical fundamental error of the one-sidedly mechanistic thinkers, for to them too the concept of a machine seems something more immediately at hand than the concept of their own life-process. Thus one must call out to them as well the word of the German prince of poets: "Why rove into the distance, when the good lies so near?" [Author’s note:] The quotation is from Goethe’s poem Erinnerung (1827): "Warum in die Ferne schweifen? / Sieh, das Gute liegt so nah." Palagyi’s version slightly adapts the wording.

If one surveys the three realms of events that, for human consciousness, constitute the unified world of all happening, then everyone must surely notice that nothing can lie nearer to our consciousness than its own consciousness-activity, and that, if we wish to proceed in philosophy and in the special sciences from any fundamental certainty, this certainty can be none other than the certainty formulated by the great Descartes concerning one’s own thinking — or rather, consciousness-activity. But with this certainty there connects itself in an immediate manner another, which unfortunately is nowhere expressed by Descartes: I mean the certainty of the taking-place of one’s own life-process. If, for example, someone feels hunger or thirst, then in this feeling not only his own consciousness but also his own life-process becomes manifest to him. In perceiving something, we know not only that our consciousness is active, but that we are alive. Just as the certainty of one’s own consciousness-activity is the starting-point of every science of the human mind, so must the certainty of our own life, which manifests itself in all our experiences (sensations, feelings, etc.), be regarded as the natural starting-point of every scientific biology. Had someone not the consciousness of his own life, he could not have even the faintest intimation of what we understand by the word "life" in the case of other living beings, and biology would be for him for ever a book with seven seals.

We can indeed extend and deepen our concept of life in extraordinary measure through the immense body of experience that has been accumulated and ordered in biology, but all this extension and deepening is possible only because we bring with us from the outset a concept of life, and because from the outset, together with the consciousness that we are mentally active, we also connect the consciousness that our mental activity is most intimately bound up with our life-stream. It is not the existence of vital processes, but rather the existence of mechanical processes that can appear in a doubtful light. For all that we perceive must be given to us as a constituent piece of our own life-process, so that we necessarily find it as a segment in our own life-stream. If, therefore, we can be certain of any processes at all, these are doubtless our own vital processes; whether, however, beyond these vital processes there exists something further that we may rightly designate as mechanical processes — that can certainly be called in question. It is therefore a perverse procedure to seek, starting from mechanical appearances, to arrive at the discovery of our life-process, since we all, starting from our own feeling of life, arrive at the assumption of an existence of mechanical processes.

In seeing this, it will also become possible for us to establish what everyone understands by his own life-process as distinct from any mechanical happenings whatever. Only when this has been established can we also deliberate whether vital processes and mechanical happenings can somehow be "reduced" to one another or not. The dispute between vitalists and mechanists, as the neo-vitalists and their opponents conduct it, seems to me to be a hopeless one for this reason: that both parties conduct themselves unphilosophically, that is, do not proceed from the certainty of their own life-process in order first of all to establish what they understand by mechanical happening as distinct from their own life-processes.

As for one’s own life-process, the fact that one calls it one’s own already fixes its chief characteristic in an unambiguous manner. I am able to live only my own life-process; and it is an impossibility that a person A should live the vital process of another person B. The same that holds for the life-process holds also for death, in that no person can die the death of another, but in death merely forfeits his own life. This solitude, self-enclosedness, or inalienability of the life-process may be designated as the principle of vital individuality. We can indeed share in the sufferings and joys of another person, feel with them: but these sympathetic feelings are precisely constituents of our own and not of another’s life-process. A life-event of which a person A has immediate knowledge as of his own life-event can never belong to the life-process of another person B; for were it possible that life-events which we designate as our own were the life-events of other persons, it would be all over with the possibility of self-distinction: there would then be no individuals in the vital sense; to be sure, none in the mental sense of the word either.

For of mental individuality precisely the same holds that we have just established for the vital. No one is able to carry on the consciousness-activity of another person, but only his own; and however much two persons may think of one and the same truth, for example, of the truth that 2 x 2 = 4, the consciousness-activities of the two persons are nonetheless not identical; rather, two thinking-activities subsist, both of which are directed upon the same truth. In short, mental individuality is just as solitary, self-enclosed, or inalienable as the vital personality. If we must keep the two conceptually apart, this is so, in the first place, because mental activity is interrupted in states of fainting, lethargy, and the like, while the life-process still endures. Later we shall have to show in detail that even during the waking state the life-process must be distinguished from the consciousness-activity bound up with it. Here, however, it becomes clear to us how easy it is to confuse the life-process with consciousness-activity, since for both the same principle of solitude, self-enclosedness, or inalienability holds. British philosophy, as it is represented especially by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, actually confuses mental and vital individuality, and thereby arrives at the peculiar hybrid concept of psychologistic individuality, in which one never knows whether one is dealing merely with the living or also with the consciously living person. It is, to be sure, its great merit that it urges us to consider life together with consciousness in their union; but it is also its great fault that it did not urge with equal force the separation of the concepts of life and consciousness. Through this it came about that the concept of genuine vitality could not come into its own in science, but remained veiled and was forced to atrophy under the ambiguous and sanctimonious concept of psychologism.

Here, however, what is at issue is not the distinction of the living from the mental, but the distinction of the living from the mechanical. If two persons A and B look upon one and the same appearance E — for example, upon a rainbow — then each of the two persons can perceive the rainbow only because the same becomes a content of the life-process of each of the two persons. Let us call the alteration that the life-process of person A undergoes as she looks upon the rainbow: a; the corresponding alteration in the other person: b; then a and b are two life-events that may never be confused with one another. Person A can, for example, suddenly close her eyes while person B keeps hers open; consequently only the latter still enjoys the immediate sight of the optical appearance. Thus the vital processes that take place in the two persons while they behold the said appearance are by no means identical; rather, they are two processes belonging to two different life-processes, which are, however, referred by the consciousness of the two persons to one and the same rainbow.

This same rainbow is now a mechanical, or, as we may more fittingly express it, a physical appearance, which must be well distinguished from the two vital processes a and b, which are referred by the consciousness of two persons A and B to the same physical appearance E.

Herewith is set forth the ground upon which we originally and from the outset base our distinction between our own life-process and mechanical (or physical) appearances. A life-event that is my life-event can be immediately connected only with my consciousness; it can be immediately perceived only by me, and apart from my consciousness there is in the whole world no other human consciousness that could be the immediate witness of my life-event. A mechanical process, by contrast, can never be witnessed immediately, but always only mediately, because we must refer ourselves to it through a life-event. But since a mechanical process can be witnessed only mediately, it is also possible that 2, 3, or arbitrarily many witnesses can be produced for it.

If one considers that a life-event can, even in the best case, have only a single immediate witness, one sees that no one can be the immediate witness of another’s life-event; that foreign life-events can therefore never present themselves to us as such, but always only through the mediation of mechanical processes. If a life-event belonging to a foreign life-process is to make itself known to us, it must express itself, that is, it must conjoin itself with a mechanical process by means of which it manifests itself to us. The mechanical processes through which the foreign life-process manifests itself to us are commonly changes of place, that is, movements, but it can also manifest itself to us through the production of noises, of tones (the voice), through a luminescence (fireflies, luminous sea-creatures), through electrical shocks, etc. — in short, through every kind of mechanical (that is, physico-chemical) process.

Mechanical processes are thus the bond between life-process and life-process. Were there namely only life-processes, they would be absolutely isolated; every life would be, as it were, a weaving within itself, without the slightest connexion with another life. If one life-process is to be able to communicate with another, the one must express itself to the other, that is, it must excite mechanical processes through whose mediation it comes into connexion with other life-processes. Through mechanical processes the life-processes of the various persons are connected with one another; at the same time, however, the mechanical processes form the partition-wall between the life-processes of the various persons. The life-processes of the various individuals thus form, as it were, islands in the general ocean of mechanical happenings, which bathes them, separates them from one another, and connects them with one another.

Already on the basis of these first, primitive formulations of the concepts of life and mechanism, it stands out clearly that it is a logical impossibility to reduce the life-process in any way to mechanical processes. For were we to reduce our own life-process to mechanical processes, this would mean that our life-process would have to cease to be individual, that is, to cease to have a single immediate witness. Mechanical processes, in the sense of our explanation, have no immediate witness at all, but only mediate ones, and the number of these can be any whatever. If, then, our life-process is to become a mechanical process, it may no longer have any immediate witness, but may only be mediately ascertained by arbitrarily many witnesses. But then it is also truly all over with the life-process, and one has to do only with a decomposing corpse. So long, therefore, as there will be human individuals who are conscious that their own life-process can have only one witness whilst mechanical processes can have arbitrarily many, the concept of the life-process will not be reducible to the concept of mechanical processes. The principle of individuality forbids the mechanisation of life: that is, individual processes could not exist if everything were mechanical process. Mechanical processes and life-processes condition one another — in the sense of our determination — reciprocally. For it lies in the concept of a mechanical process that it shall be capable of being witnessed by arbitrarily many individual life-processes, or rather, consciousness-activities. Conversely, it lies in the concept of individual life-processes, or rather, consciousness-activities, that they must be separated from one another and connected with one another through mechanical processes.

The explanation that our life-process can have only one witness, that is, that it is an individual process, suffices, to be sure, to distinguish it from the inorganic process of nature, which is accessible to arbitrarily many witnesses: but it suffers from the defect that it does not encompass all life-events, but only one group of them. The mysteriousness of the life-process is extraordinarily potentiated by the circumstance that there are life-events which in their immediacy can have no witness at all, and of which we are nonetheless fully convinced that they exist and belong to our life-process. They form, in terms of developmental history, the substratum of our entire life-process, but our consciousness is not capable of placing itself in immediate contact with them.

We convince ourselves of the existence of this substratum of life — unreachable for our immediate consciousness — in the following manner.

Our own life-process becomes known to us not only in such a way that we remain the sole and exclusive witnesses of it, but it also confronts us in such a way as does any arbitrary foreign life-process. If, for example, I execute an arm-movement, any stranger can be a witness of it just as well as I myself. The movement of my arm must, in so far as it is an appearance that can have arbitrarily many witnesses, be regarded as a purely mechanical process, which must be investigated entirely with the means of purely mechanistic natural research. Nonetheless, for me myself my arm-movement is no merely mechanical process, but an "expression," a mechanically realised expression of my life-process. It is "life" that expresses itself in my arm-movement; but as "life" it is in its immediacy a mystery for my perception, for I am incapable of giving an account of how this life contrives to present itself in a muscular contraction, that is, in a mechanical process (which is accessible to arbitrarily many observers). Were that life of the muscle known to me which presents itself to me in a mechanical manner as a contraction (just as it does to every foreign beholder), I could also give an account of how the mysterious transition from muscle-life to the mechanically emergent contraction takes place. Since, however, everyone can indeed perceive the contraction of his muscles, but no one is in a position to say how the own-life of the muscle contrives to express itself in a universally perceptible contraction, we must admit to ourselves that the life which immediately underlies our movements is a life which is known to us only through its expression, but not in and of itself.

Nonetheless, we are, whenever we execute any movement, fully convinced that it is "our" movement and not the movement of a foreign person or a foreign object. Regarded as a mere (universally perceptible) movement, it is indeed nothing more than a purely mechanical process; but by virtue of our feeling of life we know with indubitable certainty that this movement belongs to our life-process and is a mechanical expression of the same. As a mechanical process, the movement of my arm is indeed to any stranger just as well intuitively given as to myself — indeed under certain circumstances better intuitively given to the stranger than to myself — but there subsists between this movement and my life-process a connexion by virtue of which it is characterised precisely as my movement and not as a foreign one. This connexion is made known to me through my feeling, and this feeling vouches for me that the muscle which contracts has its own-life, Eigenleben — own-life; the autonomous vital activity proper to each morphological constituent (cell, muscle, organ) of the body, completely inaccessible to consciousness in its immediacy, yet making itself known through feelings and through mechanical expressions (contractions, secretions, etc.). which can present itself mechanically in a contraction. Although, therefore, the own-life of the muscles, as well as of the remaining morphological constituents of our body, is in an immediate manner inaccessible to our consciousness, it admits of no doubt that such an own-life really exists and that its alterations are on the one hand made known to us through feelings, and on the other hand come to light in mechanical processes — such as, for example, muscular contractions — in such a manner that they become universally perceptible.

We recognise here the exceedingly great difficulties with which the concept of life is burdened, and which have had the consequence that philosophers as well as biologists gladly avoided a definition of the "life-event" as distinct from a "mechanical process," or that they gladly attached themselves to a theory that proclaimed the identity of vital and mechanical processes, thereby relieving investigators of the trouble of giving themselves any account of the difference between the mechanical and the vital. To be sure, scarcely anything more convenient can be devised than the identification of the vital and the mechanical; but he to whom only convenience matters in science is to be counselled that he should identify not only the concepts of the mechanical and the vital, but indeed all human concepts with one another, since he will then be relieved of every distinction and of all reflection.

The difficulty of the concept of life is principally to be sought in the fact that we can speak of life-events in a twofold sense. There are life-events that have an immediate connexion with consciousness, and there are life-events that entirely lack such an immediate connexion with consciousness. The former kind of life-events — such as feelings and sense-impressions — are to us the most familiar things in the world; the latter kind of life-events, by contrast, which represent the substratum of the former and which constitute the own-life of the morphological constituents of our own body, are, among all processes in the world, the most mysterious. For they can in their immediacy never be made the object of a natural-scientific investigation, because they have no immediate contact with our consciousness; but they can mediately be subjected to natural-scientific examination in a twofold manner. The alterations in the own-life of the structural elements of our body are namely on the one hand made known to us through feelings; on the other hand they express themselves in a universally perceptible manner, namely in movements and in general in physico-chemical processes. The feelings that rise up to our consciousness from the own-life of the structural elements of our body must be investigated in a vitalistic manner; the movements, by contrast, in which this own-life expresses itself, must be investigated in a mechanistic manner. Thus, for example, the feeling of fatigue, through which the state of the own-life of our muscles is revealed to us, will be subject to a vitalistic examination; the chemical changes, however, that are brought about through fatigue in the material constitution of the muscle, form the object of mechanistic research methods.

In uncovering the peculiar difficulty that attaches to the concept of life, there also comes to our distinct consciousness the critical situation in which biology finds itself — in so far as it is to be not a crude empiricism but a rigorous science. The existence of an own-life of the structural elements (for example, the cells) of our body can, namely — since it is not immediately accessible to consciousness — be denied, whereby the physico-chemical expressions of every own-life appear devalued to exclusively mechanistic processes, to which no "mysterious life" at all is supposed to underlie. Many physiologists are in fact inclined to deny that in the physico-chemical processes of our organism a hidden substratum of life [Lebensuntergrund] Lebensuntergrund — substratum of life (literally: life-underground); the hidden vital activity beneath the surface of observable physico-chemical processes. expresses itself, and this kind of investigator arrives at the singular view that one may never speak of a life-process as distinct from physico-chemical processes.

Against these one-sidedly mechanistically minded physiologists one can indeed appeal with victorious certainty to the fact that the existence of peculiar life-events — such as sense-impressions and feelings — cannot be denied by any reasonable person; but this decisive argument forfeits all its force because sensations and feelings were conceived by Locke, Berkeley, Hume, etc. not as vital but as psychical processes, and because this absurdity gained universal dominion not only in philosophy but was unfortunately adopted by biologists as well.

Biology thus stands on the one hand in danger of dissolving itself into mere mechanism, and on the other into mere psychologism. In the face of this critical state of affairs, it will be our endeavour to show that in biology two kinds of methodology — a mechanistic and a vitalistic one — must interlock and harmoniously complement one another, in order that biology may exist at all as a rigorous science and become the foundation of a genuine psychology.

Fourth Lecture: The Relation of Biology to Mechanics, and the Principle of Vital-Mechanical Correlation#

The relation of biology to mechanics. The perversity of the question whether there is a vital force. Measurement and estimation. The doctrine of energies demands not only a mechanistic but also a vitalistic treatment. Principle of vital-mechanical correlation. Vitalism a question of fact. Distinguishing definition of sensation and feeling, of animal and vegetative life-process. General definition of the life-process in distinction from the inorganic natural process. Misuse of the concepts of the unconscious and the subconscious in biology.

Gentlemen! In the compass of all other sciences, biology, or the science of life, has known how to secure for itself a position perhaps less clarified and less firmly established than any other, for on the one hand it allows itself to be seduced into wishing to be a purely mechanistic science, whilst on the other it recklessly abandons its most original and most proper possession (the affective and sensitive life) and allows psychology to deprive it of the most precious piece of its rightful inheritance. It is in this manner comparable to a realm which, though endowed by nature with treasures beyond number, yet through inner discord forfeits its independence and becomes the plaything of the caprice of power-hungry neighbouring realms. But since the discord in one domain of human knowledge communicates itself, like a contagiumContagium — contagion (Latin). Palágyi uses the medical-Latin term to characterise the spread of intellectual confusion from one discipline to another. [Contagium], to all the remaining domains, the inner disarray of biology must, in the final reckoning, cause the most valuable striving of the human spirit — the striving after unified cognition — to appear endangered in the highest degree at every point of inquiry. But philosophy, which must direct its chief attention to the unity within all manifoldnesses of our cognition, has in our day scarcely any more important task to solve than to labour with all the power of a pure drive towards truth for the independence and inner consolidation of biology, so that it may know how to assert itself with equal energy against psychology and the mechanical natural sciences alike. Biology must on the one hand reconquer from psychology the realm of affective and sensitive life, so that psychology too may at last devote itself to its own proper specific vocation; on the other hand, however, it must appropriate all the methods and auxiliary means of the mechanistic sciences and reshape them in accordance with its own purposes, so that it may press in upon the riddle of life with ever newer and ever sharper weapons. Then will also come the time when it will richly repay to the mechanistic sciences what it had to borrow from them in methods and means. For let no one believe that a consistent mechanics can in any way be carried through without regard to biology. All perception of mechanical processes depends, after all, upon the vital modes of sensation that are peculiar to our life-process, and the great mechanistic problem of the unity and interconnexion of the “energy-types” is most intimately interwoven with the no less great problem of the unity and interconnexion of our vital sensory functions. A double problem whose significance was, characteristically, divined more deeply by no one than the physiologist Johannes Müller,Johannes Müller (1801–1858), German physiologist. His doctrine of specific nerve energies (Gesetz der spezifischen Sinnesenergien) held that the quality of a sensation depends not on the stimulus but on the nerve stimulated — placing the problem of energy-types and sensory functions in intimate connexion. and which unfortunately, in its entire import, is wont even today to be appreciated neither by mechanistic investigators nor yet by biologists.

In any case, however, physicists and chemists in our day look upon biology with a tension that is constantly growing, for they well divine that the fundamental questions of energetics [Energielehre] concerning the nature of heat, light, electricity, and so forth, cannot possibly be brought closer to a deeper solution without the co-operation of biological research, and especially the investigation of the vital sensory functions [Sinnesfunktionen]. Only thus does it become comprehensible that precisely the most distinguished modern representatives of the inorganic natural sciences — men such as Maxwell, Thomson, Hertz, Ostwald, Chwolson, etc. etc. — show themselves fully persuaded of the distinctive character and the irreducibility of vital processes to mechanical ones. Such investigators feel just how far their art reaches, and in their taking of a stand in favour of the distinctive character of vital processes there lies, indirectly, also the acknowledgement of the significance which the organic natural sciences are in the process of winning for themselves alongside the inorganic. We are approaching a new epoch in the natural sciences, one characterised by the fact that it will place biology on a fully equal footing with the mechanical natural sciences, without raising the absurd demand that biology must therefore dissolve itself into pure mechanics.

The historical development of modern science and philosophy brought it about that for a long time the mechanistic disciplines hovered before the aspiring modern spirit as the model of the only genuine science. The superiority of the modern spirit over the ancient spirit could at first manifest itself only in a mechanistic manner: the earth had, as it were, to be conquered and grasped as a member of the solar system, so that a reshaping of human society and at the same time of human knowledge might be made possible. We are fascinated even today by the mechanistic edifice of thought whose foundation-stones stem from Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, but that opinion which holds that genuine science can be won only in a mechanistic-mathematical manner appears to us as a reactionary illusion — that is, as a view which stands most highly obstructive to the progress of the natural sciences, and indeed not only of the organic but also of the inorganic. We are pervaded by the conviction that every genuine science must become as conscious as possible of the specific and incomparable element that lies in its own production of knowledge, because precisely through this the sense of a necessary reciprocal supplementation across all fields is awakened and the philosophical drive towards the unification of human cognition is most powerfully stimulated.

Alongside the sense for the mechanical, the sense for the living too has gradually attained a higher development in modern science, and we are, as has been said, approaching that second epoch of modern development in which biology, at last rousing itself to true independence, will act fructifyingly back upon the mechanical sciences. In connexion with this evolution, philosophy too must undergo a far-reaching transformation, because in its striving after unification it is at least in part always dependent upon the current state of the special sciences. The history of modern philosophy shows us, namely, that the philosophical systems were unable to do justice to the vital element in the world of happenings, and involuntarily suppressed the same, whether in favour of the supposedly psychological or of the mechanical. Inasmuch as philosophy now also seeks to appreciate the vital happening in its entire distinctive significance, it will be able to place mental activity itself in a new light, which must bring in its train a complete transformation of the theory of knowledge and of metaphysics.

The distinctive character of vital happening is, however, grasped in a philosophical manner by attempting on the one hand to distinguish the concept of the life-process from that of mental activity, and on the other the concept of the life-process from that of mechanical happening, as sharply as possible. Both problems interest us in an equally high degree, and a “systematic” solution of them would require that I first enter more closely into the difference between aliveness and consciousness, that is, into the intermittency-problem; but the endeavour to proceed step by step from the more easily grasped to the more difficult compels me to send the distinction of the living from the mechanical ahead.

It is, as was already shown in the previous lecture, a logical perversity to seek to demonstrate the existence of peculiar vital processes by proceeding from the existence of mechanical ones. This perversity expressed itself in the course of the modern history of the sciences in the most manifold forms: for example, in the fact that the champions of vitality set up the existence of a so-called “vital force” or alternatively a “vital matter” as the foundation of their view, and thereby gave their opponents occasion for boundless verbal dispute. In the vis essentialis [“essential force”] of Caspar Friedrich Wolff, in the propriétés vitales [“vital properties”] of X. Bichat, in the vires vitales [“vital forces”] (contractility, irritability, and sensibility) of Haller and Blumenbach,Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1733–1794), vis essentialis [“essential force”]; Xavier Bichat (1771–1802), propriétés vitales [“vital properties”]; Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), vires vitales [“vital forces”] — contractility, irritability, sensibility. Each attempted to name the distinctive principle of living matter. etc., there finds expression, to be sure, a mighty striving after clarity regarding the concept of life, but however much depth of intuition may attach to the aforementioned conceptual formulations, the confusedness of the same was bound to lead, of necessity, to an interminable verbal dispute. For how is one to decide whether a so-called specific “vital force” exists or does not exist, when the concept of “mechanical force” itself has never yet been fixed by any mortal in a sufficiently clear and determinate manner? What enormous obscurity attaches, for example, to the concept of a “force acting at a distance,” as gravitation is supposed to be! Can there be anything more unmethodical in the world than to entangle the problem of the distinctive character of life-processes with the problem of the concept of force? And does one suppose that a concept of force can be formed at all before the distinctive character of life-processes, in contrast to mechanical processes, has been grasped? Whence do we originally take the concept of force, if not from our own vital experience? We could never arrive at the concept of a so-called “force” if we did not know from our own life-processes what it means to lift a weight or to be unable to lift it, to push another body or to be pushed by it, to exert a pressure upon an object or to undergo a pressure from it, etc. etc. We do indeed, in the measurementMessung — measurement; the rigorous, publicly reproducible quantification of mechanical processes. Always depends upon estimation at its base, since every reading of an instrument requires a vital act of sensory judgement. of forces, make ourselves as free as possible from regard for the intensity of our vital processes; yet it must not be left out of account that we could never arrive at a measurement of forces if we had not first practised an estimation [Schätzung]Schätzung — estimation; the pre-scientific, vitally grounded comparison of magnitudes (e.g. judging which of two weights is heavier by lifting them). For Palágyi, estimation is epistemically prior to measurement: without vital estimation, mechanical measurement would never arise. of them by means of the intensity of the vital processes of our own life-process. Whoever, for example, had never compared two weights by estimation with one another could not have even the faintest intimation of what it means to compare the weights of two bodies by means of a balance. Without an estimation of forces there would never come about a measurement of them. Indeed, estimation mingles in every mechanistic measurement, for when, for example, we lay a unit of length against a line to be measured, what matters is that the end-point of the measuring-rod be brought into coincidence with the corresponding point of the line to be measured; but the judgement of the optical coincidence of two points is an estimation of this coincidence by means of the vital sensory functions of sight (and by means of the consciousness-activity bound up with this vital function), which are never executed with complete accuracy. It is, as is well known, already for this reason impossible to carry through an absolutely exact measurement: because in all our measuring there ultimately mingles an estimation as well. In other words, all human perceptual functions, and especially also measuring perceptions or observations, are ultimately bound to vital processes of the observing person, and however much we may endeavour to eliminate or render harmless these vital functions, this can never fully succeed. An exact measurement exists only in thought; all actual measurement has only an approximate exactness, for the very reason that all actual measurement remains dependent upon vital functions. If, then, the opinion insinuates itself into the experimental mechanical natural sciences that they could wholly free themselves from the influence of vital processes upon their investigations, this is a sheer illusion, to which, moreover, only the entirely uncritical labourers of the mechanical natural sciences fall victim. The mechanical natural sciences must indeed be intent upon purifying the results of their investigations as far as possible of the defects that arise from the admixture of vital processes, because the progress of those sciences depends upon this purification in the highest degree; but they must at the same time be pervaded by the critical consciousness that the vital process will always mingle in every step they take, and that the “exactness” they strive for must always remain only an unattainable ideal.

As with the measurement of forces, so too the concept of force itself always remains dependent upon our regard for our vital processes. This shows itself most clearly when one speaks of a qualitative multiplicity of forces or energies. There could never be talk of gravitation, heat, sound, light, electricity and magnetism, as well as of chemical affinity, if there did not exist different kinds of sensory functions.

The energy-types [Energiearten] do not entirely coincide with our modes of sensation, but no one fails to recognise that, for example, there could be no talk of heat, light, or sound if vital heat-, light-, and sound-sensations did not correspond to these physical energies. How gravitation, electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity stand in relation to our vital sensory functions remains, to be sure, in darkness; nonetheless no one doubts that, if we did not possess a multiplicity of modes of sensation, we could not have even the faintest intimation of a multiplicity of physico-chemical energies. When, therefore, the mechanist speaks of a “conversion” or transformation [Energietransformation] of one energy-type into another — for example, of the conversion of electricity into heat, etc. — this entire manner of expression has a meaning only with a view to the multiplicity of our vital sensory functions; that is, there arises the vitalistic problem of why it is that we possess a multiplicity of modes of sensation and not merely a single one, because without the answering of this question the existence of a multiplicity of energies and of a conversion of one into another remains utterly incomprehensible.

The mechanistic investigators ought to acknowledge that the concept of a multiplicity of energy-types is by no means a merely mechanistic concept but at the same time a vitalistic one, because without regard to the diversity of our senses there can be no talk at all of diverse energies. They ought also to declare openly that the concept of the transformation of one energy into another remains, from the purely mechanistic standpoint, something absolutely unintelligible, and that it would be the task of vitalistic natural science to shed light upon the exceedingly difficult question of that magical conversion of forces into one another. In the final analysis, this conversion means nothing other than that processes belonging to one sense-domain disappear and in their place processes arise which have a differently constituted connexion with the manifold of our sense-domains. Every energy-transformation is equivalent to a relation-transformation with respect to our sense-domains, and thus contains not only a mechanistic but also a vitalistic problem. Although this proposition says something self-evident, it nonetheless seems as though investigators would not bring its content to consciousness. For otherwise one would conceive the doctrine of the transformation of energies not as a merely physico-chemical but at the same time as a biological (vitalistic) theory which, therefore, cannot be carried further without the co-operation of the science of life. It seems to me no mere coincidence that the great founder of modern energetics, Julius Robert Mayer,Julius Robert Mayer (1814–1878), German physician and physicist. His formulation of the conservation of energy (1842) drew on both medical and physical reasoning, embodying the vital-mechanical correlation that Palágyi here champions. was a physician who knew how to combine mechanistic and vitalistic thinking happily with one another.

Since the existence of life-processes is conditioned by mechanical processes, and conversely mechanical processes can have existence for us only insofar as they are presented to us through processes of our own life, it follows from this principle of vital-mechanical correlationThe principle of vital-mechanical correlation [vital-mechanische Correlation]: the existence of vital processes is conditioned by mechanical processes and vice versa; consequently the fundamental questions of energetics are joint questions of mechanistic and vitalistic research. [vital-mechanische Correlation] that the fundamental questions of energetics must be joint questions of both mechanistic and vitalistic natural science. The mechanistic fundamental concepts of force, mass, motion, velocity, acceleration, action, etc. belong before the forum of biology just as much as before that of the inorganic natural sciences. Most especially the problems of the multiplicity, the transformation, and the unity of the natural forces are in exactly the same measure vitalistic as they are mechanistic problems — that is, they require at every decisive point a supplementary vitalistic illumination, without which they remain absolutely unintelligible. If one does not investigate how one and the same life-process can differentiate itself into life-events so diverse as colour-sensation, tone-sensation, temperature-sensation, etc., and nonetheless remain a unitary life-process which forms the foundation of a unitary consciousness-activity, then the multiplicity, transformation, and unity of the physico-chemical energies will never be able to receive a deeper foundation. It is a shameful deficiency of the modern scientific enterprise that biologists, and especially physiologists, believe they can take over the concepts of force, mass, motion, and altogether the principles of energetics ready-made from the mechanistic natural sciences, when one must precisely expect from them a new, supplementary illumination of these concepts and doctrines. The mechanist wishes to learn from the vitalist every bit as much as the vitalist from the mechanist, and it is merely the subordinate position of the biological disciplines, historically brought about in the manner mentioned above, that prevents this from being universally recognised.

It is therefore a logical perversity to tie the right of vitalism to exist to the question whether there is a vital force or not. For before one enters upon the discussion of the concept of force, the equal right of vitalistic and mechanistic research must already be a settled matter. It is accordingly deeply to be lamented that distinguished minds, leaders of scientific and philosophical thought, in the second half of the nineteenth century — men such as Claude Bernard and Lotze — believed they could reject vitalism because the concept of a vital force seemed to them untenable. There is in truth scarcely anything easier than to blow out the light of life of the concept of a “vital force,” but the question is only whether such an undertaking is even worth the philosophical trouble.

For when Claude BernardClaude Bernard (1813–1878), French physiologist, founder of experimental medicine. He rejected vitalism as postulating an extra-physical force, but his distinction between force législative [“legislative force”] and force exécutive [“executive force”] reveals how far the concept of force remained unsettled. The French phrases are Palágyi’s citation; the exact terms may derive from Bernard’s own French texts. takes the vital force in the sense of a force extraphysique, spéciale, indépendante [“extra-physical, special, independent force”], there will surely be found no serious thinker who could make such a concept his own. Such a dualism of energies, which sets the energy of life over against the remaining forces as an extra-physical and wholly independent energy, will be acceptable to no person who places even the slightest weight upon unity of thought. Claude Bernard himself no doubt felt this, and he took the view that if one might speak of a vital force at all, it could be envisaged only as a force législative [“legislative force”], but not as a force exécutive [“executive force”]. From such fine-grained intimations it shines forth how little the concept of force is in any way clarified even now, and how even among the most acute investigators it appears wrapped in a deep mist of intuition. Are we really to distinguish merely “legislative” natural forces from merely “executive” ones? May one introduce such anthropomorphic (sociological) concepts as “legislative” and “executive” into natural science? Had a so-called vitalist uttered such intuition-laden intimations, one would surely have reproached him with confusing the constitution of the realm of nature with the constitution of a human state. One does better, therefore, not to enter upon word-battles concerning the “vital force” at all, for how is anything to be settled regarding it when the concept of force altogether lies in darkness?

If science is at last to arrive at a clear and definitive taking of a stand with respect to vitalism, then the fundamental question of the same must simply be made a quaestio facti [“question of fact”]. The question is whether there are processes known to everyone that have neither a physical nor a chemical but precisely a vital character. If there are such processes, then the justification of vitalistic research is decided once and for all in the affirmative; if there are no such processes, then its justification is definitively denied. For it is one thing to solve the vitalistic riddle conclusively, and quite another to demonstrate conclusively the justification of vitalistic research. The former can never fully succeed; the latter must, on the other hand, unconditionally be accomplished, if there is to be a biology as a science at all. Now, however, the Vivo [“I live”] is a proposition that equals the Cogito [“I think”] in certainty, and since it is grounded upon the facts of feeling and of sense-sensation, the object of vitalistic (and not of psychological!) research is given together with these facts. These processes are characterised, as has been said, by the fact that they can have only one witness — that is, they are individual.

I am glad to be of one mind in this fundamental question with a biologist such as Apáthy.Stephan von Apáthy (1863–1922), Hungarian zoologist and neuroanatomist. In an 1884 essay in Budapesti Szemle, he identified individuality as the essential mark of life — a position Palágyi here claims as convergent with his own. Already in an essay that appeared in 1884 in the Hungarian review Budapesti Szemle, he declared that he regarded the individual character of life as its essentially chief mark. To be sure, he takes — as can be expected of no one other than a natural scientist — the concept of individuality in a morphological sense, in which even the little lump of protoplasm of which a moneron consists is to be regarded as an individuality; but if one translates his conception into the philosophical, where one must proceed not from an arbitrary life-process but from one’s own as the immediately known, then his conception agrees at its core with mine.

To be sure — as was already set forth in the previous lecture — the life-process is not exhausted by the declaration that life-processes can have only one witness, because there are life-events that run their course in themselves without any witness and that are characterised by the fact that on the one hand they awaken feelings, and on the other come to light through mechanical processes, especially through movements. Let us look more closely at these own-movements [Eigenbewegung].

Our own movement presents itself to our sense-perception, especially to our visual perception, in the same manner as it presents itself to a foreign observer. But even when we close our eyes, our own movement can present itself to us in the same manner as it presents itself to a foreign perceiving person. I can, for example, stroke my left hand with my right, so that in the former a flowing series of tactile sensations arises through which the movement of my right hand is clearly made known to me. But equally a foreign hand could stroke my left, and I would then be able to ascertain the movement of this foreign hand in exactly the same manner as before the movement of my own right hand. From this it can be seen that one’s own movement communicates itself not only to the sense of sight but also to the sense of touch like a foreign, like a mechanical process. In general it must be maintained that all our sensation-processes are such vital processes by means of which we take cognisance of mechanical processes. Apart from the sensation-processes there are no vital processes whatever through which mechanical processes could be made known to us.

Our own movement too, insofar as it is a mechanical process — that is, a spectacle also for other observers — can be made known to us only through sensations.

But were our own movement given to us merely through sensations, we could never distinguish it from foreign movements. The movement of our own hand must be given to us, beyond sensations, in quite another manner, so that we may recognise it as an own movement. We can also sense any foreign movement whatsoever, and insofar as our own movement is a merely sensed one, it may not really be called an own movement at all; for in its mere sensedness it is something as foreign to us as any foreign movement. This foreignness of one’s own movement finds its most glaring expression where it is — as in the case of a suicide — intent upon extinguishing one’s own life.

How, then, does our own movement announce itself to us as our own? The answer to this is: in no case through sensations, but always only through feelings. When, therefore, modern psychology speaks of movement-sensations and supposes that through these we can have knowledge of our own movement (as our own), it is caught up in the most thoroughgoing confusion of the concept of sensation and the concept of feeling, and hence also in a confusion of mechanical and vital processes. Through feelings there is always immediately made known to us only our own life-process, whilst through sensations only mechanical processes can ever be taken cognisance of. Both feelings and sensations are life-processes, but life-processes of such a kind that through them other processes are made known to our consciousness: through feelings, namely, such other processes as belong to our own life-process and form its substratum; through sensations, on the other hand, such processes as are purely mechanical in nature.

If we now survey the processes of our life-process as they present themselves to us in the sense of our investigation hitherto, they divide in the first instance into two main groups: a) those that have an immediate contact with our consciousness, and these I call animal life-processesAnimal — animal (Latin animalis, ensouled); those life-processes that stand in immediate contact with consciousness — namely sensations, feelings, and phantasms. Not to be confused with the ordinary English word ‘animal’; Palágyi’s usage is consciousness-theoretic, not zoological.; b) those that can have no immediate contact with our consciousness, and these I designate as vegetative life-processesVegetativ — vegetative; those life-processes of the structural elements of the body (cells, muscles, organs) that have no immediate contact with consciousness, making themselves known only through feelings and through their mechanical expressions. [vegetative Lebensvorgänge]. In the group of animal life-processes we have hitherto distinguished a α) feelings, which are the intermediate bearers between consciousness and one’s own vegetative substratum of life, and further a β) sensations, through which consciousness is placed in connexion with the world of mechanical processes. Later it will be shown that we must also distinguish a third kind of animal life-processes, namely the phantasms, which have an eminent significance for every kind of mental activity of the human being.

As for the first division, it must be emphasised that it is not to be confused with the vague distinction of “animal” and “vegetative” as it is sometimes still customary even today in biological investigations. In older physiological textbooks the life-functions were separated into four groups, of which nutrition and reproduction were designated as vegetative, and sensation and movement as animal functions. It is superfluous to enter critically into these superficial pigeon-holings of the subject matter. In them a variety of conflations of the mechanical, the vital, and that which pertains to consciousness find expression. It was also supposed that plants and animals could be distinguished in this way: that the former do indeed nourish themselves and reproduce, but that sensation and movement belong only to the latter. Over these vague phrases of a childish empiricism we need waste no word. The relation of plant life to animal life is one of the most difficult problems of the philosophy of nature, into which we cannot enter within the compass of these lectures.

The distinction that I make between animal and vegetative life-processes has in the first place nothing whatever to do with the difference between plant and animal, for the reason already given that we are here occupied solely with the consideration of one’s own life-process and, in general, of an animal life-process. All our distinctions relating to the life-process have a consciousness-theoretic character — that is, we distinguish life-processes according to the manner of their relation to our consciousness-activity. Thus we said, for example, that the animal life-processes have an immediate connexion with consciousness, whereas the vegetative lack such a connexion; and further, that feelings are such vital processes as place consciousness in connexion with the vegetative substratum, whilst sensations are such as place it in connexion with the mechanical world of appearances. If one desires a comprehensive definition of vital processes as well as of mechanical ones, one may give it the following form: Vital processes are in general characterised by the fact that they stand to a single consciousness in such relational categories as they can never stand to any other consciousness; mechanical processes, by contrast, are such as stand, or can be thought of as standing, to the consciousness of arbitrarily many persons in the same relational categories.

Of the life of plants, as one sees, there is no talk here at all, nor need there be, because we are here considering the life-process solely in its relation to consciousness. By the expression “vegetative life” is meant, as has been said, the same as what one otherwise customarily designates the “own-life” of the structural elements of our organism: for example, the own-life of a ganglion cell, a neurofibril, a muscle fibre, a gland, or of an organ in general. The fundamental character of this own-life is precisely that in its immediacy it can never come to consciousness, but only through an intermediary — feeling — enters into a relation with consciousness. Unfortunately, biologists as well as philosophers have allowed themselves to be enticed by the concept of “own-life” into connecting with it at once an “own-consciousness” of the structural elements of our organism. Thus arose the terms: “subconsciousness” [Unterbewusstsein] and “the unconscious” [das Unbewusste], which concerning the riddle of vegetative life say in truth absolutely nothing, but are for that very reason suited in the highest degree to kindle interminable verbal dispute. What use is it to impute to the individual structural elements of our organism an “unconscious consciousness” or else various degrees and stages of a “subconsciousness,” since through this we only rob ourselves of the concept of consciousness without having illuminated the secret of vital processes even in the slightest?

It is far from me to wish in any way to diminish the significance of the concept “unconscious” for the investigation of consciousness; but in the doctrine of life nothing can be accomplished with it. Let me be permitted to recall that in these lectures we set out from the observation of how little we know our own consciousness — that is, in other words, how much of the unconscious attaches to our own consciousness-activity. It would have no sense at all to speak of an investigation of consciousness if there were nothing about it that remains unconscious to us and that is to be brought, through investigation, into the light of a more highly developed consciousness. In this sense, and only in this sense, does the concept “unconscious” have a significance for philosophy — one which, as one sees, is indeed a fundamental significance.

But as for the vital processes, in their domain one can by means of the adjective “unconscious” make no distinctions at all, because all vital processes are in themselves unconscious of themselves. The higher, or animal, life-processes — sensations, feelings, phantasms — are namely not consciousness-activities; they merely come to consciousness — that is, they merely unite themselves with consciousness-activity — but are in themselves something wholly unconscious. As for the vegetative life-processes, it scarcely needs special emphasis that they are of an unconscious nature, for they merely form the foundation of the animal processes and can never enter into immediate connexion with consciousness at all. Thus the entire realm of vital processes is in itself a wholly unconscious realm; the same holds, however, also of the world of mechanical processes in itself. Of “degrees” or “stages” of consciousness there can therefore be as little talk in the domain of mere life in itself as in the domain of mechanical processes in themselves. For precisely this reason it can be of no use whatever to operate, in biological investigations, with various stages of “subconsciousness” or “unconsciousness,” because these mystical concepts lead only to confusing the vital process with the inorganic natural process and to dissolving either the vital into mere mechanics or indeed all the mechanical into vitality.

Fifth Lecture: Feeling and Sensation, and the Vital Foundations of Knowledge#

The importance of the distinction between feeling and sensation. Psychologism finds no ground of distinction for them, because it severs them from their relations. Critique of the Wundtian distinction between feeling and sensation. The error contained in the conceptual separation of outer and inner perception. The distinction of the passive and the active feelings. The fusion of the passive feelings with the sensations and the significance of this fusion for the knowledge resting on sense-perception. The significance of the active feelings for intuitive knowledge. The conjunction of feeling-life and phantasy-life in the affect.

Gentlemen! In the previous lecture we learned to distinguish two kinds of animal vital processes, namely feelings and sensations. The distinction we have gained is of fundamental significance, because it issues into the problem of vitalism and mechanism and casts a new light upon the same. For sensations relate to mechanical processes, feelings, on the other hand, to the life-substratum. The distinction of mechanical and vital processes thus hangs together in the most intimate manner with the distinction of sensations and feeling: so that, were we incapable of holding feeling and sensation apart, we could also never arrive at the concept of an inorganic natural process as distinguished from our own life-process. There are accordingly few human distinctions that would be in principle as significant for the possibility of a knowledge whatsoever as the separation of the concept of feeling from that of sensation.

Unfortunately, neither philosophers nor yet biologists have sufficiently emphasised the distinct nature of feeling and sensation and their immense bearing upon all human knowledge. The importance of this difference resounds most energetically in the profound Fichte. He says, among other things: “Only the alien is found (sensed); the original (as feeling), posited in the I, is always there.” (Fichte’s Works, vol. I, p. 289.)Fichte’s German puns on finden (to find) and empfinden (to sense, to feel): “Nur das Fremdartige wird gefunden (empfunden).” The alien is what is found — that is, sensed from without — whereas the original feeling, posited in the I, is always already there. Such insights, however, more poetic than scientific, are wont to contribute little to the clarification of concepts. Moreover, Fichte here speaks only of feelings in so far as they have grown together with the developed self-consciousness, whereas in our considerations the talk is only of feelings in themselves, that is, of vital processes, in regard to which one must abstract from the consciousness-activity with which they are connected.

Among those who most fail to recognise the difference between sensation and feeling belongs the otherwise so acute Herbart.Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841), Kant’s successor at Königsberg, conceived the soul’s life as a mechanics of self-preserving “representations” (Vorstellungen) that inhibit and reinforce one another — the target of Palágyi’s charge that feelings are thereby denied any character of their own. With him every vital content becomes at once a mental content, and every mental content an imperishable metaphysical thing, which he calls a “representation” [Vorstellung] and defines as the self-preservation of the soul against external disturbances. Feelings, however, are for him absolutely nothing peculiar in kind; rather, they proceed for him merely from the reciprocal action of the “representations.”

If Herbart knows how to do so little justice to the nature of our feelings, this lies chiefly in the dependence of his thinking upon English psychologism. It is grounded in the very nature of the psychologistic mode of thought that it is incapable of holding apart the concepts of sensation and feeling. For if one makes psychical activities out of vital processes, then one robs them of their essential fundamental character, and can then of course arrive at no natural distinction of them. The strict psychologism which, setting out from Berkeley, transposes all the processes of the world into consciousness, and thereby attains to the denial of processes outside one’s own consciousness, is incapable of distinguishing sensation from feeling, because it locks up both sensation and feeling in the prison of consciousness — that is, severs them from those relations by which they can be distinguished from one another. If one robs sensation of its relation to the mechanical processes, and the feelings of their relation to the vegetative life-substratum, then they do indeed cease to be different from one another. For a strict psychologist the concepts of sensation and feeling will in fact be unable to part from one another, and he will dissolve the whole world into mere sensations.

But even those psychologists who lock up merely the one half of the world in the Bastille of consciousness, and let the other half — the physical — romp about freely outside the dungeon of consciousness, are not in a position to find a ground of distinction for sensation and feeling. For they cannot, after all, say that the feelings run their course within, the sensations on the other hand outside consciousness, because, according to their standpoint, both feelings and sensations must be phenomena (psychical appearances) flowing entirely within consciousness. But as soon as one makes both kinds of process into prisoners of the consciousness-prison, they cease to be different from one another.

It is now in the highest degree interesting to see how a researcher such as Wundt,Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), founder of experimental psychology and of the first psychological laboratory (Leipzig, 1879). His tridimensional theory of feeling classed feelings as the “subjective” complement of “objective” sensation — the very distinction Palágyi dismantles here. for example, knows how to help himself in so difficult a position; that is, how he keeps the sensations and feelings interned in the cage of consciousness, and yet attempts to distinguish the two from one another. He teaches that feelings would be subjective, sensations on the other hand objective processes within consciousness. But by what is a subjective process distinguished from an objective one? In regard to this question no doubt can prevail that, by subjective occurrences, one has to understand those that are vouched for by but a single witness, and by objective ones, on the other hand, those that can be perceived by any number of witnesses. To be sure, one applies the expressions subjective and objective also to the validity of mental contents, so that one says, for example, that this or that opinion has merely a subjective validity, whereas truth is distinguished by its universal validity; yet it is superfluous to take account of these scholastic determinations, because here it is not asserted of the validity of mental contents, but of occurrences, that they are partly subjective, partly objective occurrences. Since, now, it is not possible to find any other difference between a subjective and an objective event than that the one is perceivable merely by one person, the other, however, by any number of persons: there lies concealed in the Wundtian distinction between feeling and sensation that the former fall into a personal consciousness and can therefore be perceived only by this person (are subjective), the latter, on the other hand, fall outside a personal consciousness, that is, are universally perceivable (objective). But then merely the feelings would be psychical processes (that is, such as run their course within consciousness), sensations, on the other hand, physical processes that fall outside a consciousness: which of course could have no sense.

One recognises here that the expressions subjective and objective, which Wundt employs in order to hold feeling and sensation apart, are mere expressions of embarrassment. For it suffers no doubt that both sensations and feelings are processes that can have but a single witness, and that thus both have a “subjective” (vital) character. The sensation, however, is such a subjective process as is immediately related to objective (mechanical) processes, whereas the feeling has an immediate relation merely to the subjective vegetative life-substratum. But in that Wundt locks sensation and feeling into the prison of consciousness, he is compelled to sever them both from their relations; if, then, he nevertheless wishes to distinguish them, he must make the sensations into objective processes.

This, however, is, as said, an error, for sensations are in themselves subjective (vital) processes, which are nevertheless distinguished by the fact that they relate to objective (mechanical) processes.

In general, through the severing of sensation and feeling from their relations, and through the transposing of them into the kennel of consciousness, their scientific investigation is rendered impossible. We stand here before the fundamental evil of psychologism, which consists in this: that it transforms our consciousness into a kind of cage, in which sensations, feelings, and suchlike processes carry on their mischief. The ancients knew nothing of this cage; its invention is the work of modern psychologistic philosophy. For one fashioned for oneself, in metaphorical fashion, by analogy with the cranial cavity, a consciousness-cavity, and employed this metaphor so long until it lost its metaphorical character, and the researchers began to speak of processes that run their course “within consciousness,” quite as though consciousness were a hollow space shut off from the rest of the world, a kind of cloud-cuckoo-land,Wolkenkukucksheim — “cloud-cuckoo-land,” the city built in the air by the birds in Aristophanes’ comedy The Birds (Nephelokokkygia). Palágyi uses it as a byword for a fantastical realm with no place in reality. in which the “psychical appearances” haunt about.

The psychologistic mode of thought is characterised altogether by this, that it works with nothing but metaphorical concepts in such a way as though these were not of metaphorical nature. It belongs, however, to the character of a truly inferior, fetish-forming thinking that it knows how to make no distinction between figurative and non-figurative thoughts, and accordingly apprehends its own figurative expressions as though they were to be taken not in a transferred, but in a direct sense.

Whoever speaks of occurrences, processes, appearances that run, flow, or haunt “within consciousness” will never be able to attain to a rational conception of consciousness. For there are no occurrences, no processes, no appearances within consciousness, because consciousness is no cage, no kennel, no dungeon, no receptacle, no hollow space, and in general no locality with respect to which there could be an outside and an inside, and which could thus harbour occurrences, processes, appearances within its interior. Let one hold fast, to begin with, to the fact that our consciousness subsists only in so far as it is active, and that accordingly one must speak not of consciousness-processes, but of consciousness-deeds, of consciousness-acts. If one accustoms oneself, when consciousness is in question, to think not of a cloud-cuckoo-land, but to begin with of nothing further than of one’s own mental doings, then it will be understood of itself that these mental doings are no hollow spaces. In examining the nature of these

mental doings, it will then also gradually show itself how they hang together with the vital processes that take place within the cranial cavity, or rather within the brain and the organism in general.

It is further to be remarked that the psychologists of strict observance, who set out from Berkeley (and whom one is also wont to designate as philosophers of immanence),The “philosophers of immanence” (Immanenzphilosophie) — Wilhelm Schuppe, Richard von Schubert-Soldern, and others — held that nothing can be thought outside consciousness, so that the whole world is “immanent” to it. make the individual cage of consciousness into an infinite cage, which thus comprehends the whole universe within itself, so that outside it nothing more comes to lie. The other class of psychologists makes the cage of consciousness into a finite one, so that within it the psychical processes, outside it the physical processes, come to lie. Which of the two conceptions is the more comical will probably never let itself be decided; nevertheless the former does deserve, in so far, a higher estimation, because it is original and brings its fundamental error to open-hearted expression with bold directness. The second conception, which apprehends consciousness in the shape of a finite kennel, is not only comical, it is also base. It lacks originality, is merely a feeble and faint-hearted imitation of the former, contains also all the errors of the former within itself, and replaces merely the exuberance of the former by that mental narrowness and inferiority which everywhere comes to the fore wherever a human child is unable to distinguish figurative from non-figurative speech.

With the cage-theory of human consciousness it now hangs together that psychologism, since Locke, everywhere sets out from an outer and an inner perception, of which the former perceives those processes that run their course outside the cage of consciousness, the latter, on the other hand, beholds those processes that take place within the cage of consciousness. In the sense of this mode of thought, then, not only the physical processes but also the psychical activities would be of intuitable nature — which, in my conception, is the gravest aberration of which philosophy has ever made itself guilty. The philosophical spirit cannot sink deeper than when there goes lost to it that degree of reflection which is requisite for discerning that psychical activities, whether they be now of lower or of higher kind, are at all stages of their development of essentially non-intuitable nature. Already the act of mere sense-perception, as for example the act of seeing, is something non-intuitable; for surely no rational person will imagine to himself that he could inspect the act of his seeing.

But although the “inner perception” of the psychologists will be an object of the laughter of later thinking generations, who will nevermore imagine that they can behold their own

psychical activity, we must yet be intent upon disclosing that well-warranted mental urge which, in the distinction of outer and inner perception, unfortunately got onto a false track and thereby strayed into the realm of the comical. Locke and his successors did indeed scent a truth, in that they spoke of a twofold becoming-aware of processes, or more correctly of the becoming-aware of two kinds of process; yet what was at issue therein was not at all the distinction of psychical activity from physical processes, as they believed. For we all have the capacity to distinguish between mechanical processes and our own life-process, and we owe this to the circumstance that we are able to hold apart our sensations and feelings. We discover our own life-process by means of our feelings; we discover the mechanical natural process by means of our sensations; and in that we learn, in the course of our mental development, to make the great distinction between what is sensed and what is felt, a light dawns upon us that our own life-process is something other than the mechanical natural process which all-sidedly encompasses and penetrates the same.

If, then, anyone seeks to rescue the fundamental concepts of modern psychology, namely outer and inner perception, he must confer upon them a wholly new sense. For if someone becomes aware of his own life — which is not thinkable without feeling-processes — one may call this inner perception; if, on the other hand, he notices that his life-process is bound to mechanical processes — which cannot take place without sensation-processes — then there may be talk of an outer perception. Herewith it is shown that psychology is caught up in a confusion of the most important fundamental concepts of all knowledge. Instead of distinguishing the psychical activity from the vital process, it slides down to a distinction of the vital process from the mechanical processes, and yet believes that it has distinguished the psychical from the physical, whereby there arises that modern confusion of concepts which whirls together, at a loss, the mental, the living, and the mechanical.

But just as we are incapable of establishing with precision, spatially or temporally, where the mechanical process ceases and the vital process begins, or vice versa, so it is also not given to us to sunder feeling and sensation sharply from one another. From this, however, it by no means follows that we may give up the conceptual difference of feeling and sensation. We find, for example, also that in given cases a red can pass over into a yellow, and by no means infer from this that the concepts red and yellow may be given up in their distinctness. Similarly it stands with

feelings and sensations, which can fuse with one another in inseparable fashion, without the warrant for distinguishing the two concepts being thereby in the least altered. In general the defective human capacity for distinction in concrete cases is never a sufficient ground for letting fall distinctions otherwise obtained; on the contrary, we shall have to hold all the more stubbornly to such a distinction, the more inadequate is the natural acuity of perception out of which it proceeded.

All our sensations fuse with more or less energetic feeling-processes, which we are wont to designate as the feeling-tone [Gefühlston] of those sensations.Gefühlston — “feeling-tone,” the affective colouring (pleasant or unpleasant) attaching to a sensation. The term is Wundt’s; Palágyi adopts it but reinterprets the feeling-tone as a vital process of the vegetative substratum rather than a psychical element. We shall not be permitted to take offence at this state of affairs, for the mechanical process that acts upon our organism necessarily excites the vegetative substratum of the same, and thus comes to our consciousness not through a “pure sensation,” but through a sensation that is fused with a feeling. This necessary fusing of sensations and feelings misleads many physiologists into evading the distinction of the two concepts; were they, however, to consider that the nerve-processes of sensation remain wholly unintelligible if we apprehend them as “pure sensation,” then surely this one ground alone would be sufficient to make them attentive to the extraordinary importance of this distinction — which, as said, touches the foundations of all knowledge.

When a mechanical process acts upon the organism — let us say, for example, upon a small patch of its skin — then in the vegetative life (that is, the nutritive conditions) of the cells affected by the action there must take place changes of some kind, because without such a local excitation of the life-substratum the whole organism would remain indifferent to the foreign action. The changes that set in within the nutritive conditions of the excited cells come to expression in small changes of the closely neighbouring blood-circulation (in the capillaries), so that no sensation-processes whatever can take place without the blood-circulation in the excited peripheral parts being thereby drawn into sympathy. In fact, local anaemia causes insensibility, hyperaemia on the other hand over-sensitiveness, in the peripheral parts affected by the mechanical action. But since the peripheral blood-circulation is regulated by the vasomotor nerves belonging to the sympathetic nervous system — that is, the nerves that dilate and contract the blood-vessels — a sensory excitation will never be able to take place without a co-excitation of sympathetic (vasodilatory and vasoconstrictor) nerve-paths also adjoining itself thereto. This is the physio-

logical expression for the vitalistic fact that sensation can come to consciousness always only in the company and fusion of a feeling-process. I am thus of the opinion that in every sensation-process which comes to our consciousness there is involved not merely a process in the sensory nerve-path, but also a process in certain corresponding sympathetic nerve-paths.

In that every kind of sense-sensation necessarily combines with a feeling-process, there arises between all modes of sensation a certain kinship, however much they may otherwise differ from one another. For with all kinds of sense-sensation there combine more or less noticeable moments of pleasure and displeasure, so that these latter constitute a unifying band between all the modes of sensation, however diverse. Could our sensations not pass over into feelings of pleasure and displeasure — that is, fuse inseparably with such feelings — then every mode of sensation would form a world for itself, standing in no connexion with the other mode of sensation. But since it is one and the same life-process in which the most diverse modes of sensation arise, the feeling-excitation of the vegetative substratum must necessarily adjoin itself to all the modes of sensation, however diverse, and, fusing with them, combine them into a unity. For the rest, it scarcely needs to be said that feeling-life and sensation-life mutually condition one another, since in this mutual conditioning there merely comes to a new expression the principle of the correlation of mechanical and vital processes.

If, however, our feelings existed merely in their fusedness with sensation-processes, we could never arrive at a distinction between feeling and sensation. But this is now in the highest degree characteristic of our feeling-life, that it stands in a peculiar double relation to our sensation-life: for it fuses, on the one hand, with the latter, and confronts it, on the other hand, as an autonomous feeling-life.

Those feelings that resound along with our sense-sensations can also be designated as secondary or passive feelings, and they are characterised chiefly by this, that, in consequence of their fusion with sense-sensations, they possess a great significance for the knowledge of the mechanical world. If, for example, a weight presses upon the palm of our hand, then it is by no means the mere touch- or contact-sensation that makes it possible for us to estimate the intensity of the pressure — that is, the magnitude of the weight in comparison with other weights. Everywhere where we carry out estimations of intensity upon the mechanical processes, feelings are necessarily in play; to be sure, only secondary or passive

feelings, which fuse with sense-sensations. It is not the strength of the contact-sensation, but the strength of peculiar feelings, pressure-feelings, that makes it possible for us to speak of greater and smaller weights. Similarly, in the appraisal of the strength of noises and tones, as also of intensities of brightness, feeling-processes play a decisive role. Further, it is likewise feelings that make it possible for us to distinguish the movement accomplished by ourselves from the foreign movement; for did we possess merely sensations, we could never find that a movement was an own-movement. If, for example, some other person lifts our arm, then those feelings do not appear which announce themselves when we lift the same by our own proper force. The velocity, too, with which we carry out our movements, and the magnitude of the mechanical work that we perform, can be estimated only with the help of secondary or passive feelings.

Thus the passive feeling plays everywhere into the perception of the mechanical world, and it may perhaps be regarded as the most difficult part of all vitalistic natural research to distinguish the feeling-component within our sense-perception from the sensation-component. The Weber–Fechner measurements relate to precisely this object, namely to the dark domain of the feeling-life fused with the sensation-life.Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795–1878) and Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–1887), founders of psychophysics. The Weber–Fechner law relates the intensity of a sensation to the logarithm of the stimulus. Fechner coined “psychophysics” (1860) for an exact science of the relations between body and mind — the very conflation of vital and psychical that Palágyi rejects. But since Fechner held vital processes to be psychical, and was thereby led to the mystical concept of a “psychophysics,” and since, further, he subjected the relation of sensation-processes and feeling-processes to no exact vitalistic investigation, all his measurements and mathematical formulae acquire that mysterious character which attaches to all natural-scientific researches in which one does not know what, then, is actually being measured and calculated. It is by no means meant hereby that the Fechnerian investigations could not gain a great significance for vitalistic research; I mean only that all their fundamental conceptual formulations have a partly psychologistic, partly a mystical character, so that they must first be replaced by clear conceptions, in order that the impulse which they gave to vitalistic (and not to psychological) research may be able to become really fruitful for science.

As regards now the autonomous feeling-life, it is characterised first of all by this, that through it we can attain no clarification whatever concerning the mechanical world. Whereas the passive feeling-life, if not immediately, yet mediately — in that it fuses with the sensation-life — becomes an exceedingly important factor in all our sense-perception, the autonomous feeling-life loses

this significance altogether — to be sure, only in order to gain a new and incomparable significance. For it is called to give disclosures concerning the vegetative life-substratum itself, and namely to make known what the vegetative life-process is at any time lacking, and what it altogether stands in need of. I call the feelings that, rising up out of the eternal darkness of the vegetative substratum, announce to us its needs, active or drive-feelings [Triebgefühle],Triebgefühle — “drive-feelings”; Trieb is the impulse or drive (the same root underlies the Freudian Trieb, conventionally rendered “instinct” or “drive”). For Palágyi these are the active feelings through which the vegetative life announces its needs to the will. because they contain an impulse with respect to consciousness — specially with respect to our will-acts — to procure that which is able to still, to satisfy, the life-need revealing itself in the feeling. Such drive-feelings are, for example, the feelings of hunger, of thirst, and further those feelings that connect themselves with the sexual life. They are all characterised by this, that they contain “excitations” and demand “satisfaction,” so that their normal course fluctuates periodically between the opposites of the feeling of want and the feeling of satiation. The restless play of waves of these excitations and satisfactions, or non-satisfactions, forms the substratum of higher feelings of need and of appeasement, which in their totality form the inexhaustible object of all lyric poetry and music.

It would, however, be an error to believe that our active feeling-life, since it gives us no disclosure whatever concerning the mechanical world — or, as one usually calls it, concerning the outer world — could also have no significance at all for our knowledge and for the most diverse sciences, in particular for the exact sciences. On the contrary, it must be emphasised that feelings form just as important a vital substratum of all human knowledge as do the sensations, and that without feeling-life there could just as little subsist even the faintest trace of a human knowledge in any way as without the experiences of sense-sensation. Unfortunately, we must confess that not only psychologism, but philosophy in general, the older as well as the newer — a few exceptional attempts aside — bears the guilt that the significance of feeling-life for human knowledge could never be set in the right light. For since feelings lead to affects, and these can consolidate themselves into habitual passions which frustrate a rational conduct of life and of thought, precisely the best among the teachers of humanity had such a dread of feeling-life that they regarded it with prejudice, and were unable to do justice to its significance for knowledge. To this lamentable state of affairs there was added, over and above, the fatal circumstance that psychologism from the very outset attempted to dissolve all knowledge directly into mere sensing (sensualistic psychologism [sensualistischer Psychologismus]). For although psychologism thus

directs its attention straight upon the living element in us, and appears positively hypnotised by it — so that it ought to favour nothing in the world so much as precisely feeling, because it is feeling through which our own life is made known to us — it nevertheless turns away, in its perversity, from nothing so much as from feeling, because it is caught up in the comical conceit of having fixed its eye not upon the living element in us, but upon the psychical activities, and regards sense-sensation as the sole element of this activity. Thus the high-minded but one-sided “intellectualism” unites itself with the perversity of modern psychologism, in order to obscure completely the fundamental significance of feeling-life for every kind of human knowledge.

For just as the feelings, rising up out of the depth of the vegetative life, announce to us what life stands in need of in order that it may subsist, so they also urge our cognitive activity to grasp what the understanding stands in need of in order that it may remain an understanding. There are kinds of knowledge in which nothing further is contained than what is unconditionally necessary for the existence — and, as I will at once add, for the further development — of knowledge. In other words, there is a postulating cognition whose postulates contain at once a fulfilment within themselves;Palágyi divides knowledge into the ascertaining (konstatierend), which registers what sense-perception gives, and the postulating (postulierend), whose demand contains its own fulfilment. The English term “constative” was in fact coined to render konstatierend (first attested 1901, in comparative philology); J. L. Austin later (1955) gave it its now-familiar sense — a fact-stating utterance, opposed to the self-enacting “performative.” Palágyi’s postulating knowledge is performative in precisely this sense: a cognitive demand that, rightly made, brings about what it demands — though the parallel post-dates him. Cf. F. C. S. Schiller’s “Axioms as Postulates” (1902), where axioms are likewise demands validated in their own fulfilment. for whoever knows how to demand that which the understanding unconditionally stands in need of, in order not to have to give itself up and to be able to do justice to its vocation, has, precisely through this demanding — provided only that it be no sham demand — already found something new, which can contribute something to the consolidation and development of the human understanding. To be sure, the people are very rarely to be found who really understand how to postulate that which the human understanding stands in need of in order to be able to maintain and develop itself: quite as also those people will rarely be found who really grasp what is unconditionally requisite for the practical and aesthetic development of humanity.

Demands of knowledge which are at the same time fulfilments of knowledge we call axioms. Everything axiomatic in our knowledge points back, in the last analysis, to our feeling-life as its vital foundation. For since feeling is, as it were, an outcry of the vegetative life, in order to make known what is necessary to life for its preservation, so feeling urges, as it were, towards an outcry of the understanding as well — that is, towards an axiomatic knowledge which is indispensable to the understanding in order that it may be able to assert itself. The axiomatic cognition of which I here speak commonly appears under the name of a priori knowledge, and plays already in Leibniz, but still more in Kant, a very significant role. I combat in all my writings the doctrine of apriority [Aprioritätslehre] of these

great thinkers, because they apprehend a priori knowledge as one that is independent of experience. Thereby they divide the cognitive activity of man within itself, and create a dualistic logic. Instead of the misleading term “knowledge a priori” I prefer to employ the expression “intuitive knowledge.” All our knowledge rests, in my conception, on the one hand upon sense-perception, on the other upon intuition. The former points to sense-sensation, the latter to feeling, as its vital substratum. Just as, now, sensation-life and feeling-life cannot subsist without one another, so also the knowledge resting on perception and that resting on intuition mutually condition one another.

These epistemological intimations pursue only the purpose of letting the difference between passive and active feeling stand out as sharply as possible. For the passive feelings, which fuse with the sensations, serve merely the knowledge resting on perception (the ascertaining knowledge), whereas the active feelings are the vital supports of the intuitive (postulating) knowledge.

Whereas the investigation of the passive feelings is rendered difficult by their fusing with the sense-sensations, that of the active feelings meets with an extraordinary difficulty chiefly through this, that they can come to our consciousness in no other way than in conjunction with phantasms — whereby, by phantasms, I understand not only the vital processes of imagination, but also the images of present actual things. Since here we wish only to gain an overview of the animal-vital process and to purify its fundamental concepts, it will not be necessary to enter more closely upon the special theory of the active feelings, and we restrict ourselves with regard to the same to the following concluding remarks:

Active feelings, whose more or less violent flooding up and down is bound up with a stream or eddy of phantasms following one upon another, form the essence of the so-called affects. Since phantasms are united with consciousness-acts, and their course is the vital substratum of a course of thought, the psychologist will have to investigate the connexion of this course of thought with the flooding up and down of the vital feeling-processes, in order to be able to clarify the nature of the affects. He will thus have to show how the course of feeling influences the train of thought, and, conversely, how the train of thought reacts back upon the course of feeling, and will have to set forth this reciprocal action in all kinds of affects, emotional excitations, and moods, in order to be able to characterise them all in their distinctive character. The biologist (physiologist), on the other hand, conceives the whole emotional life as an excitation of the vegetative life-

substratum, and investigates the mechanical processes in which this excitation expresses itself. For the vegetative life presents itself in a whole system of involuntary movements and secretory processes, namely in the rhythm of respiration, of the heartbeat, of the pulse, etc., and the various emotional excitations come to the fore as changes in these pulses and glandular functions, as well as in mimic movements. But if one transposes the emotional excitations into the cage of consciousness, then it becomes wholly unintelligible how a violent emotional excitation — which, in the sense of the psychologistic conception, would have to run its course entirely within consciousness — could lead to a fainting fit or even cause death. Emotional excitations are vital processes which, on the one hand, hang together with a course of thought, that is, a series of mental acts, and, on the other hand, come to the fore in a series of mechanical processes. If, then, one wishes to investigate them in an unprejudiced manner, the reciprocal actions — on the one hand of the mental activity and the vital process, on the other hand of the vital process and its mechanical expressions, which necessarily play a role therein — must be taken into consideration in equal measure.

Sixth Lecture: The Multiplicity of Disparate Sensory Domains, and the Vital-Mechanical Axioms#

The multiplicity of the disparate sensory domains. The endeavour of the physiologists to reduce the modes of feeling to modes of sensation, and thereby to increase the number of the disparate sensory domains. Connexion of the vitalistic problem of feeling with the problem of gravitation. There is no special organ for heaviness. Connexion of the mechanical principle of action and reaction with the distinction of pressure- and resistance-feelings. Vital-mechanical experience and its axioms. The sense-points. Intuitive proof that the reduction of the modes of feeling to modes of sensation contains a logical contradiction.

Gentlemen! Although sensation and feeling flow together for us, and within our own life-process we are never in a position to determine precisely where a sensation comes to an end in order to glide over into a feeling, it nonetheless belongs to the most fundamental tasks of biology to carry through the conceptual separation of sensation and feeling with the greatest possible sharpness, because without such a separation every intelligent experience becomes an impossibility. When we have immediate knowledge of something that belongs to our own life-process, we owe it to our feelings; and when we have tidings of something that no longer belongs to our life-process, or that is for us a foreign happening, then such a message is always conveyed only through sensation. That we are therefore, in the vital as well as in the mental sense, individuals, and distinguish our life-process from everything that is not our life-process, hangs upon the conceptual separation of feeling and sensation. The abandonment of this distinction would thus be equivalent to the abandonment of our vital and mental individuality.

In the previous lecture we directed our attention chiefly to the concept of feeling-life, and now turn to the concept of sensation-life. This latter is now quite especially distinguished by the fact that within it various modes of sensation — or, to use the Helmholtzian expression, various sensation-modalities [Empfindungsmodalitäten]Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), German physicist and physiologist. His term Modalität distinguishes the irreducibly different kinds of sense (colour, tone, smell) from the qualities that vary within a single kind. — stand off from one another to such a degree that we are wont to designate this difference as an “incomparable” or “disparate” one. Colour-sensations

and smell-sensations, for example, are “disparate,” and the same holds of the sensations of the remaining sensory domains. One should now suppose that, with respect to the number of these disparate sensory domains, a complete agreement would prevail among all investigators — indeed, would have to prevail unconditionally — since the qualitative diversities of the chemico-physical world stand in some necessary relations to the number of these sensory domains. But if any proof at all be needed of how much the fundamental concepts of all natural research still lie in darkness, then the reference to the well-known fact suffices that the conventional “five senses” are taken seriously by no investigator, and that concerning the actual number of our sensory domains no agreement anywhere prevails — indeed, that such an agreement is not even striven for: as though it did not belong to the foundations of human knowledge to decide of how many disparate sensation-domains there may be talk. Some thinkers seem to believe that the number of our “senses” is a boundless one, which is connected chiefly with the fact that they confuse the feelings with the sensations, and stamp every nuance of any feeling as a special sense. This endeavour to present the feelings as modes of sensation is connected with the inclination, or the open tendency, to reduce the life-process to a mechanical process. Thus, even if one does not straightway assume infinitely many senses, one nevertheless leaves it open to increase their number by ever newer ones. Instead of the conventional five senses we today possess perhaps already a dozen, and there is no foreseeing how far we shall yet carry it in this regard. The following new ten senses are presented in physiological textbooks and handbooks as more or less independent sensory functions: location-sense, position-sense, static sense, movement- or muscle-sense, heaviness-sense, pressure-sense, resistance-sense, warmth-sense, cold-sense, pain-sense; but one is on the point of rendering independent yet another dozen senses, such as, for example, for whirring, itching, tickling, etc. etc. Once the investigators could not do enough in distinguishing ever new “faculties of the soul”; today it is the fashion to set out after the discovery of ever new sensory faculties: but as once the poor “soul,” in consequence of the confused wealth of soul-faculties imputed to it, came apart at the seams, so the sensibility of our organism is, through the irregular fictitious ascription of the most motley sensory functions, positively disorganised and shattered.

The Babylonian confusion of speech and of concepts that reigns in the doctrine of the multiplicity of sensory functions is connected, as said, with the fact that one is at pains to “reduce” feeling-

life to sensation-life. This calamitous “reducing” of an a to a b qualitatively different from it not only deprives us of the understanding of our own life-process, but also disrupts all the fundamental concepts that we form of the mechanical world of appearances, as I will at once show by a concrete example.

If one stretches out the arm in order to hold it for a while in a horizontal position, then there arise in it feelings at first faint, then ever more intense, which in the course of very few minutes reach a very high degree of painfulness, so that one is compelled to let the arm sink. If, in reflecting upon these processes, one emancipates oneself from all school-learning and regards them with a naive, unprejudiced eye, then one must be astonished in the highest degree at their coming-forth. Nothing touches the arm, no foreign body acts upon it through contact, and yet there arise in it processes that one may designate no otherwise than as feelings, precisely because those contact-sensations [Berührungsempfindungen]Berührungsempfindung — contact-sensation, from Berührung (contact). Distinguished throughout from Tastempfindung (touch sensation): the contact-sensation announces a foreign body in contact with the skin, whereas the active touch-faculty (Betastung, palpation) belongs to the perception of one’s own body, treated in the Ninth Lecture. are lacking that would point to foreign mechanical processes. If one abstracts from everything that one has learned about the “force of attraction of the earth,” then the feelings arising in the horizontally held arm appear at first like an incomprehensible riddle, chiefly for the reason that no body can be found[Author’s note:] It is requested here that the Newtonian doctrine be forgotten. that, through its action upon the arm, would call forth the feelings in question. It is now interesting to remark how the “need for causality” of the human being is the more readily satisfied when one brings the painful feelings that arise in the horizontal holding of the arm into parallel with similar painful feelings that arise still more rapidly if the hand is loaded with a weight than when it was held in a horizontal position without a load. As soon as one has once experienced that, upon loading the arm, feelings similar to those in the unloaded horizontally held arm arise, the riddlesomeness of the existence of these feelings vanishes, because they can be brought into connexion with contact-sensations that arise upon the loading.

A feeling that arises on its own is, already in consequence of this isolation, something riddlesome to us; but it becomes at once more “intelligible” to us as soon as we are able to bring it into connexion with a contact-sensation. Upon this rests, in the last instance, the fact that the “forces at a distance” of physics, such as, for example, gravitation, magnetism, disquiet us, estrange us, whereas the “contact-forces” feel homely to us, like something intelligible. The distinction of feeling and sensation thus reaches, as one sees, deep into the doctrine of physical

forces. It is known that Huyghens, like many other contemporaries of Newton, was unable to befriend himself with the latter’s doctrine of action at a distance; and, to name a more recent physicist as well, the brilliant FaradayChristiaan Huygens (1629–1695), Dutch physicist, and Michael Faraday (1791–1867), English physicist. Both rejected Newtonian action at a distance — Huygens in favour of a mechanical aether, Faraday in favour of continuous fields of force conveyed through a medium. was wholly averse to the concept of force at a distance. The dread of this concept springs, in its ultimate root, as I now show, from the fact that our cognitive urge remains unsatisfied by a mere perceiving of feelings, and that we, where a mere feeling arises, at once look about for contact-sensations, or also other sense-sensations, with which we might bring it into connexion. The mere feeling of heaviness in the horizontally held arm is something estranging to us; but if the feeling of heaviness arises in conjunction with contact-sensations of a pressing or pulling load, then it seems at once more familiar to our understanding.

Let me be permitted here to insert a remark concerning our need for causality. Causality belongs to those concepts that are most abused not only in everyday life but also in science. For this concept is in play almost everywhere where there is any talk at all of connexions or relations. If one now considers how manifold the connexions can be, then one also surmises in what a number of significations the word causality (or also the principle of causality) may be employed. One can, for example, have in view a connexion of merely mechanical, of merely vital processes, of mere consciousness-acts; but one can also bring mechanical processes into connexion with vital ones, vital processes with mental acts, and can let every kind of these connexions, or merely some combinations among them, count, or also not count, as a causal relation or also as a relation of reciprocal action. In the end, however, everything in the universe stands in an absolutely unitary connexion, and one can also designate this unitary connexion as causality. For this reason the natural investigator and the philosopher will avoid the expression causality everywhere where the connexions of which there is talk can be characterised according to their kind. But where the concept of causality is no longer to be avoided, as for example in investigations concerning the “principle of causality,” it will be requisite first to furnish a precise and unambiguous conceptual determination of the causal connexion, because otherwise no one can know what is actually being talked about, and door and gate are opened to endless verbal dispute. Thus, for example, Hume, in his famous investigation of the principle of causality, nowhere established which kind of connexions he lets

count as a causal connexion, so that his entire investigation thereby exhibits a mystical-scholastic character.

Our understanding searches everywhere for connexions. Since, for example, sense-sensations always fuse with passive feelings, we, upon the arising of a passive feeling, at once hunt for the sense-sensation fusing with it, and are disconcerted when such a one is not to be procured. This comes to light quite especially when the passive feeling is occasioned by physico-chemical processes that take place in the interior of the organism. The sufferer who speaks of bodily pains in the interior of his organism describes them as stabbing, burning, boring, throbbing, tearing, etc. pains, because he is unable to describe his passive feeling otherwise than in conjunction with a sensation-tone. Just as a sensation is always accompanied by a feeling-tone, so, conversely, a feeling stemming from within is accompanied by a sensation-tone. To describe mere or “pure feelings” is a thing of impossibility, wherefore the poets, too, seize upon every possible (and not seldom impossible) means in order to make their feeling intuitable. The physiologist, too, is filled with a dread of the “pure feeling,” and so he lets himself be misled, out of considerations of convenience, into making modes of sensation out of modes of feeling, and thereby increasing the number of our sensory domains beyond due measure. To be sure, a feeling on its own does not yet form a complete vital foundation of a perception, but the same holds also of sensation; indeed, it will later show itself that the two can lead to a perception-act only in conjunction with a phantasm.

On the foundation of this conception of the necessary reciprocal supplementation of our sensations and feelings in every perception, we shall behold the multiplicity of our sensory functions in a new and, as I hope, natural light. We shall, for example, not be compelled to take refuge in a riddlesome “organ for heaviness-sensations” — supposed to be hidden somewhere in our body. Many investigators see themselves compelled to admit such an organ, because they do not take into consideration the share of the “feelings” in our sense-perceptions. We are, as is known, able even with closed eyes to form a judgement about the position of our body and of the individual limbs; quite especially we have, even with closed eyes, a very definite judgement about the vertical direction — that is, we know, in every position of our body and its limbs, how to make a distinction between above and below, as also between different angles of inclination to the vertical, which is, moreover, more or less precise and under circumstances can also be

influenced by illusions. If one now searches for the sensations to which we owe it that we possess an “orientation against the vertical,” then these, in so far as they are connected with contact-sensations of foreign bodies or with the self-contacts [Selbstberührung] of our own limbs, are easy to ascertain. If, for example, someone lies upon the so-called “peg-board” of Delage,Yves Delage (1854–1920), French zoologist who studied equilibrium and spatial orientation. His rotatable peg-board (planche) was used to test the perception of position with the eyes closed. a board rotatable in the vertical plane, which this physiologist used for the investigation of our position-sensations and position-illusions, then he can, even with closed eyes, form a more or less correct judgement about the angle of inclination of the board, and indeed on the foundation of sensations of which everyone easily gives himself an account, and which need not here be specified. To all these sensations, however, which are localised to a definite part of the body, there is added, in the view of many investigators, a specific unlocalised position-sensation in the narrower sense of the word, which has the lion’s share in our orientation against the vertical. The distinguished physiologist W. NagelWilibald Nagel (1870–1911), German physiologist and editor of the Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen (1905–1909), the standard reference work that Palágyi cites repeatedly in this lecture. adduces, in his summarising presentation of the doctrine of the position-, movement-, and resistance-sensations (Handb. d. Phys. d. Menschen, vol. III, p. 737 ff.), the grounds that press towards the assumption of specific “position-sensations” with regard to orientation against the vertical, and consequently also towards the assumption of a specific sense-organ for heaviness-sensations. Let me be permitted to cite one of these grounds (the second) in his own words: “When one is completely submerged in the bath, the buoyancy counteracts the influence of heaviness upon the body as a whole and upon the individual extremities; a pressure of the support (the floor) upon the body is no longer present, nor even more than an exceedingly slight pull of heaviness upon the extremities. Nonetheless the submerged person preserves, with closed eyes and without active touching, a clear and definite representation of what is above and what is below — in other words, a definite sensation of his orientation to the vertical. This is a (second) indication of a sense-organ in the interior of the body influenced by heaviness.” (p. 738.)

This ground, as also the remaining grounds, contains observations that may in themselves be quite correct, but the inference to the presence of any specific inner position-sensations and of an inner organ for heaviness seems to me not to be compelling. Our whole life-process is influenced by heaviness; indeed, we may say that our whole life-process is oriented to heaviness — that is, every change of position against the vertical exerts a significant influence upon the vegetative life-processes of our body, which can be reported to consciousness through feeling-processes.

This comes to light most clearly when the body hangs with the head downwards and the feet upwards. The streaming of the blood to the head, which in the upright posture of the body must overcome the influence of heaviness, is here directly favoured by heaviness; conversely, the streaming of the blood to the lower body, which in the upright posture is favoured by gravitation, must here overcome the resistance of the same. In this simple state of affairs the immense influence that heaviness exerts upon the whole vegetative life-process comes to clear expression. Changes in the position of the body draw after them changes in this influence, which can then make themselves known in feelings that we use for the appraisal of the position of our body and bodily parts. A special organ for heaviness and for the cognisance of the vertical need not be assumed, because our whole body, or rather our whole life-process, is such an organ.

To be sure, the pure position- and direction-feelings that awaken in us through the influence of gravitation upon our vegetative life-processes are, considered for themselves, still wholly insufficient to orient us in space in any way: because feelings in general bring tidings only of our own vegetative life-processes, or of the changes of the same. If feelings can nonetheless be turned to account for orientation in space and for the taking-cognisance of mechanical processes, this is possible only for the reason that they combine with sensations that are related to mechanical processes. The mere feeling of heaviness in the horizontally held arm would, as was already emphasised, be something wholly unintelligible if we did not apprehend it according to the analogy of the feeling of heaviness in the loaded arm. In the lifting of a weight we speak, namely, of a pull that the weight exerts and of a resistance that the hand sets against the pull. We form the highly peculiar concept of action and reaction [Wirkung und Gegenwirkung], which forms a foundation of our whole mechanical conception of nature. And we transfer this conception also to the case where it is a matter of an unloaded horizontally held arm. We say, namely, that the proper heaviness of the hand exerts a downward pull upon it, but that a vital exertion that we perform sets a resistance against the pull. Such an interpretation of the mere feeling of heaviness in the horizontally held arm would obviously be an impossibility if we did not take refuge in the image that a pulling body, and a body resisting it, provide. Pull and resistance, which are intuitively related to two different, mutually touching bodies, are transferred also to the case where it is a matter only of a single

feeling body. The mere feeling in the horizontally held arm is thus interpreted as though it consisted of two opposed components, which are called forth by a downward pull and a resistance counteracting it. Without such an interpretation we should hold the feeling of heaviness in the arm to be something wholly incomprehensible.

From these considerations it now also emerges clearly that we have no ground to assume a pressure-sense and to distinguish it from a (passive) resistance-sense. We saw just now that we must think of the feeling of heaviness in the arm as having arisen from two mutually counteracting components, from a pull-component and a resistance-component. Without the feeling of undergoing a pressure or a pull, there would be no resistance-feeling at all, and, conversely, without a resistance-feeling there could never be talk of a pressure- or pull-feeling. Pressure-feeling and resistance-feeling mutually condition one another. This fundamental proposition of the vital doctrine of feeling we express in mechanistic form as follows: No action without reaction; or also: action and reaction mutually condition one another. It is now, however, also of great importance to discern that the vitalistic and the mechanistic fundamental proposition cannot be formulated without one another. If I am to distinguish in my mere feeling two opposed components, then the mechanical image of two bodies acting against one another must hover before me; conversely, however, it is also impossible to grasp the image of two mutually counteracting bodies if one does not know from one’s own feeling what it means to feel a pressure or pull and to set a resistance against it. We recognise here the source of the (third) law of motion or axiom of motion formulated by Newton,Isaac Newton (1643–1727). The Latin is the third law of motion from the Principia (1687): “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.” which runs: “Actioni contrariam semper et aequalem esse reactionem; sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse aequales et in partes contrarias dirigi.” Action and reaction are always (in respect of direction) opposed to one another and (in respect of magnitude) equal; that is, the reciprocal actions of two bodies upon one another are equal and have opposite direction. Is it merely a coincidence that Newton holds it necessary to bring this so simple proposition to expression in two equivalent turns of phrase, of which the one speaks merely of action and reaction, but the other also of “two bodies” over which one thinks action and reaction distributed? Who would venture to decide this? But one can scarcely resist the impression that the principle of action and reaction hovered before him the one time in a merely feeling-like, vital manner, the other time, however, in a mechanistic-intuitive

manner.

Ernst Mach,Ernst Mach (1838–1916), Austrian physicist and philosopher. His Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung (1883) traced the mechanical principles to “instinctive” experience — a genealogy Palágyi accepts in substance but recasts as vital-mechanical rather than merely instinctive. in his fine historical-critical presentation of mechanics (pp. 207–208), attaches some interesting remarks to the Newtonian principle of action and reaction. He says, among other things: “Perhaps the most important achievement of Newton with regard to the principles is the clear and general formulation of the principle of the equality of action and reaction, of pressure and counter-pressure.” “Without question the first stimulus to the setting-up of the principle is of purely instinctive nature. One knows that one experiences a resistance from a body only when one endeavours to set this body into motion. The more rapidly we seek to hurl away a large stone, the more our own body is driven back.” “Instinctive cognitions belonging to statics, which contain the equality of pressure and counter-pressure, there are very many. The trivial experience that no one can raise himself into the air by pulling at his own chair is such a one.”

With the expression “instinctive cognition” little seems to me to be gained here. From earliest childhood we make experiences concerning our own life-processes in conjunction with mechanical processes. These, to be sure very “trivial,” vital-mechanical experiences form the foundation of all our knowledge of nature. The more trivial they appear to us, the less do we give ourselves a clear account of them — that is, they hover before our spirit in the original childlike darkness and confusedness. In this sense they may perhaps be designated as instinctive cognitions. The task of science is to go back to those original vital-mechanical experiences that form the dark substratum of our knowledge of nature, in order, through the critical clarification of the same, to arrive at a natural science resting upon principles. But if one designates those trivial, dark, vital-mechanical experiences already stemming from childhood as instinctive, then one easily gets onto just such a wrong path as when one presents them as a priori.

“Instinctive” and “a priori cognitions” are equally dark concepts, with which, in their hitherto elaboration by biologists and rationalist philosophers, one can accomplish as good as nothing. Nothing in the world seems to me more convenient than to designate cognitions whose origin we do not know, and which are thus, with respect to their provenance, highly riddlesome, straightway as instinctive or a priori. But the question is what insights are gained with these designations.

Let it here be at once pointed out to a highly trivial vital-mechanical experience through which the principle of action

and reaction is authenticated. Not when we wish to set a foreign body into motion, and it offers us a resistance, but when one part of our own body presses against another part of the same, does the sense of the proposition “no action without reaction” confront us clearly. In general, in the investigation of pressure and resistance, we may not set out from those experiences that can result for us from the contact-relation of our own body with foreign bodies, for these experiences can first be made intelligible through the consideration of experiences lying far nearer — such as when one bodily part presses against another. If, for example, we press the ball of the thumb and of the index finger against one another, then we easily convince ourselves that it is impossible for us to regulate the pressure and counter-pressure in the two active phalanges otherwise than that they remain equal to one another and hold one another in balance. As much pressure as we mobilise in the thumb, so much counter-pressure must we let flow also to the index finger, if we wish to keep both fingers in activity at all. And if we increase the pressure in the one finger, we are compelled to increase it in equal measure also in the other active finger. Whichever two limbs of our body we may press reciprocally against one another, it always shows itself that, if we wish to keep both limbs in activity, we can lend to both only an equal activity, so that both necessarily hold one another in balance. These elementary vital-mechanical experiences contain, as one sees, a convincing confirmation of the Newtonian principle; more precisely spoken: it is precisely such experiences, not expressly mentioned, that pressed towards the formulation of the principle of the equality of action and reaction.

Perhaps these intimations already suffice to show how greatly we are, in the formation of the mechanical fundamental concepts, dependent upon the perception of our own vital processes. All so-called “instinctive” cognitions that are formulated in mechanics as axioms and contain fundamental determinations concerning force, mass, inertia, velocity, acceleration, etc. etc., point to experiences that we made upon our own life-processes. A critical clarification of the fundamental concepts of mechanics is an impossibility if in doing so we do not reflect upon the corresponding vital experiences. It is one of the most important tasks of physiology to subject these vital experiences to a thoroughgoing examination. It is in fact already for some decades at work somehow to do justice to this task; it does not yet, however, make clear to itself that we expect from it concerning the fundamental concepts of mechanics just as significant clarifications as from mechanics itself, because mechan-

ical concepts cannot come about without vital experience.

Herewith, however, the demand is at the same time pronounced that we may not confuse the concept of feeling with the concept of sensation, but must endeavour to take into thoroughgoing consideration the share of sensation and feeling, or rather their reciprocal supplementation, in every sense-experience. For it is the joint functioning of feeling and sensation that lends to our experiences on the one hand a vital, on the other a mechanical character. To be sure, both modes of experience interweave with one another in so intimate a fashion that their distinction becomes a highly painful task. Thus one speaks nowadays of “pressure-sensations” and also “resistance-sensations,” without taking offence at these expressions. This is, moreover, not at all to be wondered at, for the peculiar pressure- and resistance-feelings arise in such intimate conjunction with contact-sensations that the sensation-character of these latter is transferred also to the former. In his exceedingly clear summary of the doctrine of the skin-sensations, ThunbergThorsten Thunberg (1873–1952), Swedish physiologist, who contributed the account of the skin-senses to Nagel’s Handbuch. expresses himself on this subject as follows: “Among the pressure-sensations there are thus here included also the so-called contact-sensations (‘simple touch-sensations’). The conception stemming from MeissnerGeorg Meissner (1829–1905), German physiologist; the tactile corpuscles of the skin bear his name. His 1853 view that touch-sensations form a distinct sensory kind (sui generis) was contested by those who reduced them to weak pressure-sensations. (Beiträge zur Anatomie u. Physiol. der Haut, Leipzig 1853), that these latter sensations are sui generis, has long since been refuted. It is here a matter only of weak pressure-sensations, which, like these, are released only through deformations of the skin. An object that touches the hand without exerting any pressure against the hand is altogether incapable of calling forth a contact-sensation.” (W. Nagel, Handb. d. Phys., vol. III, p. 657.)

Here it now emerges clearly that the fusion of sensations with feelings misleads the most excellent physiologists of our day into a fusion also of the concepts of sensation and feeling. The fusing of the processes, however, never entitles us to a fusion of their concepts. For it belongs to the nature of processes that they can under circumstances well flow together with one another, and to the nature of concepts never to be permitted to flow together with one another. (Principle of the intermittency of consciousness and of the continuity of the life-processes.) We must, to be sure, concur with Thunberg in this, that, however faint the contact of the skin may be, a deformation of the skin must in any case take place in order that a contact-sensation be awakened: from this, however, it follows only that contact-sensations must always fuse with some deformation-feelings, pressure-feelings, in short feelings in general, in order to become accessible to our percep-

tion. In the contact-sensation, namely, we become aware of a foreign object; in the deformation- or pressure-feeling, however, it is the state of our own organic tissues, or of our own vegetative life-substratum, that comes to our consciousness; and if we confuse these two moments of the experience in question, then we have precisely confused the mechanical world with our own life. The distinguished biologist Meissner was thus led by a very correct intuition when he sought to hold contact-sensations and pressure-sensations apart; only he ought to have spoken not of pressure-sensations, but merely of pressure-feelings (which fuse with contact-sensations).

That the modern physiologists are inclined to confuse the concepts of feeling and sensation with one another, and at the same time to increase the number of our modes of sensation without limit, is connected, moreover, precisely with the most interesting advances of sense-physiology, which were introduced by the pathbreaking works of Ernst Heinrich Weber (1846)Ernst Heinrich Weber’s Der Tastsinn und das Gemeingefühl (1846), the founding work of the experimental study of touch (cf. the Fifth Lecture). It established the threshold-measurements later named the Weber–Fechner law. and carried further by the surprising finds of Magnus Blix. This Scandinavian investigator, namely, discovered the “sense-points” of the skin: the cold-points, the warmth-points, and the pressure-points (1882), which were later (1884) found independently also by Goldscheider.Magnus Blix (1849–1904), Swedish physiologist, discovered the cutaneous cold-, warmth-, and pressure-“points” (1882); Alfred Goldscheider (1858–1935) found them independently (1884); Max von Frey (1852–1932) refined the method with calibrated stimulus-hairs and added the pain-points. Were our everyday contacts with things of a fine punctual kind, then we should know the sense-points of our skin from the outset; but since our contacts with things are in general areal, they lead to the illusion that our skin behaves homogeneously at all points towards the most diverse impressions. The experiment had thus to come to aid here, in order, as in a thousand other cases, to enlighten us concerning our vital illusions. Since, namely, we are capable of no active punctual touching of foreign bodies, pointed foreign bodies had to be systematically employed in order to call forth passive punctual skin-sensations. Blix investigated the skin by means of hollow metal points, which through water streaming within preserved a constant temperature, in order to test our cold- and warmth-sensitivity. There resulted the peculiar result that certain points of the skin are quite especially sensitive to cold, others on the other hand to warmth. By designating these points with different colours, one convinces oneself that they retain their character as cold- and warmth-points. The like holds of the pressure-points, which are, however, more expediently investigated according to the method of v. Frey, who for this purpose uses stimulus-hairs 20–30 mm long, as straight as possible and fixed perpendicularly to little rods. The number of pressure-points per square centimetre is on average about 25,

those of the cold-points 12–13, of the warmth-points, on the other hand, 1–2. The investigations of v. Frey yield that, besides the named three kinds of sense-points, also special “pain-points” are to be distinguished, which show a proper receptivity for the stab-pain. Their number per square centimetre is about 100–200. Thus the modern doctrine of the skin-sense-points culminates in the conception that one must distinguish the temperature-sense not merely from the pressure-sense, but that it itself falls apart into a cold-sense and a warmth-sense; indeed, that besides these three skin-senses we should have to distinguish yet at least a fourth, namely the “pain-sense.”

The discovery of the sense-points by Blix and Goldscheider, as well as the finer elaboration of this new doctrine by v. Frey, Kiesow, etc., belongs without doubt among the finest attainments of modern sense-physiology. One must, however, consider how little that is certain we know concerning the histological substrates of our skin-sense-functions. The function of the Meissner corpuscles, of the Merkel cells, of the Krause end-bulbs,The Merkel cells (Friedrich Merkel, 1845–1919) and Krause end-bulbs (Wilhelm Krause, 1833–1910), like the Meissner corpuscles, are nerve-end-organs of the skin; their specific functions were, as Palágyi stresses, still in deep obscurity. etc. lies in rather deep darkness, and to this is added still the uncertainty concerning the peripheral mode of distribution of the nerves, or rather neurofibrils, in the skin. Many authors still speak of free nerve-endings, where Apáthy nonetheless furnishes the proof that of such there can be no talk at all, since the course of the neurofibrils is everywhere a continuous one. If, now, in such fundamental questions of nerve-histology no agreement yet prevails among the investigators, then the interpretation of those facts that are contained in the doctrine of the sense-points requires the highest caution. It will, in my view, by no means be permitted to speak of pressure-sensations, passive and active resistance-sensations, since all these so-called “sensations” bring tidings of the state of the own-life of the tissues of our body, and must therefore be apprehended as feelings that arise in conjunction with sensations. Least of all will there be permitted to be talk of a “pain-sense,” if we are not bent upon deliberately confusing our concepts. For in every pain life itself announces itself to the word, and only mediately can pain, because it combines with a sensation, point to a mechanical process of the outer world.

Also it will, in my opinion, scarcely be permitted to split the temperature-sense into two senses, because cold- and warmth-points lie spatially apart at small distances. Rather, from the discovery of Blix and Goldscheider there issues the necessity finally for once to examine precisely as well what is to be understood by “dispa-

rate“ sensory domains. We must, namely, confess to ourselves that this concept was never purified, and in an age of psychologism also could not be purified. For if one makes sensations into ”processes within consciousness,“ that is, into prisoners of the consciousness-kennel, then it is absolutely incomprehensible why they are different from one another. Or should one even have to assume that the consciousness-kennel contains individual dungeon-cells, in which the disparate sensations are locked up, and from which they cannot pass over into the neighbouring cells? Evidently psychologism is incapable of giving an account of in what peculiarity of our consciousness it lies that disparate modes of sensation, and within every mode of sensation different sensation-qualities, must subsist. In fact no psychologist has ever made the slightest attempt to explain what artifices consciousness applies in order to bring forth, or rather to create, within its cage the differences of red and green, or of colour- and auditory-sensation. To be sure, these differences could not subsist for us if we had no consciousness, but from this it does not in the least follow that our consciousness would have to generate, or rather create, the sensation-differences in its own ”interior.“[Author’s note:] Psychologism seems to assume that in the various parcels of consciousness different branches of industry are carried on, so that, for example, in the one department consciousness occupies itself with the fabrication of visual, in the other with the fabrication of auditory sensations, etc. Rather, every rational person discerns that our consciousness-activity is able only to limp along behind the course of the sensations — that, therefore, a sensation-process is always a fait accompli when it comes to consciousness, to be sure such a fait accompli as is first completed in the moment in which the consciousness-act takes place, so that, if our consciousness-acts were of another kind than they are — for example, possessed another pulse than they really have — our modes of sensation would also have to be otherwise constituted. From which it again does not follow that it is our consciousness-acts through which the sensation-processes could be produced or created. For both our sensation-processes and our own mental acts presuppose a universal power through which they can subsist, so that we can never say that sensation-processes were brought forth through the mental acts, or, conversely, the mental acts through sensation-processes; but may always only assert that sensation-life and the mental activities in nature mutually condition one another.

The question upon what it rests that there are disparate sensation-domains, and what one must understand by “disparate” at all, issues into the most difficult questions of the theory of consciousness, of histology, and physiology, as well as of mechanis-

tic natural research. Here it shall only be further emphasised that the first step we take towards the clarification of the same must be the distinction of feeling-life from sensation-life. The following consideration is perhaps suited to set this distinction in the brightest possible light. Let us assume for a moment that we could touch the body not merely superficially, but could reach gropingly into every arbitrary organ — into our lung, heart, intestines, into our brain, spinal cord, etc. — so that there would be no part of our organism, however small, that could withdraw itself from our inner touching: then, to be sure, we should no longer need to make any distinction between sensation and feeling. Our life-process could then confront itself at each of its points like a wholly foreign process; it would be apprised at each of its points of each of its processes through mere sensations, quite as it is apprised of foreign processes only through sensations. Then, to be sure, every feeling would be superfluous, for all our feelings would be replaced by sensations. But since the mechanical intervention into every point of our life-process signifies nothing further than the complete destruction of the same, one discerns that the reduction of feeling to sensation is equivalent to the annihilation of life — or rather, equivalent to the logical contradiction that one annihilates life and still always ascribes to it the capacity for sensation.

Seventh Lecture: The Classification of the Animal Life-Processes and the Principle of the Relativity of Perception#

The classification of the life-processes into three classes. Provisional definition of the phantasy-processes. Principle of the relativity of perception. Vital-mechanical conduct of the physician towards the patient; theoretical biology manifests the same conduct towards every life-process. Critique of “teleology” as a means of distinguishing between mechanical and vital processes. The encroachments of psychology upon biology and the repulse of the same. The proper task of the psychologist and of the critic of knowledge. The principle of classification of the animal life-processes. This classification also presents the developmental stages of the animal life-process. The concept of life-development is not intelligible without the concept of mental development. Evolution is not only a biological problem, but also a fundamental problem of the science of mind.

Gentlemen! In our preceding considerations the classification of our higher or animal life-processes is already contained. We distinguish three kinds of animal life-processes: sensation, feeling, and phantasm, of which each has its own peculiar character, so that none can be “reduced” to another. Sensations are such animal life-processes through which consciousness obtains tidings of mechanical processes; feelings, on the other hand, make it possible for consciousness to take cognisance of the (vegetative) life-process united with it; through phantasms, finally, consciousness relates itself to its own as well as to foreign sensations and feelings. Other kinds of animal life-processes than those adduced there cannot be; just as, indeed, the whole classification of the life-processes that we have hitherto furnished contains the guarantee of its all-embracing character within itself.

For life-processes that belong to our life-process must be either such as have an immediate connexion with consciousness-activity, or such as lack such an immediate connexion. The first kind of vital processes we called higher or animal, the second, on the other hand, lower or vegetative life-processes — whereby, however, it should once more be emphasised that we entirely recast the sense of the hitherto customary, unscientific expressions in physiology, animal and vegetative, in order to secure for them a strictly circum-

scribed scientific content. The further classification of the vegetative life-processes belongs in the system of a special physiology; here we are interested chiefly in the higher or animal life-processes, because without an exact consideration of these the construction of a science of consciousness (psychology, theory of knowledge) becomes an impossibility. The animal life-processes, however, are entirely exhausted by the three classes — sensation, feeling, and phantasm — as becomes evident from the following consideration.

The animal life-processes are such as have immediate contact with consciousness and accordingly bring tidings of those processes which lack such contact altogether, or at least lack it for the time being. Now sensations apprise us of mechanical processes, feelings, on the other hand, of our own vegetative life-process, so that it gains the appearance that the whole compass of animal life-processes is already exhausted by the two classes, sensation and feeling. Let one consider, however, that sensations and feelings connected with a foreign consciousness can never belong to our consciousness, and that there must accordingly be a class of life-processes that makes it possible for us to think of sensations and feelings belonging to a foreign consciousness. This class is precisely that of the phantasms. But our own sensations and feelings too, since they are after all something that comes and passes away, are not at our disposal at every time, so that we evidently require special life-processes by means of which our consciousness relates itself to life-processes that are not at our disposal. These are, once again, the phantasms. By means of them we relate ourselves to the sensations and feelings that we once had, or that await us in the future. Herewith, however, the life-task that falls to the phantasms is still by far not sufficiently grasped and characterised. Even those sensations and feelings that we have just now, despite their so-called presence, cannot be grasped through thinking without the help of phantasms. This is an exceedingly difficult point in the doctrine of the higher or animal life-processes, which has hitherto been divined in science, to be sure, but never clearly set forth.

For sensation-processes are there not in order to reveal themselves, but in order to bring to light their connexion with mechanical processes. When our consciousness is seized by the sensation, it is not the sensation-process in itself, but its conjunction with a mechanical process, that forces itself upon us. If the sensation-process in itself is to be able to lay claim to the attention of our

consciousness, then a phantasm is needed, which is destined to reveal its connexion with the sensation, and thereby to direct the attention of the mind to the sensation. Without the intervention or help of a phantasm, every sensation is as good as lost for our consciousness. Indeed, the phantasm itself is, as such, not present for our consciousness until a higher phantasm undertakes, through a connexion with the lower phantasm, to bring this latter to consciousness. In general, no life-process forces itself upon consciousness; rather, every life-process directs the attention to that one with which it is connected, and which it announces.

In these propositions the principle of the relativity of human perceptionThis principle of the relativity of perception — that nothing is perceived in itself, only through its relation to another — is Palágyi’s own. He developed a wider doctrine of relativity in his writings on space and time, and later became a sharp (and idiosyncratic) critic of Einstein’s physical theory of relativity. confronts us in a clear manner. We are not able to grasp, to perceive, any happening for itself; rather, every process is made known to us only in its connectedness with another, in its relation to another. This principle has from of old been misjudged, which had the consequence that a genuine doctrine, a critical theory of human perception, was unable to arise. Let two misunderstandings of the relativity-principle of our sense-perception be pointed out here at the outset: the naive and the paradoxical misunderstanding of it. The naive understanding is inclined, in the perception of any mechanical process m, entirely to overlook the life-process e through which the same is sensed. It believes that it grasps the mechanical process m immediately, and thereby falls into the comical error of forgetting itself — that is, of regarding both its own life-process and its own consciousness-activity as non-existent, and of apprehending the mechanical process (or rather the appearance) as though it had apprehended the same without life-functions and without mental activity. This is, to be sure, a contradiction of the most ridiculous kind, over which modern philosophy has amused itself exceedingly. The naive person stands as if perplexed before the world of appearances, is, as it were, so greatly hypnotised by the mechanical process that he forgets, over the process, his own self, and must first be made attentive to the fact that not only the mechanical process is there, but he himself is there too, and that he does not perceive the appearance in itself, but the mechanical process connected with his sensation; indeed, that the appearance — as it makes itself known to him — could not exist at all in this being-thus [So-sein][Author’s note:] By “being-thus” is here to be understood “existence as appearance,” or “phenomenal existence.” if it did not hang together with his sensation.

The being-thus of every appearance is conditioned first by the life-process, then also by the consciousness-activity of the perceiving person, and it is this conditionedness that the naive person does not bring home to himself.

It is doubtless a great merit of modern philosophy to have made clear that, when we speak of an appearance, the sensation that relates to the same is co-posited, and the consciousness too is co-posited which perceives the appearance. But in making fun of the naive observer, who is so overwhelmed by the appearance that he does not become conscious of himself and of his own sensing as conditions of the being-thus of the appearance, it falls into a far more comical aberration than the naive understanding which it conceitedly treats from on high. It does indeed make clear to itself that one cannot perceive an appearance without sensation, but it takes this sensation for the appearance. The naive person gives himself over a little too much to the appearances, but one can enlighten him and make it comprehensible to him that without his capacity for sensation and his consciousness-activity he could never attain to the perception of an appearance — that, therefore, a phenomenal world cannot subsist without life-processes and mental activities. But what is one to do with a philosophically miseducated understanding which is no longer able to distinguish its sensing from the mechanical process to which it relates, and accordingly takes its own sensing for the mechanical process? It is owing chiefly to the “idealistic” doctrine of Berkeley, and in part also to the “transcendental idealism” of Kant, that sensation is apprehended as “appearance.”

Modern “idealism” makes the sensing of the human being into a relationless sensing. In the sense of this conception we do not sense a mechanical action, but we merely sense our own sensing. The sensing senses itself. This severing of sensation from the mechanical process with which it hangs together is one of the most characteristic inventions of modern philosophy, quite especially of the empirical idealism of Berkeley and the critical idealism of Kant — in which latter it can never be decided with certainty whether the sensing is distinguished from the mechanical action to which it is related or not. If someone decidedly denies that the sensation may be related to any mechanical (“outer”) action, then he also consistently denies that two persons could relate themselves to the same (identical) happening; for a mere sensation is always the exclusive property of a single

person. The non-distinction of sensation from the mechanical process leads to solipsism: that characteristic delusion of the modern age, which includes within itself the complete disruption of all human knowledge. This disruption, however, springs from the misunderstanding of the principle of the relativity of our perception, according to which we never perceive a process in itself, but always one process through another.

A mechanical process comes to our cognisance not through itself, but through a sensing, and this sensing in turn comes to our cognisance not through itself, but through a representing [Vorstellen]. I usually avoid the expression “representing,” since it belongs to the most confused concepts of modern philosophy: first of all for the reason that there is contained in it both a consciousness-activity and a vital process. To designate merely this latter, I use the expression “phantasm.” Such a phantasm, too, is — as said — incapable of presenting itself to consciousness; rather, it must be presented to consciousness through a phantasm of higher order. One can also express this state of affairs by saying that our consciousness, in every perception, makes use of a presenting and a presented vital process, of which, however, only the latter awakens the attention, while the former, like a faithful servant of consciousness, makes itself imperceptible. But whoever takes offence at such metaphorical modes of expression, let him hold to the bare relativity-principle, according to which no process becomes perceptible in itself, but every one through its unitedness with another.

That conception which severs every process from the process connected with it is often designated as immanent philosophy. In the sense of this doctrine of immanence the sensing senses only itself — that is, it has no connexion with a mechanical process distinct from it which it could bring to our cognisance. Who can describe the mental confusion that springs from such an un-thought? Whoever severs the sensation-process from the mechanical process connected or united with it makes it not only impossible that one human being could have intercourse with another (for all intercourse between the one consciousness and the other is made possible only through mechanical processes); he also makes it impossible that anyone could ever recall to memory a sensation that he has had. For the phantasm through which we relate ourselves to a past experience would, in the sense of immanent philosophy, have to be apprehended as able to announce only itself and nothing distinct from it. If every life-

process announces only itself, then the memory-image that we have of our homeland when abroad is no longer a memory-image at all, but an image cut off from all past and from all distance. Then there is simply no memory any longer, and no thinking at all. It is, to be sure, in the highest degree wonderful that a phantasm makes it possible for our consciousness to think of something that is not present; but this wonder is not greater than that a sensation, which is after all our life-process, makes it possible for us to think of something that is not our life-process. Whoever makes sensation into something immanent or relationless must consistently also make a memory-phantasm into something immanent or relationless — that is, he disorganises the human understanding.

Modern “idealism,” “immanent philosophy,” “sensualism,” “psychologism” stand in close kinship with one another and are for the most part only different nuances of the same fundamental error. In that they all entirely misjudge the nature of the animal life-processes — sensation, feeling, and phantasm — they wrest the investigation of these from biology and in particular from physiology. The damage that grows from this both for physiology and for psychology is a well-nigh boundless one. As concerns physiology first of all, it belongs to its chief tasks to make the function of the nervous system intelligible to us: but how is this to be possible if it does not subject to the most exact consideration the sensations, feelings, and phantasms, which must be apprehended as vital achievements of the nervous system, and leaves the doing of this to psychology? Only in the measure in which someone penetrates into the nature of these vital processes can he also form for himself any apposite conception of the structure and function of the nervous system: for evidently our nervous system must be built, histologically and anatomically, in such a way, and must function physiologically in such a way, that precisely such vital achievements become possible as we really experience in our sensations, feelings, and phantasms. But if the physiologist leaves the investigation of these vital processes to the psychologist, then he will never attain to a clear overview of the structure and functions of the nerves, because the nervous tissue cannot possibly be understood if one does not turn the highest attention to its vital achievements. (I am not speaking here of physico-chemical achievements, for these the physiologist leaves to no foreign domain of knowledge, but of vital achievements — that is, such as can in the best case have only one witness.)

The physician who examines the patient will, to be sure, lay the chief weight upon the “objective” findings, such as pulse-beat, heart-tones, etc., which he himself ascertains; but he may never

be permitted to neglect taking into consideration the “subjective” statements of the patient himself concerning his bodily condition — so far as the circumstances allow and make it necessary — because without the hearing of the patient and without any phantasy-like living-into [Sicheinleben] his suffering state, the complex of the so-called “objective” symptoms too would remain unintelligible.[Author’s note:] This living-into plays a greater role than many a physician would like to admit, for it takes place in great part involuntarily and unnoticed. The physician, however, is the practical representative of the totality of all the biological sciences, and if his conduct towards the patient shows a peculiar two-sided character — in that he supplements his own findings with the statements of the patient, and revises the two complexes of data against one another — then there is expressed herein also the peculiar two-sided conduct of theoretical biology towards every life-process. For every life-process would be absolutely unintelligible to us if we were to consider it merely “objectively,” and if we were not also able to live ourselves into it in a “subjective” manner. I here use the expressions “objective” and “subjective” not because they are really in place, but because they are generally used in the above connexion. One ought, however, to avoid them, because they have no determinate sense at all and are the source of conceptual confusions in science. We observe the mechanical expressions of the vegetative life-processes of some organism, and say of these mechanical (physico-chemical) processes that they are “objective” findings. Now, while by virtue of our sense-perception we ascertain the physical expressions of life, we live ourselves, quite involuntarily or also intentionally, into the life-processes foreign to us — that is, we grasp, or at least believe by virtue of our phantasy that we grasp, those sensations, feelings, phantasms, in short that animal life-process which is inaccessible to us, and which plays itself out in the observed living being. To say it without circumlocution: we consider every life-process on the one hand in a mechanistic, on the other in a vitalistic manner; and it is these two modes of consideration that are inaptly designated as “objective” and “subjective.”

It is of extraordinary epistemological significance to become clear about the double method that has at all times been native to biological research, and of which it will never be able to divest itself. One will never be able to get at the vegetative life-process of any animal being otherwise than through the establishing of the chemico-physical processes in which it expresses itself. But whoever would take into consideration only these chemico-

physical processes would understand absolutely nothing of the life-process. Whoever, for example, would investigate the structure and function of an animal eye without representing to himself that this eye is capable of such vital achievements as we designate as light- and colour-sensation, could not gain the very faintest understanding of the anatomico-histological structure of the eye and of the chemico-physical processes that proceed from the retina. The whole structure of the eye would be to him something wholly senseless. It is the same with the ear and with the remaining sense-organs. But all voluntary movements, too, that we observe in animals would be something thoroughly senseless to us if we did not lay under them the feelings — hunger, thirst, affects such as rage, fear, etc., that is, some feeling-life — and did not think of them as regulated by some sense-sensation. An animal life appears to us as an animal one only because we not only perceive its chemico-physical expressions, but also ascribe to it sensation- and feeling-processes, and, especially in the higher animals, a phantasy-life too. In the moment in which we omitted to do this, we should stand as if dull-witted before every animal stirring, not knowing what it was to “signify.”

This state of affairs has often also been expressed by saying that we could not comprehend the function of the animal organs if we did not fix our eye upon their purpose; and one has wished to set up the peculiar “purposiveness” or “goal-directedness,” by which the life-process is pervaded and guided, as the mark of the vital as against the merely mechanical. With this so-called “teleological” mode of consideration of living nature an altogether unheard-of ado has been made, in that one profoundly contemplated, alongside the “principle of causality,” also a special “principle of purposiveness” (or teleological principle), of which the former would hold good in the whole of nature generally, the latter in particular in the realm of life. If one considers how exceedingly dark and ambiguous even the so-called principle of causality already is, then one will also be little edified by the principle of purposiveness, and will deem it a misfortune of science that such million-fold compromised concepts, clearly circumscribed by no one, are to be used for the characterisation of the living and the non-living. For if a principle of purposiveness subsists in the realm of life-processes, then such a one must hold also for the totality of the mechanical processes in nature. For in order that the vital processes may run their course in any way purposively, the mechanical processes most intimately connected with them must also permit this; the mechanical processes, therefore, must also

take such a course as makes possible the purposive course of the life-processes — that is, they must themselves be governed by the principle of purposiveness. Whoever wishes to formulate a principle of purposiveness for natural vital happening must consistently raise it to a universal principle for all natural happening, because otherwise he tears apart the bond between the mechanical and the living. With a “teleological” mode of consideration, therefore, as good as nothing is gained specifically for the characterisation of the life-processes, because teleology cannot under any condition be restricted to a special realm of happening, but, if it is to have any sense at all, must represent a universal principle for all happening.

But it is also not at all to be seen why one wishes artificially to obscure the peculiar character of the life-processes, as also the peculiar character in the method of all biological research, since it lies, after all, clear as day. Whoever investigates an eyeball must, in considering its structure and its universally perceptible functions, think in addition the vital achievement of the visual sensations [Gesichtsempfindungen], because without this thinking-in-addition he can comprehend absolutely nothing of the whole structure of the ball. Inasmuch as, in observing animal life, we must think in addition a sensation-, a feeling-, indeed also a phantasy-life to the universally perceptible processes, and inasmuch as we must say to ourselves that feelings must bring the animal tidings of its own vegetative life-process, sensations tidings of mechanical processes, we have distinguished the biological mode of research in the simplest way from the mechanistic. For the mechanist needs to impute no vegetative and animal life at all to the behaviour of inorganic bodies in order to investigate it. Indeed, we should reproach him with nothing so much as if he were to make himself guilty of such an imputation. The biologist, on the other hand, can comprehend nothing of animal and plant life if he does not regard the chemico-physical processes that he perceives in them as expressions of a vegetative life-process, and if, especially in the case of the former, he does not also think in addition to the vegetative life a sensation-, feeling-, and possibly also a phantasy-life. This two-sidedness of biological research lends it that vital-mechanical character which distinguishes it in an unambiguous manner from every merely physical, chemical, and astronomical investigation. A vital-mechanical character is shown also by the mode of investigation of the physician, in distinction from the merely mechanistic mode of investigation that the mechanic manifests in the repair of some machine. And there can never come a time when the physician and the theoretical biologist could treat and regard living beings in a

merely mechanical manner; first of all for the reason that sensation-, feeling-, and phantasy-life — or what we briefly designate as animal life — will never be reducible to mechanical processes, for the sensations, feelings, and phantasms of a living being will at all times in the best case be able to have merely one witness, and can never be perceived by several living beings. Furthermore, the vegetative life too will never be reducible to merely mechanical processes. Biology, therefore, may never let the investigation of the sensation-, feeling-, and phantasy-life be wrested from it by psychology, because in consequence of such a decapitation it ceases to be a science. It is the fundamental epistemological condition of its existence that it must equally emphasise the mechanical and the vital in its mode of research. If it would do justice quite especially to its highest task, the investigation of the nervous system, then it must energetically repulse the presumptuous encroachments of “psychology” in its present-day form.

But for the healthy development of a scientific psychology, too, it is a fundamental epistemological condition that it should at last become aware of the difference between aliveness and consciousness, and that it should, for example, not hold toothache and a stitch in the side to be psychical processes. Toothache and the stitch in the side are vital processes and belong as such in physiology. Psychology has to do with psychical activities (and not with psychical processes), or also with consciousness-activities, and it can assert a determinate place within the compass of the sciences only if it becomes clearly conscious of its task. All psychical activities are intermittent and hang together in the most intimate manner with vital processes, which are of flowing nature. If one considers the psychical activities from the point of view that their taking-place is conditioned by vital processes, then one grasps them on their psychological side; if, on the other hand, one considers consciousness-activity from the point of view where it is guided solely by the striving after truth, then one grasps it on its epistemological side. Psychology is the science of consciousness-activity in its conditionedness by the life-process; the theory of knowledge, on the other hand, is the science of sovereign consciousness-activity — that is, of mental activity in so far as the same is guided by the striving after knowledge of the truth. (Cf. my work The Dispute of the Psychologists and Formalists in Modern Logic,Palágyi’s Der Streit der Psychologisten und Formalisten in der modernen Logik (“The Dispute of the Psychologists and Formalists in Modern Logic”), 1902 — an early anti-psychologism polemic, contemporary with Husserl’s Logical Investigations.

where this distinction already hovered before me, without my being able to formulate it, because at that time I still harboured some doubts concerning the difference between vital processes and consciousness-activity.)

In its present-day constitution psychology neglects its proper, fine task, and at the same time lays violent hands upon the object of physiology (in particular of sense-physiology). This laying-hold comes to light especially where it confuses the classification of the consciousness-activities (or of the “faculties of the soul”) with the classification of the higher life-processes.[Author’s note:] The exceedingly lamentable state of modern psychology comes to light quite especially also in this, that it is incapable of distinguishing the problem of the classification of the animal-vital processes from the problem of the classification of the consciousness-activities. There are, as said, three classes of animal-vital processes: sensation, feeling, and phantasm, which all form the object of vitalistic biology. But there are also three classes of consciousness-activities, namely: cognitive activity, will, and valuation (through feeling). Psychology has properly to do with these three classes, but it mixes them up with the animal-vital processes. In that it holds these life-processes to be consciousness-processes, it is of course incapable of penetrating to a rational classification of them; so that there are no two psychologists who agree with one another concerning this fundamental question. Some wish to reduce all psychical — that is, animal — life-processes to “sensation,” others, on the other hand, wish to set up the “representation” as something specifically distinct from sensation. Many, however, are of the opinion that the representation is only composite sensing and represents no proper class of “psychical processes,” but that the “feelings” are to be regarded as such a proper class. Others again regard also the “affects” and the “volitions” as independent classes of psychical appearances, etc. etc. The worst of the matter is that a principle of classification is not demanded at all; indeed, is even regarded as something damnable, because according to a widely disseminated view the psychologist “describes” the “psychical formations” (sic!) as, for example, the meteorologist describes the cloud-formations. Whoever wished to classify the higher vital processes according to a determinate principle of classification would be reproached by the psychologist with carrying “his reflecting thought”[Author’s note:] Thus we see, for example, that Wundt everywhere wages war against “reflection-psychology.” into psychology and thereby falsifying this latter. As though it were not the supreme duty of every philosophical investigation to carry the epistemological, or rather logical, principles into all domains of knowledge! It has almost the appearance as though modern psychology would like to set itself above every theory of knowledge, or rather to banish every logic

from its methods of investigation — that is, to present the principles of the theory of knowledge, or of logic, as invalid for psychology.

The classification of the life-processes in general, and that of the higher life-processes in particular, I ground upon the epistemological principle of the relativity of every human perception, according to which no process is perceived in itself, but every one through another (and also somehow differently constituted) one. In order, therefore, to grasp the diversity of the processes, their connexion with one another and with consciousness must be grasped. The sensations are characterised by their connexion with mechanical processes; the feelings by their connexion with the vegetative life-process; the phantasms by their connexion with sensations and feelings; the phantasms of higher order by their connexion with the phantasms of lower order.

This classification is, however, also characterised by the fact that it brings to a clear intuition the developmental process that prevails in those processes. Upon the substructure of the vegetative life there raises itself the animal life-process, first of all in its bipartition as sensation and feeling. Upon the foundation of sensation and feeling there raises itself, further, the boundlessly variegated world of the phantasms, within which there subsist yet further grades of different order, which must be more closely investigated. The whole life-process shows in this way a peculiarly graduated character, which belongs so much to its essence that one understands nothing of the life-process if one does not notice this graduatedness [Stufenhaftigkeit]. The classification that was given above, and which we shall pursue further into detail, brings precisely these grades to intuition; it is therefore no scholastically empty set of pigeon-holes, but the presentation of an individual developmental process. In the embryonic state of the human being there can properly be talk only of a vegetative life-process — to be sure, of such a vegetative process as prepares itself for the animal functions, and is organised with a view to their later occurrence. Only at birth does the proper animal life get under way, as is announced by the first cry of the new citizen of the world. Sensation and feeling form themselves gradually, but at first still stand on a low grade, because the newborn lacks every phantasm. Months must pass (the “stupid quarter-year”),Das dumme Vierteljahr — colloquial German for the first three months of infancy, before the child begins to respond and “wake up” to its surroundings. until the phantasms stir, and it takes a considerable time until they have developed so far as to be able to form the foundation of a proper sense-perception. It lasts much longer still until higher phantasms come to forma-

tion, and the development of these latter can continue on into late age, so that the summit of bodily life is long overstepped while the intellectual development, which is conditioned by the formation of higher phantasms, may still be engaged in the most energetic ascent.

It must, however, already here be emphasised that the development of the life-process cannot be well understood without the development of consciousness. The concept of development gains its proper content only through the consideration of a mental development, for only mental progress reveals to us what a progress properly is: when we overcome an error in which we were caught, a light dawns upon us as to what it means to progress. Were we incapable of mental progress and nonetheless human beings (which assumption, to be sure, involves a contradiction), then we should also have no concept at all of a bodily development; for the higher value [Mehrwertigkeit]Mehrwertigkeit — literally “more-valuedness,” rendered throughout as “higher value / higher-valued.” The one word pulls two ways: of the organism it is graded worth (standing “higher” on the developmental scale); of the cognition it serves, a manifold richness. Both converge on this lecture’s relativity principle — a higher cognition is one of wider integrative reach, binding more processes through their relations, and the organism’s worth is measured by that reach. (Wertigkeit is also the German for chemical valence, so mehrwertig shades into “polyvalent”; this and the logician’s “many-valued” sense are latent but not Palágyi’s point.) of an organism depends on whether it can serve a higher-valued perception, experience, cognition, etc. One must, in general, undergo a mental development in order to grasp the concept of higher value and to transfer the same also to the development of the organism.

And here there offers itself to us also the opportunity of doing justice to the significance of psychology, and of pointing to the violent encroachments of biology into the psychological domain. The biologists behave, in the investigation of the problem of evolution, as though “development” were a purely biological concept. What a passionate struggle has raged among the biologists already for half a century over the great problem of evolution: but has anyone made a move to fetch the counsel of the psychologists in the treatment of it? The class struggle that poisons the political life of the peoples mirrors itself also in the scientific machinery, where every “discipline” feels entitled to set itself above every other, and to decide high-handedly upon questions that evidently form the common object of several disciplines. To be sure, one must on the other hand confess that the psychologists were not in any great hurry to spread, with their clarifications, a new light over the so exceedingly difficult problem of evolution. And yet, as said, organic development cannot be well understood without mental development. This latter is either a passive or an active development. If one regards mental development as dependent upon the life-process, then it presents itself as a passive one and forms as such a chief object of psychological research. But it belongs to the nature of the human mind that it can drive itself upward by its own activity, and that precisely this active self-unfolding raises it above the animal.

Logic, or the theory of knowledge, has the active self-unfolding of the understanding for its object — that is, it instructs us as to how the human mind drives itself, through its own activity, towards a knowledge of the truth. The sense for this active self-genesis of the understanding has been quite lost to our age, and one must reach back to Fichte, Schelling, and HegelJohann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854), and G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), the German Idealists. Palágyi credits them with grasping the mind’s active self-development, even if in what he regards as an “admittedly mystical garb.” in order to find the same in an admittedly mystical garb.

Eighth Lecture: The Doctrine of Phantasy-Life. Tactile Phantasy and Imagined Movement#

The doctrine of phantasy-life. The abstraction from visual and auditory phantasy. Contact- or tactile phantasy. The self-estrangement of one’s own life-process. The passive-active double-sensation as the foundation of the thing-concept. Movement and sensation cannot be reduced to one another. The extreme psychologism believes it can dissolve movement into sensation. Proof of the impossibility of this dissolution. The negation of matter amounts to a negation of movement. Movement cannot be perceived through mere sensing. Psychologism believes it can reduce the perception of movement to sensations. For the perception of movement there is required, besides sensation and feeling, yet another class of life-processes, namely imagined movement. Psychologism does not know this class of life-processes, and is for this reason unable to furnish a theory of perception. The significance of imagined or vital movement. Without mechanical and vital movement there is no perception. Tactile phantasy forms the foundation of the whole phantasy-life, as touch sensation does of the whole sensation-life. Autonomous tactile phantasy of the person born blind.

Gentlemen! The world of our sensations and feelings cannot be well understood if, in investigating it, we cannot support ourselves upon a doctrine of phantasy-life. For when we speak of sensations and feelings, or think of sensations and feelings at all, this speaking and thinking always takes place by virtue of the assistance of phantasms, through which our consciousness relates itself to those sensations and feelings. And what is most peculiar in this state of affairs: we cannot dispense with the assistance of phantasms even when those sensations and feelings are actual — that is, have the character of presentness. We shall convince ourselves of the truth of this important proposition as soon as we penetrate more deeply into the nature of the phantasms.

In investigating phantasy-life, however, we must first abstract from those phantasms that combine with the two higher modes of sensation, with sight and hearing. Visual phantasy [Gesichtsphantasie] and auditory phantasy [Gehörsphantasie] form two kinds of higher phantasy of which, during our consciousness-activity, we can in reality never rid ourselves, so that they conceal from us that lower kind of phantasy which even the person born blind, who is at the same time deaf-mute, possesses.

We may designate this kind of lower phantasy as contact-phantasy [Berührungsphantasie], because it arises in conjunction with contact-sensations. It is important to occupy oneself at first solely with this, because this alone already furnishes a sufficient foundation for the perception of an external world, and because the proper significance of visual and auditory phantasy cannot be rightly appreciated at all if one does not examine the function of contact-phantasy in its separateness. In short, one must know how to live oneself into the phantasy-life of the person born blind who is at the same time deaf-mute, in order to be able to occupy oneself meritoriously with the doctrine of the phantasms. In the following considerations, then, one must abstract completely from visual and auditory phantasy and seek to accommodate oneself to the conduct of a being to whom only a contact-phantasy (and thus also only a contact-sensing) is given. This is, as I remark in advance, no easy task.

But in wishing to engage with contact-phantasy, it is necessary that we also turn our attention to contact-sensing. Usually, with “contact-sensing,” one thinks merely of the passive sensation of being touched by a foreign body, and thereby arrives at a wholly false conception of contact-sensing.

Let us represent to ourselves for a moment a being that would never move from its place by its own activity and would not be capable of moving any limb by its own activity, so that it could procure for itself no contact-sensations in an active manner, but could only ever receive contact-sensations in a passive manner. The question now arises, with respect to such beings as would lack active contact-sensation and dispose merely of a passive contact-sensation, whether they would be capable of attaining to the consciousness of an external world. (Let it here be at once recalled that we abstract on principle from the higher modes of sensation of sight and hearing, and deny them to the hypothetical living being of which there is talk here.)

A being that would never move itself or one of its limbs by its own activity would also have no concept of such a movement. (I beg you not to forget that we assume the being to be born blind, so that visual sensations and visual phantasms of movement are wanting to it.) It would thus also have no representation of the fact that another body could move, could approach it. It would consequently also not be in a position to think the passive contact-sensation that it receives from a foreign body approaching and finally

touching it in such a way that it had received it from a body moving towards it and touching it.

A living statue — such as Condillac, for example, had in mindÉtienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780), French sensationalist. In his Traité des sensations (1754) he imagines a statue endowed with the senses one at a time, deriving all mental life from sensation. Palágyi turns the thought-experiment against sensationalism: the statue, lacking self-movement, could derive no external world at all. — which would have no other kind of sensations at all than passive contact-sensations, would possess in these something wholly superfluous, because it would be unable to apprehend them as stemming from the contact of any foreign body. Incapable of executing any self-active movements, the tidings that it would receive of the movement of foreign bodies and of being touched by them would also be of no practical use to it, since it could neither evade them nor brace itself against them by its own activity.

There is also, in fact, nowhere a living being that would have merely passive contact-sensations and would lack active ones entirely. It is, to be sure, possible that a being — for example, the human being too — should still partly preserve passive contact-sensitivity, while the active contact is disturbed through partial paralysis of mobility; but a complete preservation of all passive contact-sensibilities together with a complete paralysis of all self-active movements does not occur in pathological experience. We unfortunately still have no sufficient insight into the connexion of the totality of the centripetal (afferent) with the totality of the centrifugal (efferent) nerves; but this much everyone sees at once, that a being which would possess only afferent but no efferent nerves at all is a monstrosity. Precisely for this reason it makes no good sense at all to speak of a being that would be capable only of passive but of no active contact-sensations.

In any case a “living statue” that is capable only of passive contact-sensations could, on the foundation of these, never arrive at representations of foreign bodies and of their movement. But it would also not have the slightest intimation of its own body as a body among other bodies. For in order to be able to find one’s own body, this body must be able to touch itself, to offer itself a resistance, which is possible only if at least one limb of the body is capable of self-active movement. Only passive contact in conjunction with active contact — that is, only self-contact — leads to the discovery of one’s own body, and only a being that is able to discover its own body can also discover the presence of foreign bodies.

We stand here once again before the wonderful fact that our life-process — as we expressed it — is able to confront itself as if foreign. How strangely the one hand grasps and presses the other, as though it did not belong to one’s own body. Only through this self-estrange-

ment [Selbstentfremdung]Selbstentfremdung — self-estrangement. The term is Hegel’s (Entfremdung); Palágyi puns on fremd (“foreign, strange”): in self-touching, one limb meets another as something strange. He transfers the figure from self-consciousness (Fichte/Hegel) to the life-process itself. of the life-process does one find one’s own life-process no longer as a mere life-process, but as a body. And only because one is able to find one’s own body can one also speak of wholly foreign bodies, which touch and press our hand just as we ourselves have touched and pressed them. Were the life-process not capable of self-estrangement, we should be unable to find anything foreign at all in this world. Upon the self-estrangement of one’s own life rests the whole perception of an external world.

One need, however, connect no mystical concepts at all with this self-estrangement of life. I speak merely of the passive and active contact-sensations that we have when we move one limb and touch an unmoved limb with it. For this self-contact, which makes possible a self-finding of the body, I also use the expression “self-estrangement,” because the self-finding is not possible without one part of the body confronting the other like a foreign body. This self-finding and this self-estrangement of the life-process vividly reminds every thinking person of the wonder of self-consciousness. Whoever becomes conscious of his own consciousness-activity confronts, with the one activity, his own other activity as if foreign, and finds himself only through this self-estrangement. This self-finding of consciousness through the self-estrangement of the same was divined in a profound manner by Fichte (and Hegel) (“the self-positing through which an other is posited”),The allusion is to Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre: the I posits itself, and in the same act posits a not-I over against itself. Palágyi reads the bodily self-touching as a vital analogue of this self-positing. without their, however, ever having set out their fundamental thought with scientific clarity.

Here, however, there is talk not of the self-finding and the self-estrangement of consciousness, but of the self-finding and the self-estrangement of the life-process, through which the latter is given to us as a body. By which is meant that merely passive contact-sensations, taken for themselves, would never suffice to find one’s own body, but that for this active contact-sensations too are unconditionally required, which one receives by virtue of a self-active movement. If one bodily part moves towards the other until they touch, then contact-sensations arise in both bodily parts, and it is this passive-active double-sensing [Doppelempfinden] that forms the foundation of our perception of an external world. This is the epistemological principle of the passive-active double character of human perception.

Sensualism (idealism, psychologism, etc.), as it set out from England and flooded French and German philosophy, has misjudged this fundamental proposition of the theory of knowledge too, and has thereby rendered almost impossible the epistemological investigation of the most important concepts of natural philosophy, such as space, time, substance, force, movement, rest, action, reaction, causality, etc. One supposed that through mere sensing — namely through a passive sensing — an external world could be found, and failed to recognise that passive sensing can nowhere in the world subsist in complete isolation, and that it is only in conjunction with active sensing — that is, with sensing through self-active movement — that it makes up the real sensation-life. If a moving bodily part touches the other, then the one senses the other and is also sensed by the other. This sensing and being-sensed make up, in conjunction with one another, the sensation-life. (The higher modes of sensation must be abstracted from!)

In taking sensing in a merely passive sense and not thinking it supplemented by active sensing, one arrived at an untenable concept of the “bodily thing” or of “matter” in general. One conceived the thing as a “unity of manifold properties,” or also as a “bundle of diverse sensations.” A something that is, for example, hard, warm, red, sweet, fragrant at once is a bodily thing. One laid the chief weight in this upon the diversity of the co-subsisting properties, of which the bodily thing was thought as the bearer. Hereby there came into the concept of the material thing an element that is, to be sure, important, yet secondary, and it displaced the most essential mark of the same. One need not apprehend a thing with different senses at all, need possess no intimation of colour, tone, smell, taste, cold, warmth, in order to be able to find a thing as a material thing. It suffices that a being can move and touch itself, so that it can sense its own body and, like the same, a foreign body too. Not the multiplicity of sensation-modalities, but the passive-active double-sensing forms the foundation of the thing-concept. One can also express this by saying that the mere (passive) sensing does not suffice to discover a world of things; only a being that is able to move itself by its own activity can penetrate to the consciousness of the existence of material things. Without self-movement there is no perception of the external world. The opinion of sensualism, that the perception of the external world rests upon mere sensing, is fundamentally false, because the capacity to be able to move oneself (or a limb) is just as much

a fundamental condition of all perception as is mere sensing. The expression “sense-perception” is a misleading one, for it awakens the prejudice that sense-sensations could form a sufficient foundation for the perception of an external world, whereas a being that would sense only passively could never have the slightest intimation of the presence of its own body or of foreign material things.

Sensualism, and the modern or empirical idealism that proceeds from it, do indeed wish to “reduce” movement to sensing. Were this possible, then we could of course make mere passive sensing the foundation of our whole perception of an external world. But now, movement can never be reduced to sensation, just as, conversely, sensation can never be reduced to movement. In this proposition there really comes to expression nothing further than the great principle of the irreducibility of mechanical to vital, or conversely of vital to mechanical, processes. If someone moves his hand, a stranger can get to sense and to feel this just as well as he himself, and precisely for this reason movement is a mechanical process. A sensation, however — as has already been set out often enough — is, in the sense of our conception, a vital process, because it can have but a single witness. Movement will thus never be able to be reduced to sensation.

Of this proposition no one ought properly to be so deeply convinced as the physiologist, since he is able, so to speak, to behold it. To which physiologist, for example, could it occur to derive the anterior or motor nerve-roots of the spinal cord from the posterior or sensory roots of the same? Which embryologist could fall into the un-thought that, in the course of embryonic development, the sensory nerve-roots would develop first, and from these the motor ones proceeded, or vice versa? Or which biologist would ever come to the senseless assumption that the lowest living beings had at first shown only sensibility without any capacity for movement, and only then, in the course of development, had the capacity for movement evolved out of the womb of sensibility? Everywhere we look in the realm of animal life, the biological fundamental truth reveals itself, that sensibility and motility cannot develop the one out of the other, but mutually condition one another. In this mutual conditioning of sensation and movement, however, there expresses itself the more deeply lying truth of the mutual conditioning of living and mechanical nature. If, then, any striving ought to have no place in the natural sciences, it is the

striving to reduce the mechanical and the living to one another. In biology especially, there might sooner be talk of anything than that sensation could ever be reduced to movement, or conversely movement to sensation.

Peculiarly, however, modern physiology lets itself be seduced by psychologism into wishing to reduce movement to sensation, and thereby to dissolve the world into mere sensing. The consequence of this derailment of physiological thinking is that we are unable to penetrate to any scientific theory of sense-perception. For a perception that supports itself merely upon sensations and not also upon the capacity for movement is a dead perception, or more correctly, it is a nonsense. In order to prove this, it suffices to show that psychologism is incapable of reducing movement to sensations, although it imagines that it can accomplish this. Once we have set forth that movement can never be dissolved into sensation, then the psychologistic theory of perception is overcome, and then room can be gained for a new theory of perception (and thereby for a new epistemology) in which sensation and self-movement are grasped as the equally significant conditions of the perceptual activity of our consciousness.

The extreme psychologism — as consistent as possible[Author’s note:] Complete consistency is never possible within an error, because the error leads finally to manifest absurdities, which, however, the one caught in the error does not notice. in its aberration — as it is represented by Berkeley, transposes the whole world into the kennel of consciousness, so that all movement, too, must be regarded as running its course within consciousness. The consequence of this conception, however, is that the existence of movements must be denied: an inference that Berkeley, to be sure, did not notice and therefore also did not proclaim. Berkeley merely denied the existence of matter, and pleased himself so greatly in this denying that he believed he had boldly drawn the last consequence of his sensualism. But had he been truly consistent, he would also have had to deny all movement at once, because whoever denies the existence of matter, taken at bottom, aims only at the negation of all movement. Had Berkeley noticed this, he would surely have grown anxious before his matterlessness. Unfortunately, however, his critics too did not notice that in the denial of matter there is really contained the denial of a mechanical world of appearances, of which movement must be regarded as the typical representative.

For in order to be able to grasp the concept of movement, it is unconditionally necessary to speak of a something that moves. If there is nowhere a something that moves, then there can be no talk of any movement either. For at bottom we need the concept of the material thing in the first place only for the purpose of being able to conceive the concept of movement. We perceive that a thing, or if one prefers a “bundle of sensible properties,” changes its place, and because we ascertain that this bundle of sensible properties has remained the same bundle during the change of place, we say that a material thing has moved. But if there were nowhere in the world a movement, then we should also not have the slightest ground for speaking of “material things.” This concept has, as said, been conceived by the human mind in the first instance for the purpose of being able to speak of those facts that we designate as “movement.” Bundles of sensible properties appear to us, in the course of a time-interval, in continuously successive places — but although the appearance occurs at different places, the “bundle of sensible properties” nevertheless remains the same bundle. Instead of saying this each time at such length, we express ourselves more briefly by saying that a material thing (a body) moves.

But were we never in the position of having to give an account of a movement, then we could in fact dispense entirely with the concept of a “body” or “material thing.” To be sure, without movement there would also be no world of appearances at all. Since, then, we do live in a world of appearances, or rather of movements, and wish to ascertain these as far as possible, we must also provide for concepts that make this ascertaining of the facts possible. Such indispensable concepts are, for example, “movement” and “the movable,” or matter. We form this latter concept in order to designate that which remains identical within the movement. Let the body K, for example, take in the course of the second the places a, b, c:

a b c

If one may not now say that it is one selfsame something that takes up the positions a, b, c in the successive points of time, then the concept of movement is annihilated. For we speak of movement only because we believe that one selfsame something appeared in turn at the places a, b, c. If there is no such selfsame something, then the appearance that we perceive at b may not be brought into relation to the appearance at a, and we may speak only of series of appearances that have nothing in common with one another — that

is, we must give up the concept of movement. For we speak of movement always only when one selfsame something appears at different places at different times. But since precisely this selfsame something is denied, there can no longer be talk of a transition from the position a into the position b; one has to do with a series of appearances wholly independent of one another — that is, the concept of movement is given up.

Locke, Berkeley, Hume, etc. believed that such concepts as substance, matter, force, etc. are worth and dear to us for their own sake, and from this peculiar point of view exercised their critique of these concepts, which we wish to designate as substrate-concepts [Unterlagsbegriffe]. Such substrate-concepts are, for example, also: the I, the state, etc. But we form all our concepts, and thus also our substrate-concepts, not because we wish to while away the time, but because they are indispensable to us in all knowledge and above all in the taking-cognisance of facts. We would gladly dispense with all substrate-concepts if we could bring the facts to expression without their help. It is, however, as has just been shown, a matter of impossibility to speak of movement if the identical, which is now here and in the next moment there, is denied. For this is precisely the essence of the concept of movement, that through it an identical is posited which is present at different times at different places. Whoever denies this identical must also deny the fact of movement.

It is for us in this entirely a matter of indifference whether the identical, which we must posit in every movement in order to be able to speak of movement, is called “body” or “bundle of sensible properties,” for the sound of the word matters very little to us. The chief thing for us remains not having to give up the concept of movement, because otherwise we should have to give up the existence of the world of appearances and, with it, our understanding too. But since we all discern that there can be talk of movement only in so far as there is an identical that appears at different places, we cannot do without this identical, whether it be called body or bundle or whatever else.

The denial of matter is thus, as one sees, equivalent to the denial of movement. Only this insight shows us English psychologism in its true light. The mechanistic thinking that set out from Galileo founded a science of movement which is to be regarded as the most magnificent attainment of the modern spirit. To this mechanistic thinking there stands opposed the psychologistic thinking that sets out from Locke, which, culminating in Berkeley, wishes to dissolve the world into sensation, and

therefore in its last consequence — to be sure without noticing it — negates movement. To the philosophy of movement there stands opposed a philosophy of sensation; but what an immeasurable difference of value subsists between the two! The philosophy of movement, the just pride of modern man, sets up an edifice of doctrine concerning the world of appearances such as was not divined by the greatest thinkers of antiquity; it also confers upon us a technical power over the processes of nature which will make it possible, in ever higher measure, for humanity to devote itself to its proper vocation, the solution of cultural tasks. It does not, however, in the least presume to wish to solve the problems of vitality in a mechanistic manner, so that the true leaders of physico-chemical research are pervaded by the conviction that life cannot be dissolved into a merely mechanistic problem. But what do we owe to the philosophy of sensation? The negation of the proper mental activity, because it holds sensation to be mental activity. Further, the negation of matter — wherein it lacks that degree of reflection by virtue of which it could discern that a negation of matter, if it is to be no mere play on words, amounts to the negation of movement.

But not only the extreme philosophy of sensation, but also all its shadings inclined to compromises with mechanistic thinking, stand equally helpless before movement, and are precisely for this reason equally incapable of furnishing a theory of perception. For with mere sensations one does not get at movement. And yet psychologism would have us believe that we could, through mere passive sensing, already perceive movement. Had one merely passive sensations, then it would indeed still be possible to experience a continuous series of sensations, but such a mere series of sensations would contain within itself not the slightest guarantee that it relates to a movement. All sorts of sensations belonging to the most diverse sensory domains and following continuously one upon another — as, for example, the temporal succession of a touch sensation, a colour-sensation, a tone-sensation, etc. — do not at all represent that which we call movement or change of place of a body. The psychologists take enormous pains to explain to us how we arrive, through mere sensations or series of sensations, at the cognisance of a movement; they speak of muscle-sensations, joint- and tendon-sensations, innervation-sensations, and of movement-sensations in general; but the more kinds of sensation they posit, the more occasion arises for boundless disputes over the significance, the existence, and the nervous substrate of all these kinds of sensation, and the

denser the fog in which the question shrouds itself, how we actually arrive at the cognisance of a movement. One need not wonder at this, for whoever wishes to make intelligible to us, through mere series of sensations, how we perceive movements, is comparable to a person who would like to show us how, through mere idling, one creates the greatest works. Only a being that is able to move itself — that is, that possesses the capacity to move its body or one of its limbs — can also possess the capacity to perceive movements. In the perceiving of a movement there is contained the perceiving of a whole mechanical world. For in order that there can be talk of movement, there must be talk of a something that moves, and further also of space and time, within which the movement takes place. The question, then, of how one arrives at the cognisance of movement contains within itself the following significant problems: which life-processes are those that make it possible for us to form the concepts of matter, space, and time — for these life-processes are also those that form the vital substrate of the concept of movement.

It is now the peculiar merit of Berkeley to have shown us, against his own will, that a being that had merely passive sensations could never speak of matter, and thus also never of movement; that mere sensation, therefore, could furnish no sufficient foundation for the perception of a mechanical world, in particular of a moving world. In order to be able to form the concept of movement, one must first be able to find oneself as moved: quite as, for the forming of the concept of matter, it is also requisite that one be able to find one’s own body as a body among the remaining bodies. But one’s own movement cannot be made known as one’s own through mere sensing, because through mere sensing we always relate ourselves only to foreign processes. In order that we may apprehend a movement as an expression of our own life-process, it is necessary that this be made known to us through peculiar feelings of self-movement (of mechanical work). Feelings must thus come to the aid of the sensations, in order that we may become conscious of our own movement not only as of a foreign process, but also as an expression of our own life-process. But even the sensation supported by feeling by no means suffices to perceive movement, for we require yet a proper class of experiences through which the movement-sensations are so connected with the movement-feelings that we can relate them to the mechanical process of movement.

We are in a position to live ourselves into a movement without therefore having to execute the movement in reality. I call that kind of life-processes, through which we live ourselves into a movement without executing the same in reality, imagined movements [eingebildete Bewegung]Eingebildete Bewegung — imagined movement (so rendered by W. R. Boyce Gibson, 1928). Note Palágyi’s warning below: he means a real vital process (a nerve-process by which we live ourselves into a movement), not a thought about movement. He proposes “vital movement” as the more apt name. or also movement-phantasms. They form a quite proper class of life-processes, thoroughly distinct from the mere sensations and feelings, which has indeed been divined in its peculiarity but never clearly grasped, and which has been completely thrown into the shade by psychologism, so that its infinite significance for our whole intellectual life could not be worked out. Only because we can execute movements in imagination can we also produce voluntary movements in reality, and afterwards also perceive any produced movements. The production and perception of movements is bound to the living-into the movement, and without this phantasy-like living-into the movement to be executed and the movement already executed, there would be nowhere a voluntary capacity for movement, nor anywhere a perception of any movements, and thus also no perception of a mechanical world. The same significance that belongs to real movement in the mechanical world must be ascribed to imagined movement in the world of the vital process. Imagined movement can metaphorically be designated as the “image” of mechanical movement; only one must beware of taking this expression in a proper (non-transferred) sense. For a movement can really be imaged only by another real movement similar to it. But in the transferred sense one can quite well say that within the vital process we possess, by virtue of imagined movement, an image for the real movements, because with their help we are in a position to produce a movement b similar to the movement a.

The expressions “imagined movement” and “movement-phantasm” are not to be designated as felicitous, because they do not clearly bring to expression that by them we understand vital processes — and indeed real vital processes — but not thoughts (representations, concepts). They easily lead to a confusion of the “thought of movement” (movement-representation) with the vital process that first makes it possible for us to think of a movement. There is within our life-process a proper class of life-processes (or nerve-processes) that correspond to mechanical movement — that is, by means of which we are able to live ourselves into a mechanical movement without really executing it: and it is this kind of life-processes that I designate as “imagined movement,” but which

might perhaps more aptly be called “vital movement” [vitale Bewegung] in distinction from “mechanical movement.” For whereas “mechanical movement” can be confirmed by any number of witnesses, a “vital movement” has in the best case only one witness, namely the person in whose imagination it was executed.

Through “vital movement” a living being transposes itself into another spatial position without also really taking up this other spatial position. It belongs to the character of all higher animal and human life to be able to transpose itself or one of its limbs into some other spatial position without this transposing having to be a real, that is, a mechanical, one. Only because there is a merely vital transposing of the body or of one of its limbs, in distinction from a real or mechanical transposing of the same, does animal life set itself off from the mechanical milieu. Lifeless things can indeed be engaged in real or mechanical movement, but they have no self-movement — that is, no vital movement — by which is meant that they cannot transpose themselves in a vital manner (in imagination) into other positions. The wonder of higher animal life is this vital transposing of the body from one place to another without the transposition having to be executed in reality, that is, mechanically. In that psychologism did not bring this wonder of life to consciousness, and remained stuck to the mere wonder of life that is sensation, it deprived itself entirely of the concept of the higher animal and quite especially of the human life-process. For one can understand as good as nothing of this life-process if one transposes its chief characteristic trait into sensation and does not notice that sensation is merely the condition and the substrate for that higher vital capacity whereby a living being is able to transpose itself in a vital manner to another place than where it finds itself.

How does it come about that the English sensation-philosophers and the modern psychologists dependent upon them did not grasp the existence and the significance of those most peculiar and wonderful life-processes, by virtue of which an animal executes, as it were dreamlike, a mighty “vital movement” without stirring from its place? For if, for example, some wild animal lies in wait, then, upon the approach of a prey, there take place in its nervous system those processes that correspond to “imagined movement,” and which only in the suitable moment, when it throws itself upon the prey, lead over into a real movement. How does it come about, I ask, that the vital process of imagined movement, which is also accompanied by peculiar feelings, was able to excite the attention of the psychologists so little? This lies in the fact

that the philosophy of sensation, by its very origin, stands wholly foreign to movement — and thus to the mechanical world. Movement becomes for it a passively flowing series of sensations; and it runs itself into this prejudice all the more easily because it is wont to dissolve movement into a flowing series of visual sensations, and does not notice that the person born blind knows very well what movement is, without being supported in this knowledge by visual sensations even in the slightest degree. Precisely for this reason there is nothing more inexpedient and more unmethodical than to bring the formation of the concept of movement (“movement-representation”) from the outset into connexion with the sense of sight.

The blind person is, as is known, able — in consequence of noises caused by footsteps — to come to vivid phantasms of a movement taking place in his vicinity; he represents this movement to himself, even when his blindness is congenital. But how? Only by his executing in imagination those movements that he represents to himself. His movement-imagination finds itself accordingly in an incomparably more intense activity than that of the sighted person, who thinks of all movement just as of a visible movement, and can accordingly spare himself executing, at every moment, with hands and feet — indeed with the whole body — imagined movements in the measure in which the person born blind does, who is compelled in a high degree to such “vital movements” if he is to have an idea of what is going on around him. He also palpates in imagination the face of the persons known (and unknown) to him, and forms the concept of shape in general only through imagined movement; in proof that all apprehension of shape and form, even of the sighted human being, rests upon vital movement. The sighted person, to be sure, is unable to think of movement and shape otherwise than that visual phantasms of the movements and phantasms in question force themselves upon him and conceal and render imperceptible those imagined movements through which the person born blind represents to himself the movements and shapes. We sighted persons can arrive, only through laborious reflection, at abstracting from the visual phantasm that forces itself upon us in the representation of a movement; but we can never produce the movement-phantasm of a person born blind in its purity. If, for example, I raise my right arm in imagination, it is wholly impossible for me to avoid perceiving the movement at the same time in visual imagination; the person born blind, however, possesses precisely in consequence of his organic defect a pure movement-imagination wholly free of visual imagination (active tactile imagination).

The phantasy of the person born blind and of the sighted person is separated by an unbridgeable vital partition, which we sighted persons can bridge only through the understanding, by artificially abstracting from the visual phantasms that force themselves upon us and retaining merely those imagined movements of the limbs through which the person born blind is able quite exclusively to represent to himself movement and shape. Now in that the philosophy of sensation has accustomed itself to represent movement merely through visual phantasy — this visual phantasy being, however, much more passive than the tactile phantasy [Tastphantasie] of the person born blind, because the imagined movements of the eyes during the optical activity of imagination become scarcely noticeable — it comes to the false conception that one can represent movements through merely passive sensing. The investigation of the phantasy of the blind first brings to the fore the tactile phantasy veiled by visual phantasy, and lets the significance of imagined movement for all perception of movement and shape be recognised.

The person born blind has an autonomous tactile phantasy, which is wanting to us sighted persons in its autonomous form, because the same is in us suppressed and veiled by the autonomous visual phantasy. This is the fundamental proposition of all “psychology of the blind,” but at the same time also a fundamental proposition of the doctrine of the phantasy of the sighted. Peculiarly and characteristically, modern psychology has not grasped this proposition either. Thus Wundt, for example, says (Phys. Psychol., 5th ed., vol. II, p. 465): “Accordingly the tactile perceptions of the blind take place in no way otherwise than those of the sighted. Only is the touch-sense of the former naturally — namely with respect to the active side of the tactile functions — incomparably more active, whereby, moreover, it receives the signals that release its attention and stimulate the tactile functions, as a rule, from hearing.” On p. 466 Wundt repeatedly emphasises that an essential difference between the tactile functions of the blind and of the sighted is not to be found. On p. 468 he extends the proposition altogether to the representational life and says that “in general no essential differences exist between the representational world of the blind and that of the sighted.” I intentionally cite so highly circumspect and deliberate a psychologist as Wundt, in order to show that the autonomy of the tactile phantasy of the person born blind is by no means recognised. This is connected with the fact that modern psychology has not formed a proper doctrine of phantasy or of the phantasms. For the first step that we must take in the theory of phantasy is the recognition that our visual phantasy has for its substrate a peculiar active tactile phantasy distinct from it, and that this concealed active

tactile phantasy attains, in the person born blind, an autonomy belonging to him alone, which is necessarily wanting to the sighted person.

Let it here be mentioned in passing that the doctrine of phantasy possesses a fundamental significance not only for epistemology, but also for aesthetics, and quite especially for the latter. The great problem of the classification of the arts, and no less of the artistic genres, hangs together in the most intimate manner with the recognition of the different kinds of phantasy and their combinations. Thus, for example, the relation of painting and sculpture is a problem whose solution depends in the main upon the investigation of visual phantasy in its relation to tactile phantasy. A painterly representation stimulates not only the visual but, together with this, also the tactile phantasy, because it would otherwise not be able to awaken the illusion of plasticity. But whereas the painter uses the active tactile phantasy (which one might also designate as the “plastic phantasy”) only as a means to stimulate the visual phantasy as energetically as possible, the sculptor, conversely, strives to seize the human being by the visual phantasy, and to use this as a means in order to give the strongest possible stimulation to his tactile phantasy. From this inverse relation of the two kinds of phantasy in the two arts of painting and sculpture there is explained a good part of the different modes of treatment that the painter and the sculptor bestow upon a similar theme. But however interesting it would also be to pursue this subject further — which was brought home to all educated people by LessingGotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781), in Laokoon (1766), drew the boundary between poetry and the visual arts. Palágyi recasts the painting/sculpture distinction in terms of the interplay of visual and tactile phantasy. — we must nonetheless forgo it in the context of these lectures.

Here the doctrine of phantasy interests us only in so far as it must form the foundation of every theory of sense-perception. And indeed it is the pure tactile phantasy of the person born blind that offers us the key to the understanding of phantasy in general, for this tactile phantasy lets it be clearly recognised that its essence consists in imagined movement. Just as an exceptional and fundamental position belongs to the touch-sense in the realm of the sensory functions, so to tactile phantasy in the realm of the kinds of phantasy. Upon what it rests, however, that the touch-sense, as the most original among all the sensory functions, must be regarded as it were as the root of our whole sensation-life, need perhaps, in view of our considerations hitherto, not be explained at length. For it is the touch sensations that are directly united with our capacity to execute voluntary movements. In that we move, we necessarily have touch sensations, and indeed passive-active double-sensations, which form the foundation of our

whole perception of the external world. No other sense is united in such an immediate manner with the motor activity as is the touch-sense; nor does any other sense dispose of passive-active double-sensations as does the touch-sense; so that all the remaining senses would, without the help of the touch-sense, be incapable of furnishing the vital substrate for the cognisance of an external world. The touch-sense is the only full sense [Vollsinn]; all the remaining senses are only auxiliary senses, only supplementary senses of the touch-sense.

Even this self-evident insight into the nature of our sensory functions has been obscured by modern psychologism. For this asserts that the touch-sense has by no means a more original character than any other sense, and that we could, for example, perceive movement just as well and even better by means of the mere sense of sight than by means of the touch-sense. Against this conception it must be shown that without the touch-sense we should possess absolutely no judgement about movement and rest, and that, even if we can also pass a judgement about movement and rest by means of the sense of sight, this is possible only because the sense of sight supports itself thereby upon the touch-sense. We will, already here, furnish a proof of this important doctrine.

Everyone is able, in the waking state — pathological cases aside — to establish with certainty whether he has set his own body or one of its limbs in movement or not. But we have, in general, no judgement about whether the support on which our body finds itself is moving or not. If, for example, we find ourselves on a ship or in a railway compartment, the touch sensations and pressure-feelings that we have while sitting give us, in general, no clue as to whether and in what direction the journey is taking place. The universal tactile support of our body, too — namely the earth — conveys to our soles no touch sensations or pressure-feelings of such a kind as could give us an immediate disclosure as to whether the earth is at rest or in movement. If we now find ourselves upon a moving support U (for example, in the carriage of a speeding train), whose movement, however, remains hidden to our passive-active touching, and if through the movement of the said support we approach some resting object G (for example, a tree), then, as is known, for our visual perception the object G will appear as if engaged in a movement directed towards us. This generally known optical movement-illusion, which is called forth in us by resting objects upon a glance out of the railway compartment, betrays to us most simply the dependence of the perception of movement through the eye upon the perception of movement through the passive-active touch-sense. For since, on the basis of the data of our

touch-sense, we have no judgement as to whether the support U on which we find ourselves is moving or not, we can also form no immediately correct judgement as to whether the object G, whose approach we perceive with the eyes, is really moving or not. The visual sensations instruct us in a wholly correct manner that we are approaching the object G; but since by virtue of touching we pass the false judgement that the support U is at rest, nothing else remains for us than to hold, on the basis of ocular evidence, the resting object G to be moving. In this false inference the dependence of visual perception upon tactile perception comes to a wholly clear expression. Were visual perception capable, by itself alone, of deciding about rest and movement, then a resting object could never seem to us to be moving. But since visual perception must come to an understanding with tactile perception, this latter, however, being able to leave us in the lurch with respect to the movement of the support on which we find ourselves, there can also arise for the sense of sight the semblance that resting objects are moving, or vice versa. If our visual perception did not have to adapt itself to our tactile perception — that is, if the former were not dependent upon the latter — then there would arise no optical illusions concerning the rest and movement of foreign bodies. It is not the sense of sight that deceives us through its data, but the touch-sense that gives us no enlightenment about the state of movement of the support on which we live, so that visual perception, which must adapt itself to tactile perception, can, in consequence of the inadequacy of the latter, mislead us into false judgements about rest and movement. It is thus subject to no doubt that the touch-sense must be regarded as the foundation of our whole sensation-life.

Psychologism, however, which transposes all sense-sensations into the kennel of consciousness and re-stamps them into “psychical processes,” annihilates the characteristic differences in the relation of the disparate modes of sensation. It cannot hold the touch sensation to be more original than the visual sensation, because it uproots all the modes of sensation altogether, in that it severs them all from the vegetative life-substratum and locks them into the cage of consciousness. But whoever apprehends sensation as a vital process is able to do justice to the nature of every mode of sensation, and does not hesitate for a moment to apprehend the passive-active double-sensation of touch as the foundation of our whole sensation-life.

Ninth Lecture: The Closing of the Life-Chain. Double-Sensations and Double-Feelings of Self-Touching#

Delimitation of a circle of life-processes which form the unconditionally necessary, but also sufficient, foundation of the perceptual activity. “The closing of the life-chain.” The double-sensations that occur in self-touching. The decomposition of the touch sensation into the phases of other-sensation and self-sensation. Sensation-mountains and sensation-valleys. The double-feelings that occur in self-touching. Every feeling consists of two opposed, mutually conflicting components. Difference between “contradiction” and “opposition.” The eradication of oppositions leads to a false monism. The dynamic closing of the life-chain. Extensive and intensive sensation-series as the vital foundation of the concepts of space and time. Mutuality of the concepts of space and time. Imagined movement is the root of our whole phantasy-life. The philosophy of sensation stands as foreign to phantasy as it does to movement. Obscuring of the significance of phantasy-life by the association theories.

Gentlemen! The difficulty that attaches to our investigations rests chiefly upon the circumstance that we artificially seek to restrict ourselves to an exceedingly narrow circle of experiences. We extinguish, as it were, all our sensory functions and retain merely the active-passive touch-function: as the vital foundation of all our perceptual activity. We immerse ourselves in the deepest lowlands of our sensory life, because we wish to become acquainted with the original vital underlay of our concepts of the external world. We descend to the ultimate life-springs of our experiential knowledge, in order that we may give ourselves an account of how it was that we could attain to those peculiar fundamental concepts of our experience, such as matter, force, action, movement, space, time, etc. We search through the dark ravines of our animal, and where necessary also of our vegetative, life, in order to win a vitalistic substructure for the investigation of our mental activities. This is a laborious yet rewarding labour, for it springs, after all, from the sincere striving after self-knowledge.

The restriction to the active-passive touch-function is, however, still not yet a sufficient one; we must, in this self-confinement, go yet a step further: in that we take into consideration only those experiences that spring from self-touching [Selbstbetastung]. Hereby, however, it is not meant to be said that there could be a living being which is really restricted only to the experiences of self-touching. It surely needs no emphasising that we have necessary relations to a material underlay on which we find ourselves, to a milieu in which we breathe, etc. etc.: but the passive-active touch-experiences that spring from this have for us here only a secondary significance, because the concepts that relate to these are formed by analogy to those concepts that we gain from self-touching. One must be able to find one’s own body in order to have cognisance also of foreign material things. If one touches the body of another living being, then there are required for this just such vital achievements as when we touch our own body: we must, namely, execute a corresponding movement, and in consequence of the same receive a contact-sensation; but in the touching of another body the contact-sensations that arise in it are not immediately given to us; rather, we must merely “think them in addition,” and this is possible only because in self-contact we have a sensation not only in the touching but also in the touched bodily part. We make use, in a word, of self-contacts to elucidate those experiences that we have in foreign-contacts. In general, our intercourse with our own body is, as it were, a commentary upon our intercourse with the other things, so that in a methodical investigation it is expedient to restrict oneself at first to the former.

I call the circle of those experiences that spring from self-touching (or from the self-confronting of the life-process) the primary experience-circle. If we touch our own body, then I use for this also the designation that we close our own life-chain. This closing can be such that both bodily parts conduct themselves actively towards one another (doubly active closure), or that one bodily part rests upon an underlay and the other actively presses in upon it (passive-active closure), or also that both bodily parts conduct themselves passively towards one another, e.g. lie upon one another (doubly-passive closure). A detailed elaboration of these concepts must be left to the physiology of movement. It is furthermore also of importance to distinguish the static and the dynamic closure of the life-chain from one another. In the static closure the contact-surface of the two bodily parts remains unchanged; in the dynamic closure, on the

other hand, the one bodily part moves along the other as its underlay (e.g. the one hand strokes the other). The introduction of these expressions springs not only from a didactic but also from a scientific need. On the one hand, the phantasy is to be stimulated to represent to itself vividly that one extinguishes, as it were, the higher sensory functions and encloses oneself within a narrowest domain of experiences, which is facilitated by the introduction of unaccustomed designations. On the other hand, however, it is, from the scientific standpoint, of great importance to delimit clearly that narrowest circle of experiences upon which our whole perception of an external world rests as upon its foundation. In the closing of the life-chain [Schließen der Lebenskette]—that is, in the touching or grasping of one’s own body or of one of its limbs—there are, namely, contained all the life-processes that are requisite for the perception of a material world; for the perception of foreign bodies takes place, as has already been mentioned, on the foundation of experiences similar to those of the perception of one’s own body. It is also to be noted that the closing of the life-chain comprises within itself precisely only the indispensably requisite life-processes that are needed for the perception of the external world, so that through this expression there is delimited a circle of experiences which forms the most meagre, but also the sufficient, foundation of all human experience.

The philosophy of sensation was never at pains to delimit such a circle of experiences, because it is caught in the delusion that mere (passive) sensations form a sufficient foundation of human experience. In the sense of this conception a wholly immovable statue, if only it possessed passive touch-sensitivity, would suffice for a perception of the external world. Now, in order to let the principial opposition in which we find ourselves towards every kind of philosophy of sensation (sensualism, psychologism, idealism, etc.) emerge intuitively, it is above all necessary to emphasise that a statue incapable of movement, which possessed passive sensitivity—even quite apart from the absurdity that lies in the mere assumption of such an un-thing—does not dispose of the necessary life-processes that are requisite for the perception of the external world. In the place of this statue incapable of movement we therefore set a person equipped with the capacity for movement and with active-passive touch-sensitivity, and designate the sum of all the life-processes that is necessary and sufficient for the perception of material things as the “closing of the life-chain.” Whoever, then, will subject the vital foundation of all human perception and experience in general to a scientific examination, needs only to investigate the life-processes that occur in a “closing of the life-

chain“; for upon the firm substratum of the same a perception-doctrine of the higher sensory functions too will then be able to be built up. We shall accordingly subject the three kinds of life-processes—sensations, feelings, and phantasms—which occur in a closing of the life-chain, to a more exact consideration, in the framework of this lecture, than has hitherto happened.

a) In the closing of the life-chain there occur double-sensations, which deserve a quite particular attention, because they set the nature of our perceptual activity in a bright light. If we designate by A the active limb, by B, on the other hand, the touched passive limb, then it is the contact-sensation that occurs in the passive limb B that snatches our attention to itself, while the sensation of the active limb A appears, as it were, drowned out. If the sensation in the limb A is to come into its own, then this must conduct itself passively and be touched in active fashion by B. In that, then, now A and now B conducts itself actively in alternation, the sensation comes now in B and now in A to dominance, so that this circumstance makes possible the distinguishing of the two sensation-processes within the double-sensation. If both parts conduct themselves equally passively within the contact, then the two sensations are no longer to be distinguished from one another. This falling-into-one of the two sensations, as well as their alternating emergence, when one sets now A, now B in activity, is of decisive significance for the formation of a concept of the external world. If we designate the sensation in A by a, the sensation in B by b, then the possibility of a perception rests upon the reciprocal relation of a and b. Were a and b unable to emerge in alternation in consequence of the alternating activity of B and A, and could they not, given mutual passivity, paralyse one another, then there would be nowhere a perception of material things.

For even when we touch with our own hand A some foreign body X, there occur in A double-sensations that must be considered more closely. Our hand, namely—because it is precisely a living hand—finds itself, however firmly we may hold it, in a tremblingly pulsating movement, so that, even if we touch the foreign body X only for a very short time, there is a moment in which the hand conducted itself actively towards X, and a next moment in which it passed over into a passive bearing. If, then, we touch a foreign body X, the sensation-process composes itself of two opposed process-phases: for an instant the hand conducts itself actively, so that through this active phase we find the foreign body; in the next instant, however, the hand is already in a passive state, so

that, being pressed by the foreign body, it is able to find itself. Through alternating activity and passivity of the hand we perceive the foreign body as well as our own hand. The touch sensation contains a phase of other-sensation [Fremdempfindung] and a counter-phase of self-sensation [Selbstempfindung], which, to be sure, do not clearly set themselves off from one another, but flow together with one another. There is, however, a predominantly active conduct on our side, whereby the foreign body remains predominantly passive, as also, conversely, a predominantly active conduct of the foreign body, whereby we apply ourselves to passivity; so that these two modes of conduct suggest the thought that in each of them two kinds of phases of sensation—active and passive—alternate with one another, and that the predominance of the one or of the other kind of phase decides the character of the whole sensation-process.

Did the process of touch sensation not consist of two such opposed phase-periods, then the perception of an external world would not be possible. Only because in the contact-sensation active and passive phases alternate with one another are we in a position, through the contact, to perceive both the foreign body and our own body. This is what the philosophy of sensation does not notice, and whereby it lets itself be led astray into making the merely passive sensing the exclusive foundation of our perceptual activity. In the visual and auditory sensations we are in fact not in a position to make a distinction between active and passive phases of the sensation-process; but precisely for this reason the visual and auditory sensations are also not suited to form the point of departure for the study of our sensation-processes. The full nature of sensation emerges only in the passive-active touch-function, and once one has grasped this full nature, then one also recognises that sensations cannot be “processes within consciousness.” For how is one to make it comprehensible that within the consciousness-process active and passive phases of sensing must follow one upon another? Only a human being who brings to consciousness merely the passive phase of sensing can fall into the error of apprehending sensations as “consciousness-processes.”

The above considerations also make it clear that in self-touching there must properly be talk of quadruple processes. For both in the actively touching limb A and in the passively touched limb B there occur double processes of sensation. When A conducts itself actively in the contact, then in B there occur not only passive sensation-phases, because B—like, in general, the whole living body—is engaged

in involuntary, small, imperceptible trembling-movements, which do not permit a bodily part to conduct itself enduringly in a purely passive manner (as, e.g., a corpse). By the passive conduct of the limb A, then, only this is meant: that in it the passive phases of sensing predominate, while in B at the same time the active phases attain to dominance. One could, as it were, speak of “sensation-valleys” and “sensation-mountains,” which alternate with one another in both limbs in such a way that in the passive limb the sensation-valleys, in the active, on the other hand, the sensation-mountains play a predominant role. The touch sensation is thus, in both limbs, both passive and active—that is, it consists alternately of valleys and mountains of sensation; but since in the one limb the valleys, in the other the mountains predominate, we learn to distinguish two kinds of phases only through self-touching, where the one limb becomes the representative of passive, the other the representative of active sensing. In this way it now also becomes intelligible in what sense self-touching furnishes an indispensable commentary upon every foreign-touching.

b) But in the closing of the life-chain there occur not only sensations, but, fused with them, also feelings, which deserve a particular notice. If both parts A and B conduct themselves actively, then there arise in both parts feelings that one can designate as active resistance-feelings. But if the bodily part A rests upon an underlay and the part B presses in upon it, then one says that A receives a pressure in passive fashion and offers a passive resistance; of B, on the other hand, that it presses actively and calls forth a passive counter-pressure. One has to do here with complications of processes upon which one is not fond of entering, because they have a peculiarly confusing character. Above all it is to be noted that all our pressure-feelings are double-feelings, and that such a double-feeling consists of two mutually opposed components. There can subsist no pressure-feeling in the hand A without a counter-pressure-feeling having also to occur in this very same hand, and the same holds of the hand B. Whereas double-sensations a and b, which occur alternately in the hands A and B, appear clearly distributed over two hands, so that they confront one another as foreign, double-feelings are referred to one and the same limb and also do not confront one another like two different life-processes, but form merely the opposed components of one and the same process. One can, on the foundation of this remark, make the relation of sensation and feeling intuitive in the following metaphorical manner. Feeling springs from the organic union of the sensation-pair a and b, which now

no longer confront one another as foreign—that is, are not distributed over two different limbs, but, fusing with one another in one limb, become a feeling that consists of two opposed components. Conversely, one can think of sensation (in a metaphorical manner) as proceeding from feeling, in that the two opposed components of the feeling separate from one another and distribute themselves over two different limbs, so that they can confront one another as if foreign. It is, however, to be emphasised that sensations and feelings cannot in reality be reduced to one another, and that precisely the above similes, which undertake to accomplish such a thing, are best suited to set the impossibility of the derivation of sensation and feeling from one another in a bright light.

It belongs to the peculiar nature of our feelings that they consist of two mutually opposed components—that is, that they all contain a conflict. That we speak at all of oppositions and of conflict in the world of appearances rests upon the fact that we are feeling beings. Only a feeling being is able to form the concepts of opposition and conflict, and indeed not merely because perhaps one feeling conflicts with another, but because already every feeling is in itself a conflict; or, in biological mode of expression: because every feeling brings a tiding of two opposed vegetative processes, or rather of two opposed chemico-physical processes. This holds also of that class of feelings that one designates as affects (such as fright, rage, etc.), and which do not further interest us here. Here we direct our attention at first only upon the conflict that comes to light in a pressure-feeling, because this conflict is of extraordinary importance for the perception of an external world. For without it we could never attain to the concept of two mutually opposed directions. When we sighted persons speak of two opposed directions, then there at once arise in us elucidating visual phantasms; the person born blind, however, is able to make for himself a phantasm of direction and directional opposition, although he disposes of no visual phantasms. He supports himself in this at first upon his feeling of pressure and counter-pressure, which, to be sure, do not by themselves yet suffice to lead to a concept of direction and of directional opposition. Only by the fact that pressure and counter-pressure are able also to express themselves in a movement does one come to the unfolding of the concept: directional opposition. But even if the feelings of pressure and counter-pressure are also not sufficient ones, they are nonetheless indispensable conditions for the coming-about of a perception of opposed

directions. This holds just as much for the sighted as for the person born blind. Only, the sighted person easily falls prey to the illusion that he could, even without feelings of pressure and counter-pressure, have a judgement about opposed directions purely through visual phantasms. For he forgets that all functions of the sense of sight are oriented at the functions of passive-active touching (or at the primary experience-circle), and that a sense of sight without the underlay of the touch-functions is a nonsense.

The concept of opposition, or of conflict, plays an outstanding role in our whole cognition of nature and in our world-view in general. Usually one thinks that “oppositions exclude one another,” and thereby confuses the concept of opposition with that of contradiction. Contradictory assertions exclude one another—that is, *the affirmation and the negation of a propositional content cannot both be true. (Law of contradiction, principium contradictionis.) Oppositions, on the other hand, do not exclude one another, but condition one another reciprocally.* There is no pressure without counter-pressure, no action without reaction. In that the biologists misjudged this reciprocal conditioning of oppositions, they were (and are even today still) at pains to deny the subsistence of oppositions in nature and to efface every opposition through “gradual transitions.” They hold the eradication of the oppositions subsisting in nature and reciprocally conditioning one another to be “monism.” This is a very sad error, which makes a truly unified or monistic conception of nature an impossibility. Not the oppositions that really subsist in nature, but the contradictions of our own thinking are to be done away with. In the polemic between monists and dualists the concepts “opposition” and “contradiction” usually play a decisive role; and that the contending parties are unable to attain to a mutual understanding of their conceptions rests usually upon the fact that they do not examine the said two concepts and consequently confuse them with one another.

c) The closing of the life-chain can always be accomplished only through a self-active movement, wherein it comes to expression that without voluntary movement a perceptual activity is impossible. We wish here to take the dynamic closure of the life-chain more exactly into view, because the life-processes that play a role in it are of the greatest importance for our whole experience of nature. By the dynamic closure I understand such a self-touching in which the actively touching bodily limb moves along the passively

touched limb, as, e.g., when we stroke with the index finger of the right hand over the back of the left. Usually one considers movement only in a mechanistic manner, but it is very fruitful to supplement this one-sided mode of consideration by the vitalistic one—that is, to investigate the life-processes that occur in the complete experiencing of a movement. A movement is, however, “completely” experienced when one not only executes it oneself, but also senses it on one’s own body. In such a completely experienced movement there occur two sensation-series, α and β, which deserve a quite particular notice.

When we stroke with the index finger A of the right hand over the back B of the left hand, then there arises both in A and in B a sensation-series, which we wish to designate by α and β. These two sensation-series are essentially different from one another. The sensation-series α consists, namely, of sensation-processes a₁, a₂, a₃, … aₙ, which all take place at one place, in the tip of the index finger A; whereas the sensation-series β composes itself of sensations b₁, b₂, b₃, … bₙ, each of which is localised at another place of the back of the left hand B. We can designate α as an intensive, β, on the other hand, as an extensive sensation-series: two concepts that are of fundamental significance for the theory of perception. Upon the extensive sensation-series rests, namely, our concept of extension; upon the intensive sensation-series, on the other hand, the concept of time-duration.

Of these two sensation-series there now holds the important proposition that the one cannot be grasped by consciousness without the other, which has as its consequence that we cannot construct the concept of space without the concept of time, nor, conversely, the concept of time without the help of the concept of space. If we consider first the extensive sensation-series β, then the sensation-processes b₁, b₂, b₃, … bₙ do indeed already hang together with one another in a vegetative manner, because they were called forth through the excitation of closely neighbouring cells of the skin-tissues; but this their connexion could not come to our consciousness if we were unable to apprehend them as a temporal succession. We must, as one is wont to express oneself, dissolve the spatial alongside-one-another into a temporal after-one-another in order to bring it to consciousness. This takes place by the fact that we relate the sensations of the intensive series α to the sensations of the extensive series β. The sensations of the intensive series α fuse, namely, into an enduring sensation in the moved finger A, and we are able within it to fix individual temporal phases only

because we relate these phases to the sensations of the extensive series β. Thus the temporal after-one-another, too, must be illustrated for us by a spatial alongside-one-another in order that we may be able to grasp it. Temporal and spatial apprehension condition and explain one another reciprocally, which has as its consequence that time and space, like so many other concept-pairs of human thinking, have a mutual character.

Upon what does this reciprocity or mutuality rest? It rests, as here emerges with complete distinctness, upon the nature of those life-processes that are unconditionally requisite for a sense-perception. The experiences of self-touching are indispensable to the taking-cognisance of the existence of one’s own body, and they are at the same time exemplary for the taking-cognisance of the presence of any foreign bodies whatever. Within the primary experiences of our self-touching there occur, however, necessarily and reciprocally conditioning one another, passive-active double-sensations, or rather series of the same, and indeed extensive and intensive series confront one another, so that this reciprocity comes to light necessarily, as conceptual mutuality, also in our concept-pairs, such as right and left, action and reaction, matter and force, space and time.

Of the two sensation-series α and β we can think the intensive sensation-series α as replaced by a feeling-series. For in that we move the finger A of the right hand, there arises in the right hand a series of movement-feelings, which flow together into a single movement-feeling; and one can therefore bring the individual phases of this movement-feeling into correspondence with the extensive series of passive sensations upon the back of the left hand, so that to each extensive sensation of the series β there will correspond a phase of our movement-feeling. This movement-feeling then forms the vital underlay of our apprehension of time, whereas the sensations of the extensive series β are to be regarded as the vital underlay of our concept of extension. Thus it comes, in this illumination, clearly to light that the apprehensions of space and time can be formed only by the hand of the concept of movement.

Only a being that not only senses in a passive manner, but is also capable of self-active movement, and, feeling this movement, is able to set the individual phases of its feeling in correspondence with sensations, can have a consciousness of a material world of appearances. But now, how do we bring the individual phases of our movement-feeling g₁, g₂, g₃, … gₙ into relation with the sensations of the extensive series b₁, b₂, b₃, … bₙ? This takes place through a proper class of life-processes, namely through

the imagined movements, by means of which our consciousness relates itself to feelings and sensations and sets these in connexion with one another. In that we accomplish a movement in imagination, it comes to our consciousness that we pass over from feelings that arise in the moved limb—e.g. in the legs—to contact-sensations with the ground upon which we move. Thus imagined movement forms, for our consciousness, a bridge between feelings and sensations that occur during the movement.

Every human phantasy is, in its ultimate root, nothing further than movement-phantasy—that is, nothing further than the capacity to transpose oneself from the one place to the other without needing to produce the movement in reality. By virtue of this wonderful capacity of “vital locomotion” one procures for oneself (in imagination) all the sensations and feelings to which one wishes precisely to attain. Through imagined movement one touches, e.g. (in imagination), hard and soft, warm and cold bodies, round and angular forms, etc., and brings oneself into the imagined possession of all the sensations and feelings that occur thereby. Through imagined movements one transposes oneself to this or that place of one’s own past life, and brings the familiar regions, things, and persons to a phantasy-like intuition. Everywhere that phantasy is in play, imagined movement must necessarily be in play; for either it is this that stimulates in us sensations and feelings of the imagination, or, conversely, sensations and feelings press towards the imagined movement that transposes us into another environment, into another world. In any case, however, phantasy is, according to its proper essence, a transposing of one’s own person into a situation in which we do not really find ourselves, so that the imagined movement must be regarded as the kernel of this capacity.

When the geometer wishes to represent to himself a triangle, a quadrangle, a circle, or any spatial figures, then he produces them through imagined movement, and he may in a certain sense be regarded as an artist of these imagined movements: in the sense, namely, that he penetrates, through the executing of a system of imagined movements, to the cognition of the lawfulness of the spatial figures. Precisely for this reason the geometer will understand very well what I mean by imagined movement, and he will, as I believe, also concede to me that the essence of the power of imagination is to be sought in the “vital movement.” But the draughtsman and painter too will at once recognise the significance of imagined movement for his art. When we consider a shape with great interest, then we trace its contours involuntarily, and indeed also imperceptibly, by means of imagined movements; indeed, it is in general

not possible to grasp shapes otherwise than through imagined movements. But not only for the intuitive grasping of things, but also for every kind of human thinking, for all mental activities without exception, imagined movements have a fundamental significance. First of all, the whole world of the affects is bound to mimic movements executed in reality or in mere imagination, and the refinement, or rather the higher development, of our whole emotional life and of the mental life connected with it rests precisely upon the fact that we suppress the mimic movements of our excitation and passion and execute them merely inwardly—that is, in imagination. Furthermore, our speech, if we abstract from the mental content of its symbols, consists in fact of a system of movements of the speech-apparatus (of the vocal cords, tongue, lips, etc.); and accordingly the so-called inner speech, or the inaudible soliloquy, abstracting from its mental content, is to be apprehended as a system of imagined movements of the speech-apparatus. All our mental activity is necessarily accompanied and supported by a speaking that is, if not uttered aloud, then at least imagined; this holds even for the deaf-mute in the sense that he is capable of grasping or forming thoughts only in so far as he supports himself thereby upon mimic movements executed in reality or merely in imagination. Without the execution of mimic or symbolic (linguistic) movements—be it in a mechanical, universally perceptible, be it in a vital, merely-for-a-single-person-perceptible manner—there is nowhere a human mental activity, so that the study of these mental activities is everywhere linked to a study of real or imagined, mimic and symbolic movements.

Psychologism, which would like to dissolve all our life-processes into sensation, leads also our phantasy-life back to mere sensation, and thereby deprives itself of the possibility of comprehending in any way the animal-vital process that lies at the foundation of our mental activities. For what is meant by “reproduced” or “revived” sensations can never be scientifically set out, because these expressions are mere metaphors of a mystically naive thinking. Reproduce or imitate one can always only movements, but not sensations, because sensations can indeed be received, but never “made,” so that with them, in the proper sense of the word, there can also be no talk of any “imitating” or reproducing.

Even the psychologists felt that, in the explanation of the phantasy-processes, one cannot get by with the mere reproduced sensations, and so they were pressed towards that most peculiar association theory, which

one can comprehend in no other way than if one regards it at first as a makeshift in place of the lacking doctrine of phantasy. One finds the germs of the association theory already in Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley; as its proper founders, however, we must regard Hartley and Hume.David Hartley (1705–1757), English physician and philosopher, whose Observations on Man (1749) grounded the association of ideas in vibrations of the nerves—hence the “physiological” branch Palágyi distinguishes below from the “psychologistic” branch of Hume and the two Mills. This latter sets up his well-known laws of the “connexion or association of ideas,” according to which our thoughts combine with one another in accordance with the laws of similarity, or rather of contrast, further of contiguity in space and time, and finally of causality. One notices in these laws that they wish, in that fine-diplomatic manner peculiar to the Humean exposition, to overthrow the syllogistic logic. Whether Hume really apprehends them as “laws” is hard to say, for there exist for this sceptic not so much really subsisting laws as rather merely a belief in such—that is, there exist merely deep-rooted habits of thinking, or rather of living. These alleged laws are characterised chiefly by the fact that they openly let the confusion of vital processes and mental activity be recognised, and in consequence of this hybrid nature can best be designated as “psychologistic laws.” They emerge openly as such in the classical representatives of English association-psychology, as in the elder and the younger Mill.James Mill (1773–1836), whose Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) is a rigorous associationism, and his son John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), who edited and extended it. Alongside this psychologistic tendency in the association theory there subsists also the physiological tendency founded by Hartley, as whose more recent representatives Spencer and James may perhaps also be regarded.Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and William James (1842–1910): Palágyi assigns them to the “physiological” lineage of associationism descending from Hartley. The association theory penetrated also directly into brain-anatomy and physiology, and has wrought here no slight mental confusion.

If one investigates what is properly meant by “association,” then it is found that the compass of this concept is an unbounded one. The voluntary and involuntary combination of mental acts is just as much association as the combination of phantasms with one another, or the combinations of these latter with sensations and feelings, no less than the reciprocal combination of sensations and feelings with one another. Since now psychologism is inclined to dissolve the whole world of appearances into sensations, finally every combination that subsists between appearances will be able to be set forth as association. But finally the world of appearances is, in its totality, a combination of infinitely many appearances, so that the whole course of the world would have to be apprehended as an all-embracing association-process. A genuine association-philosopher must, to the question what the world is, give the short and decided answer: association. And does this world have laws? Indeed it does; but these too are associations.

That under the infinitely wide mantle of this infinitely hollow concept the human phantasy, with which it was properly a question of dealing, had to fall completely into loss, scarcely needs to be said. But now, in order to compel the association-philosophers to enter upon the theme of phantasy suppressed by them, one must put to them the question whether, when any arbitrary A is “associated” with any arbitrary B, a third process C too plays a role, which combines the two first processes with one another, or whether the two first processes are to be thought as hanging together with one another without a third combining process C having to step between them. There it will then show itself that the association-psychologist is wont to reflect neither upon the existence nor upon the non-existence of such a combining process, but contents himself merely with the magic word “association,” which has only to be pronounced for everything to come into combination with one another. A philosophy, however, that works with magic words and incantation-formulae, which are set in the place of the investigation of really occurring processes, will, in my opinion, best be designated as “scholastic.” One needs to know absolutely nothing about the mode of combination of two processes, and it suffices to pronounce the word “association” for it to become clear at once how those processes could be coupled to one another. Thus, e.g., an auditory sensation A and a visual sensation B can “associate” themselves. How so? How is it possible that a tone-sensation should be immediately united with a colour-sensation, since they are, after all, disparate sensations which cannot pass over into one another and fuse with one another? No less enigmatic is it how the same could be combined with one another through a third process C, since this combining process may yet be neither a tone-sensation nor a colour-sensation. Thus there arises the difficult problem how disparate sense-sensations, or in general diverse animal life-processes, are brought into combination with one another for consciousness. The association-psychologist, however, calmly pronounces the great word “association,” and the problem is at once solved. Since now in science it is everywhere a question of problems of the connexion of processes, there cannot be any more useful magic formula at all than the word “association.”

The association theory may be apprehended as the highest unfolding of the modern scholasticism of sensation. To this modern scholasticism we owe it that, on the one hand, the nature of our thought-combinations can no longer be subjected to any serious logical examination, and that, on the other hand, no doctrine of the combination of the animal life-processes

through phantasy is able to come up. The most interesting thing in the matter, however, is that the “association theory” was invented by men who believed they were everywhere combating the “philosophy of words.”

Tenth Lecture: The Localisation of Sensation through Imagined Movement, and the Phantasy-Unity of the Sense-Life#

The solution of the problem of localisation by means of imagined movement. The “location-sense” of the physiologists a superfluous word. The infant is unable to localise, because it does not yet dispose of any voluntary and imagined movements. Critique of Lotze’s theory of localisation. Critique of Wundt’s mixture-theory of tactile and visual localisation. No sense can with right be designated a “distance-sense.” Every sense can become a distance-sense only through the help of real and imagined movements. The touch-sense too is, up to a certain degree, a distance-sense. Unity of the sensation-life mediated through phantasy.

Gentlemen! It belongs to the nature of an animal being, such as the human being too is, to be able to move itself by its own activity and to have experiences through which it becomes aware of its own movement. Self-active movement and the perception-experiences of the same belong together in the most intimate way; and as important as it is to distinguish them conceptually, just so little may they be isolated from one another. For if a movement is to be self-active, then it must also have the character of an “oriented movement”; that is, its direction, its course, must be determined by experiences which give tidings of its taking-place. Were a being not capable, through sensations, feelings, and phantasms, of taking cognisance of the direction, the course, and in general of the taking-place of its own movement, then it would also not be granted to it to be able somehow to steer this movement — that is, it would have no self-active movement at all. Conversely, sensations, feelings, phantasms, and perception-experiences in general would be the most superfluous thing in the world for such a being as is unable to move itself; for it would know absolutely nothing to do with all its experiences of orientation. One has perception-experiences first of all in order to be able to perceive and steer one’s own movements, and further in order to be able to control foreign movements too.

Through the isolating of the self-active movement from the perception-experiences, both become a nonsense. It is the fundamental defect of the philosophy of sensation that it believes

it can reduce movement to those experiences through which the movement is perceived, and that it accordingly sets out from mere perception-experiences, namely from mere sensations, without at the same time making movement its point of departure. It believes itself to be “monistic” in that it “reduces” movement to sensations, and it does not notice that precisely this procedure is a “dualistic” one in the strictest sense of the word. It tears apart the bond between movement and sensation, and in that it grasps merely the latter, it becomes impossible for it, on the one hand, to give an account of the sensation-life, while on the other hand it will also never more be able to run movement to earth, because movement cannot be picked out of mere sensing. Whoever, sitting in his armchair, believes that the receiving of sensations come flying to him is the foundation of our perceptual activity, is comparable to that idler who imagines that the roast pigeons must fly into his mouth. Even the resting juxtaposition of the appearances we are able to grasp only through imagined movements, that is, through phantasms, as was shown in the preceding lecture. But we should have no imagined movements if we did not execute any real movements. Thus there are no perception-experiences at all without self-active movements, just as there is also no self-active movement without the help of perception-experiences.

Precisely those life-processes through which we set a movement going awaken in us also the vital processes (such as sensations, feelings, phantasms) through which we are able to perceive the movement; and conversely it is perception-experiences that incite us to the execution of movements. Now, how movement may hang together with sensation and the remaining kinds of experience — that is precisely the great mystery of life on the one hand and of the mechanical world-process on the other, or rather of the connexion between the two. How it comes about that life “expresses” itself in movement and movement “internalises” itself into experiences — that is the mechanistic-vitalistic fundamental problem, which we cannot solve by “reducing” movement to sensation or, conversely, sensation to movement; for hereby the problem is only set aside, only annihilated, and not led towards a step-wise solution. For what is in question is the “connexion” of movement and of experiences that relate to it, and a connexion subsists only so long as there are two things that hang together with one another. But if one reduces the one thing to the other, then there can also no longer be any talk of a connexion between them — that is, there is then also no problem of this connexion. Through “reducing,” the philosophical

problems are removed from the world, but not scientifically investigated and explored as far as possible.

In the overcoming of the philosophy of sensation, the proposition that even the resting juxtaposition of the appearances is grasped through imagined movement now plays a very significant role. We must come back to this proposition for the reason, too, that it forms the vitalistic foundation of our theory of space and time. First of all it shall now be shown of what kind those experiences are to which we owe the formation of our concept of place — namely the concept of a place that we first of all establish upon the surface of our own body: for it scarcely needs to be said that we must derive the capacity, too, of orienting ourselves spatially from that circle of experiences which I designated as the primary one, and which consists of the vital processes of self-touching. But it will be expedient for the following considerations also to draw into the circle of our primary experiences the being-touched by some foreign body.

If a foreign body touches for a moment the point P of our skin-surface, then we know, even with our eyes blindfolded, with a fair accuracy at which place the contact took place. As proof we can ourselves at once execute a movement with the hand and touch approximately the same skin-point P. But even if we do not execute the movement in reality, we nevertheless find the point P by means of an imagined movement aimed at the same: by means of a movement phantasm. To be sure, with us sighted persons the optical phantasm of the touched skin-spot forces itself so strongly upon our consciousness that we scarcely become aware of our movement phantasm; but since the person born blind too is able to find the touched skin-spot by means of a real or imagined movement, one sees that in the so-called localisation of a contact-sensation the movement phantasm (the active tactile phantasm) plays a decisive role. Peculiarly, this fact has been overlooked even by so great a physiologist as E. H. Weber, so that he felt himself compelled to introduce a peculiarly mystical “location-sense” into physiology — an expression which, in its mystical constitution, is still in use even today in all physiological textbooks.

How is it possible that a researcher like Weber did not recognise the significance of imagined movement for the apprehension of place? Weber was, after all, the first who discerned that the most obvious method for the investigation of the fineness of the local apprehension of our contact-sense consists in this, that one touches the skin of an experimental subject at a point P and lets this point be sought out by the experimental subject by means of an after-touching with the eyes blindfolded. (Sitzungsberichte d.

sächs. Ges. für Wiss. 1852.)Weber’s “Über den Tastsinn,” Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 1852. The OCR break splits the citation across pages 150–151. This thought, however, borders immediately upon the other thought, that the experimental subject finds the touched skin-point P — at least in imagination — even when it does not execute the after-touching movement in reality, but merely carries it out in phantasy. By means of such a movement phantasm one represents to oneself, namely, the point P as found through a contact; and were one not to dispose of such phantasms, then the goal-conscious finding of the point P by means of a real movement would be an impossibility.

Although Weber almost brushes against this conception, it had nonetheless to remain foreign to him, because for him — as also for Kant, under whose influence he stood — merely sensation is “the given,” and an “imagined movement” was not counted among “the given,” of which we have unconditional need in the formation of our fundamental concepts of the external world, in particular also of spatial apprehension. Now it scarcely needs to be said that an “imagined movement” is to us all something just as well known as any sensation whatever. In that we relate an imagined movement B to a contact-sensation, there arises in us also the thought that the contact took place at a determinate place P. But were we to lack the imagined movement B, then it would also be impossible that the contact-sensation should appear to us somehow localised.

An infant of some days or weeks, which is not yet able to execute any grasping movement, also has as yet no phantasms of such a movement, and is accordingly also not capable of localising a contact-sensation. One usually presents the mental developmental course of a child in a one-sidedly sensualistic manner, in that one in the first place illuminates the development of its sensations and only afterwards comes to speak of its movements. As though already the first cry and the first sucking-movement did not point to the fact that we should not isolate the motor and the sensory life of the child, but should consider it in its concrete unification. The development of the movement-capacity of the child exercises a decisive influence also upon the development of its sense-capacities, and conversely the growing sensibility reacts back upon the development of the movement-capacity. But since the movements of the child are the proper objects of our observations, and we infer from these its sensation- and feeling-life, a psychology of the child must in the first place take into account the movements and seek to investigate with the utmost care the epochs in the development of the same.

PreyerWilhelm Preyer (1841–1897), physiologist; his Die Seele des Kindes (1882) founded scientific child psychology and is the source of the grasping-movement observations cited here. sets the emergence of a grasping movement in the 17th or, better still, 18th week of the child’s life; other

observers set this epochal achievement in the 19th week; it falls in general in the 4th month of the childish course of life. In the measure in which the child learns to grasp, there can also be talk in it of a development of the proper perceptual capacity. During the many involuntary movements that the child executes with its hands, there develop in it gradually also movement phantasms, which are at first wholly wanting to it, and which arise only faintly and in a highly indeterminate manner in its vital process. These phantasms form the vital foundation also of its mental development. In that their originally diffuse character gradually shows a more determinate configuration — or, to say it physiologically: in that the diffuse nerve-processes that correspond to a movement phantasm are conducted into more determinate nerve-paths — the child also gradually learns to steer its movements, to lend them the character of oriented movements. Preceding phantasms make the movement ever more into a voluntary one, and conversely the voluntary movement reacts back upon the formation of the phantasms. The stretching-out of the little arms of the child after a desired object or a desired person is thus the sign of the relatively high development that the phantasy-life of the child has already attained. So long as only sensations and feelings arise in it, its intelligence still slumbers; only the awakening phantasms signify the dawn-red of the (perceiving) intelligence. And what must be especially emphasised: it is movement phantasms which form the foundation of all phantasy-life. So long as these are wanting, the gaze of the child too is empty, expressionless. The more determinate looking-towards in a direction, towards a coloured object, is the sign of the progressing formation of movement phantasms. Be it remarked in passing that the “expressive” character which we adults find in the gaze of a human being is to be explained from the fact that he awakens in us manifold (hostile or tender) movement phantasms of different order; and these phantasms awaken in us because the “expression” that lies in a human gaze is the product of those phantasms which flood through the vital process of the person.

But since a proper doctrine of phantasy — as already mentioned — was unable to develop, the vital processes too which underlie our perception of space, and specially the localisation of our contact-sensation, could not be recognised. A classical testimony to this is furnished by the famous Lotzean local-signs theory, whose historical significance rests upon the fact that it brings to intuition the influence of English sensualism upon metaphysical thinking too. All the significant representatives of German philosophy: Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Herbart, Lotze, Hartmann,

Fechner, Wundt, Uphues, etc. etc., stand in more or less decided opposition to the English philosophy of sensation, and the renown of their effectiveness rests in no small part upon the inner, ever-renewed, often powerful attempts to overcome the one-sidedness of that sensualism: but one may well say that this overcoming, properly speaking, never succeeded, because German speculation never threw itself, with the necessary decisiveness, directly upon the new grounding of a doctrine of sense-perception — that is, was not at pains to free the theory of perception wholly from that sensualistic one-sidedness which clings to it in the English philosophy of sensation.

In the sense of Lotze’sHermann Lotze (1817–1881), German philosopher and physiologist. His theory of “local signs” (Lokalzeichen) held that each point of the retina or skin carries a distinctive qualitative mark by which its position is known; Palágyi rejects it in favour of localisation through imagined movement. local-signs [Lokalzeichen] theory, our extensive modes of sensation, in particular also our contact-sensations, are supposed to have admixed to them some kind of accompanying sensations, which give us disclosure about the specific locality of the contact-sensation. Lotze thus claims to have found, in mere sensation already, a sufficient vital (or “psychological”) substrate for the coming-about of a spatial apprehension. Whoever places himself in this impossible position has, to be sure, no choice but to mysticise into mere sensation some kind of experiences that could yield a foundation for our spatial apprehension. Thus Lotze transposes some accompanying or supplementary sensation (as it were a kind of “after-taste”) into our contact-sensations, which would have for our intellect the significance of local signs. If we now assume for a moment that there really subsisted a system of local signs l₁, l₂, l₃, etc., which is appended to our contact-sensations, and which would indicate, through its qualitative diversity, the specific locality of each contact-sensation, then the question arises how it is possible that the diverse quality of the accompanying sensations l₁, l₂, l₃… brings to our cognisance not only just this quality, but also a difference of place. For if the mere quality of the accompanying sensations already suffices to indicate a place too, then these accompanying sensations are something wholly superfluous, since the mere qualitative diversity of the contact-sensations themselves (b₁, b₂, b₃, b₄, etc.) can already render the same service. One sees, then, that the Lotzean hypothesis is nothing further than an abortive attempt to reduce the apprehension of differences of place to qualitative differences of sensation. Had Lotze directly declared that the diverse quality which is proper to our contact-sensations makes possible the determination of their place, then every thinking person would have taken offence at it, that local difference is to be reduced to qualitative differences of sensation. But since he associated with the primary sensations secondary, mysterious accompanying sensations, of which no one knew what they might be, one let it

pass to see the local differences reduced to the qualitative differences of these mysterious accompanying sensations. From this it is to be seen that one most easily takes logical thinking by surprise through a little “mysticism.” One admixes to the known life-processes an unknown and excogitated experience, and asserts of this latter, in all composure, the very thing that one might never assert of the known experiences. A mystical empiricism of this kind plays a highly significant role in all the natural sciences, and comes forth in it in the form of a legion of superfluous hypotheses.

Such hypotheses are then further combined with one another, whereby composite hypotheses arise which would fain play a mediating role between two different standpoints, and which, to be sure, contribute not a little to obscuring some chapter of scientific research altogether. An interesting example of a mixture-hypothesis is furnished, for instance, by Wundt in his psychological explanation of our apprehension of place. He combines — as he himself sets forth — Lotze’s hypothesis of local signs with the association- or fusion-theory in the following manner. “This localisation never takes place in us without the sense of sight, and we are therefore fully entitled to conclude that it ensues through the sense of sight, through the immediate association of a visual image with the tactile impression.” (Phys. Psych., 5th ed., vol. II, p. 491.) Wundt means to say that we sighted persons attain to an apprehension of the place of our tactile impressions (contact-sensations) by associating them with visual representations of the touched spot. We carry — so he expresses himself — the tactile impressions into the visual space. One should now think that through this conception the whole problem of localisation is transferred from the touch-sense to the sense of sight. It is no longer asked how we localise tactile impressions, for these are after all associated with visual representations, and the localisation takes place precisely through these visual representations. Thus the question should now only run: How does one localise visual sensations or visual representations?

In fact Wundt is at pains to reduce the localisation of tactile sensations in the sighted person to the localisation of his visual sensations. It would have no sense at all to wish to support oneself upon the association of the tactile impressions with visual representations, if one did not wish to transfer the localisation-problem from the touch-sense to the sense of sight. This is indeed also the avowed intention of Wundt.

Now, however, it shows itself all at once that this pushing-over of the localisation-question from the touch-sense to the sense of sight will not proceed well. Wundt must, namely, ask how it becomes possible that, upon the contact of a skin-spot, the visual

image of just this skin-spot and of no other is associatively called forth. One cannot, after all, assume that every skin-spot is connected with the sense of sight through some kind of nerve-threads, so that, when the skin-spot is touched, the visual representation of just this skin-spot could at once associate itself with it. To establish such a nerve-mechanism, which would connect every sensation-nerve over the whole skin-surface directly with the visual centre in the brain, seems to be a daring assumption. The case is thus precarious; for the association meets, as it seems, with mighty hindrances.

It is expedient here to pause for a moment, for there offers itself to us a suitable opportunity of demonstrating the hollowness of the concept of association — for which hollowness, to be sure, Wundt may not be made responsible. In the present case there is talk of an association of tactile sensations with visual representations, or, in plain German, of a connexion of the same. Now it is, however, easy to speak quite generally of an alleged connexion of the touch-sense and the sense of sight, but so much the more difficult to say how one thinks this connexion to be established. And precisely upon this it would depend: to point out the how of this connexion! Since one cannot, after all, assume that any optical nerve-threads pass over, in their course, directly into the nerve-threads of the touch-sense, one is compelled to construct proper connecting-paths between the optical and the tactile centres in the brain, but at the same time also to assume a proper nerve-process which connects the nerve-processes of the touch-sense and of the sense of sight with one another. But what kind of nerve-process is that? Of what kind can such a nerve-process be, which forms a bridge between the processes of the tactile nerves and of the optic nerve? Evidently this connecting process can be neither such a one as takes place in the tactile nerve, nor such a one as takes place in the optical nerve — that is, it is neither a tactile process nor a visual process, but a process whose nature is for the time being absolutely unknown. We stand here before the great problem how diverse sensory functions can be connected with one another, since the connecting nerve-function cannot be of the kind of the two connected sensory functions. This problem is now to be covered over, or rather removed from the world, or more correctly, the semblance is to be awakened as though this fundamental problem of the doctrine of sensation did not exist at all. The most suitable means to such an end is the use of a foreign word — in the present case, of “association” — a word that

we use with the confidence as though it represented a concept, where it is really the expression of a lack of concept. We do not know of what kind the function is that connects the vital process of touching with the vital process of seeing; but in that we give to this not-knowing a Latin name, we imagine that we have transformed the same into a knowing. We may thus use the learned-sounding word “association” only with the utmost caution, and when there is talk of the association of two processes a and b, we must at once render ourselves an account of whether we assume an immediate connexion between the two, or whether we establish a connecting third process which unites the first two. In every case a precise further inquiry will then still be requisite, whether the immediate connexion of a and b does not enclose within itself a problem that we must raise; or whether the assumption of a connecting third process c does not likewise involve a new problem. In the present case we have convinced ourselves that the connecting process of the tactile processes and the visual processes — as of the diverse sensory functions in general — encloses within itself a philosophical problem of the first rank, which we shall presently have also to consider more closely.

Wundt now stands before precisely this problem: but instead of holding fast to it, he pushes it aside, without having properly taken notice of the same. In order to be able to pass over it without account, he suddenly grasps at the Lotzean local-signs hypothesis. Since it is, namely, in the highest degree puzzling how tactile sensations could be “associated” with the visual representation of the touched spot, he sets in the place of the tactile sensations their mere local signs, and means that it is these local signs which are associated with the visual representations.

He thereby overlooks the following complex of contradictions in which he entangles himself through his composite hypothesis: 1. His intention is to transfer the localisation-problem from the touch-sense to the sense of sight — that is, to explain the local apprehension of our contact-sensations through the local apprehension of our visual sensations or representations. How comes it that, with this openly avowed intention, he must nonetheless take his refuge to local signs of the touch-sense? If the localisation of the tactile sensations in us sighted persons is really to take place through the sense of sight, then Wundt should ascribe “local signs” only to the sense of sight, and would have to deny them to the touch-sense. He thus finds himself in an illusion if he believes he has reduced the localisation of our tactile sensations to the association with the sense of sight. 2. Wundt does not notice that, in that he already ascribes local signs to our contact-sensations, he already declares the touch-sense to be capable in itself — even without the help of the association with the sense of sight — of making possible an apprehension of place. For to what end have the “local signs” been excogitated? And to what end does one ascribe them

to the contact-sensations? Evidently, to the end that the contact-sensations by themselves alone are already to form a sufficient vital (psychological) substrate for our spatial apprehension. If now, according to Wundt, the local signs of the contact-sensations nonetheless form no sufficient substrate for the apprehension of place, to what end were they excogitated? And once one has excogitated them, and it afterwards shows itself that they cannot satisfy the end which they were to serve, why does one call them local signs? What sense is there in speaking of local signs which are no signs for the place of a sensation? 3. Evidently Wundt grants the Lotzean local signs only a half-belief with respect to their fitness to announce local differences. For this reason he sends to these half-and-half blind local signs the association with the sense of sight to their aid. Unfortunately, however, with this aid nothing is gained. For if it was already unintelligible how — through what “physiological mechanism” — some visual image is to be coordinated with every touched skin-spot, then it is still less intelligible how this coordination is to be made possible by this, that the mystical local signs step into the place of the contact-sensations. Or is it precisely this mystical character of theirs which enables them to be “associated” with visual images? Then we have here once again a striking example of the fact that one may ascribe to such processes as no man knows everything that had to be denied to the known processes. In short, the Wundtian mixture-hypothesis makes the impression as though someone wished to assert that a cornice were better supported by two shattered columns than by one. The blind local-signs hypothesis and the lame association with the sense of sight are, in conjunction with one another, to furnish a sound theory of localisation. One recognises here clearly how modern psychology, even in one of its greatest representatives, is not in a position to uncover the vital (psychological) substructure of our spatial apprehension, because it is unable, despite the greatest exertions, to free itself from the one-sidedness of sensualistic thinking. But one recognises also how this modern psychology, through the habituation of thinking to contentless expressions, like “local signs,” “association,” etc. etc., makes it well-nigh an impossibility to form a real science of human consciousness and its connexion with the life-process. Through sham-solutions by means of learned-sounding expressions the problems are wholly obscured. Thus, for example, Wundt obscures the relation of the touch-sense and the sense of sight in that he places the same in such a light as though, in us sighted persons, the touch-sense possessed both a capacity of localisation and no such capacity. The touch-sense can localise, for it has local signs; but it can also not localise, for its function in this respect is transferred to

the sense of sight. But to a still higher degree there is obscured the fundamental problem, of what kind those processes are through which the vital processes of the diverse sensory functions are connected with one another. What kind of vital process is that, which is able to connect the tactile sensation with the visual sensation, or also with the auditory sensation, further the auditory sensation with the visual sensation, etc.? These connexion-problems form, after all, the proper core of a science of the sensory functions. The sense of all these significant questions has been stifled by the Latin word association.

We can now take up our position definitively over against the Lotzean local-signs hypothesis, though without entering more closely upon the metaphysical train of thought with which this hypothesis is interwoven in its profound author. First of all, however, we must clearly formulate the question that here exclusively occupies us. We do not ask what space may be in itself, but we wish for the time being merely to come to know the experiences which are unconditionally necessary, and also wholly sufficient, to form a vital substrate for our apprehension of space or of place. Already from the question itself it follows at once that in the answer no hypothetical elements may be contained. We wish to come to know the real experiences which are the foundation of our spatial apprehension; thus excogitated and unknown experiences can be of absolutely no use to us. Whoever lays hypothetical experiences at the foundation of spatial apprehension confesses only — without becoming aware of it — that he is unable to give himself an account of the experiences which form the basis of our spatial thinking. One should not believe it, but it is really so, that the united exertion of the most select philosophical minds, in the course of many centuries, was unable to yield a clear answer to the simple question, which real experiences form the sufficient foundation of our spatial thinking.

Our answer to the question is already contained in the preceding considerations, so that we now need only to recapitulate it. Through imagined movements, by means of which we relate ourselves to the touched skin-spot, we find the place of the same. Thus in the formation of the concept of space there play a role all those experiences which have also a decisive significance for the formation of the concepts of matter, action, causality, force, movement, rest, etc.: I mean the perception-experiences that arise in self-touching or in any self-active movement. These experiences belong to three categories, sensation, feeling, and phantasy. Were even only one of these categories to be wanting, then an apprehension of place — as in general also an apprehension of space — would be an impossibility. Precisely for this reason the sensations equipped with hypothetical

local signs are not the real foundation of our spatial apprehension. There sticks, however, a very simple kernel of truth in the Lotzean hypothesis too, which one can now easily peel out. Were the contact-sensations which arise upon the contact of our skin-surface all qualitatively alike, and were this likewise the case with the contact-sensations of all other things too, then spatial orientation in such a world would be an impossibility. We are not at all able to represent to ourselves such a world as would give occasion to nothing but alike sensations, feelings, and phantasms. If Lotze had said merely this, then no thinking person would contradict him. To be sure, qualitative diversities must take place in our contact-sensations if we are to orient ourselves spatially in this world; but such a qualitative diversity of sensations is a self-evident postulate for the formation of a perception in general. The essential thing is that with mere sensations and different sensation-qualities — as English sensualism supposes — we do not get along in the formation of the apprehension of space, and that for this certain feelings and movement phantasms are unconditionally requisite.

These movement phantasms or imagined movements are suited to set many a highly puzzling fact of our perceptual life in a clear light. E. H. Weber makes us attentive, in his famous treatise (“Touch-Sense and Common Feeling”),E. H. Weber, “Der Tastsinn und das Gemeingefühl,” in R. Wagner’s Handwörterbuch der Physiologie, vol. III (1846). Palágyi’s later citation gives vol. IV; the volume number in the OCR is retained. to the fact that we fall into the illusion as though we could sense with insensible parts of our body, such as hairs and teeth, indeed also by means of foreign bodies, for example a little rod. “The hairs are” — he said — “wholly insensible horn-threads, which can burn without our having any sensation of it, but which, like probes, can conduct onward a movement or a pressure imparted to them as far as the sensible parts in the skin to which they are grown. If now the beard, for example the side-whiskers, is lightly touched, then we believe that we sense the pressure exercised upon the beard-hairs not in the interior of our skin, at the sensible parts whither it is propagated through the horn-threads and acts upon our nerves, but we believe that we sense the pressure at some distance from our skin, in which the touched parts of the hairs are situated.” (Wagner’s Phys. Handw. vol. IV, p. 483.) We believe also that we sense with the surface of the teeth, although the hard parts of the same are wholly insensible; indeed, we fancy that with the end of a little rod which we press against the table-top we sense the table-top itself. Psychology stands helpless over against experiences of this kind, because it does not grasp the role of imagined movement in every perception of an external world. Wherever two foreign bodies press against one another, we grasp this relation by means of an

imagined movement — that is, we set a part of our own body in the place both of the pressing and of the pressed body, and thereby make the relation of the two intelligible to ourselves.

It is the imagined movement by means of which we relate our sensations to things and processes that do not touch our body, but take place at a lesser or greater distance from the same. Usually one thinks that we owe it to our visual sensations when we perceive something distant too, and one designates for this reason the sense of sight as a “distance-sense” [Fernsinn], in that one sets it over against the touch-sense as such a sense whose sensations are not suited to make known the distant. One also indeed uses the expression that the sense of sight permits a touching of the distant. In these views, which have penetrated into science too, there comes forth a great conceptual confusion, which springs from the fact that the significance of phantasy for the perception of real things and processes was not recognised. Mere sensations, considered in themselves, are neither near nor far, for they are not at all yet localised. A being that were capable of no movement, and thus had also no movement phantasms, would perceive neither the near nor the far, because it would be incapable of perception altogether — since this requires a localisation. It is not the prerogative of the visual sensations that they, as against the tactile sensations, make known the distant too; for through tactile sensations also we can, to be sure in a modest measure, perceive the distant. If the blind man touches an object with his stick, then he knows how to pass a judgement about its existence just as certain as if he had touched it with his hand. For through the imagined movement he transposes his touching hand into the point where the stick touches the distant object.

If we press a little rod with the right hand against the left, then the experiences that arise herein furnish a commentary to the experiences that one has when the little rod presses not against the left hand, but against a foreign object. For through an imagined movement one then transposes the contact and the pressure which one sensed and felt in the left hand onto the surface of the foreign object. Upon this it rests that we can use probes where the immediate touching is denied us. Upon this it rests in general that we learn to use such tools [Werkzeuge] as hammer, borer, knife, scissors, etc. A skilled anatomist uses his scalpel in such a manner as though a fine touch-sense dwelt in the edge of the same. Through the practising of the movement-phantasy we bring it so far as to transpose the touch-sense, as it were, to the end of the tool, where this is in contact with a foreign body. In short, the movement-phantasy

makes out of the touch-sense a “distance-sense,” to be sure only in a very restricted measure. But if there stood at the disposal of our hands, whenever and wherever, rods whose length depended on our pleasure, and if we could use such arbitrarily long rods without physical exertion, then the touch-sense could be developed into a distance-sense that would make competition for the sense of sight.

The visual sensations too are in themselves no distance-sensations, but become such through the use that the movement-phantasy makes of them. It is, to express it metaphorically, always the movement-phantasy that lends our sensations wings, so that they can penetrate into the distance. To be sure, it must be conceded that among all our sensations the visual sensations are those which let themselves be winged most easily and in an admirable measure: but this is to mislead no one into the error as though the visual sensations were in themselves already so wonderfully winged. All distance-soaring our sensations owe to our movement-phantasy. Herewith it is also to be said that it is one and the same phantasy that combines with our tactile sensations, light-sensations, and auditory sensations, in order to localise them all somehow — that is, to assign to them a nearer or farther place. We have hitherto spoken of tactile phantasy, visual phantasy, auditory phantasy, as though three wholly different kinds of vital processes corresponded to them; at least the semblance could prevail as though we wished, for instance, to distinguish the tactile phantasy from the visual phantasy as something “specifically” different. Now it must at last be emphasised that the movement-phantasy does, to be sure, gain a different character when it unites with different sensation-modalities, for instance touch-, light-, sound-sensations, but that it nevertheless, in conjunction with each of these sensory functions, remains the one movement-phantasy. We earlier raised the problem how sensations that belong to different sense-circles can be connected with one another, since the connecting process can after all belong to neither of the two connected sense-circles. Our answer to the question is that phantasy is the connecting function between the different sense-circles. The unity of our sensation-life can be established only through phantasy, and precisely for this reason there is nowhere, without phantasy, any perception of real things and processes. Upon this important fundamental proposition of the doctrine of phantasy, however, we can enter only in a following lecture.

Eleventh Lecture: The Circular Process of Perception. Imagined Sensation and the Closing of the Vital Chain#

The discharge of an imagined movement in a small, scarcely perceptible, real movement. Crossed and simultaneous discharge. Ambiguity and unserviceableness of the expression “movement-representation”. The concept of movement of the sighted person and of the person born blind. The vital outfitting of concepts. The imagined sensation. The imagined movement that aims at a point of the skin-surface brings forth there an imagined sensation. This imagined sensation leads to a scarcely perceptible real sensation in the point in question. The vital processes that lie at the foundation of the perception-activity are accordingly circular processes, that is, in-themselves-closed happenings. The philosophy of sensation grounds perception upon non-closed centripetal happenings. Perceiving as a seizing in imagination, that is, as a vital grasping. Analogy of the “closing of the life-chain” with the circular process of perception. Reality of the vital happenings and nerve-processes that lie at the foundation of the imagination-function. The so-called mental illnesses rest upon the diseasing of the vital imagination-happenings. Only with the touch-sense is a twofold closing of the life-chain, the mechanical and the vital closing, possible; with the remaining senses it is not. New proof for the dependence of the sense of sight upon the touch-sense. The problem of the concordance of tactile and visual perception. The two modes of perception exclude one another in the same point of time.

Gentlemen! With mere sensing and feeling one comes by no means yet to any perceptions; as we see this in the example of the suckling, who senses and feels without being able to make a perception. And even if a being had a thousand kinds of sense-sensations with corresponding feelings, it would yet not be helped by all its riches, because all its experiences would lie disconnectedly apart from one another, and in this wise could not furnish the necessary vital foundation for a mental perception-activity. Only with the formation of phantasms does connexion come into the sensation- and feeling-life: and indeed such a connexion as is needed as substrate for a perception-activity. For this surely need not be especially emphasised — of which there was already talk in a previous lecture — that sensations and feelings are already bound together with one another through the vegetative life-process of the same; but that this merely vegetative boundness of the same is well to be distinguished from their animal connexion through phantasy.

If we wish to explore the nature of phantasy more deeply, then we

must consider more closely those “imagined movements” that are awakened in us through a contact-sensation. We must accordingly for the present still always restrict ourselves to the narrow circle of passive-active touch-experiences. If a foreign body touches our body at the point P, then the contact-sensation calls forth — where not a real, yet at least an imagined — movement, without which the sensation could not be grasped by consciousness. This imagined movement can become noticeable for everyone, because it discharges [Entladung]Entladung — discharge. The imagined movement (a vital process) “discharges” into, or releases itself in, a small real movement, on the analogy of the discharge of an accumulated tension. Palágyi applies the same figure below to the imagined sensation. itself in a small real movement that one feels. If, for example, the left half of the body is touched at a point, then in general the imagined movement appears in the right arm — that is, we point with a right-sided imagined hand-movement to the left-sided contact-sensation. If the touch takes place, conversely, in the right half of the body, then in general the imagined movement is executed by the left arm; yet this movement phantasm is less forceful than the right-sided one, and accordingly discharges itself also in a weaker small real movement. Only the experimental investigation can throw a more exact light upon these relations, because those small real movements, in which an imagined movement discharges itself, often make themselves perceptible only through feelings of slight intensity, so that we can remain in doubt concerning their taking-place. Furthermore it is to be remarked that right-sided touches often awaken an imagined movement in the same-sided hand, especially when the place in question is easily accessible to the right hand. The touch of the left half of the body, on the other hand, will more seldom call forth an imagined movement in the same-sided hand, because the left half of the body is in general less “active” than the right, which expresses itself also in this, that it is itself less disposed to imagined movements than the right half of the body. Upon this it also rests that the left hand shows itself less skilful in the execution of movements than the right. For all movement-skilfulness rests upon the formation of movement phantasms, whereby, however, it is not to be said that, say, livelier movement phantasms make a movement into a more skilful one. Unformed movement phantasms are diffuse, ambiguous — that is, they correspond to a whole complex of kindred real movements. With the progressive formation of the movement phantasms they become ever sharper, more unambiguous — that is, they correspond ever more exactly to one intended real movement. With great formation of the movement phantasms the same become “automatic” — that is, their taking-place scarcely falls any more into consciousness. Upon the automatism of the movement phantasms rests the “technical virtuosity” of movements. Wherein the merely technical virtuosity is distinguished from the properly artistic, is a question that hangs together with the

difference between the artistic talent and the artistic genius, into which I therefore here do not enter further.

To come back to the imagined movements that are called forth through contact-sensations: the same must, as said, be subjected to an experimental examination, in that one registers the small real movements in which an imagined movement discharges itself. Since this, however, is a difficult task, one can take refuge in a substitute-method, where one does not seek to ascertain those small real movements, but tests both the right and the left hand with respect to this, with what exactness it is able to find a touched place of the skin — (with the eyes of the test-person bound up). The points of the skin will then fall into three categories: a) into such as are more exactly localised by the right hand; b) into such as are localised equally well by both hands; and finally c) into such as are better localised by the left hand. The spatial distribution of these points upon the skin-surface then gives a certain disclosure as to upon which points of the skin-surface we refer ourselves through the crossed movement phantasm, and upon which we refer ourselves through a same-sided movement phantasm. These experiments can be supplemented by a series of other experiments, in which one investigates the capacity of the two hands with respect to which of the two knows more exactly how to find, to a given contact-point P, the symmetrical point P₁ corresponding to it. If, for example, it succeeds better for the left hand to establish the symmetrical point P₁ belonging to a point P than for the right hand, then it may well be inferred from this that the test-person is in general wont to find the position of the point P₁ through the imagined movement of the left and not of the right hand. — In passing be it remarked that such experiments should be made with blind, and best of all with blind-born, persons, because in the sighted person the tactile phantasy is influenced and altered by the visual phantasy.

Whoever misunderstands my exposition will perhaps suppose that I designate with the expression “imagined movement” the same concept that one otherwise attaches to the name “movement-representation” [Bewegungsvorstellung]. Let one beware of this latter expression, because it unites in itself all the errors of the psychologistic mode of thinking. The psychologist often designates by representations only purely mental contents, for example abstract concepts; sometimes he understands by the same nothing further than (vital) sensation-happenings; often, too, a complex of many sensations “fused” with one another; sometimes, too, a “memory-image”, etc. etc. The whole Babylonian confusion of minds that psychologism has caused concentrates itself in the term “representation”. That I by the “imagined movement” by no means understand that

ambiguity which is wont to be thought with the word “movement-representation” already proceeds from this, that I speak of an imagined movement of the right and of the left hand, of the right and of the left foot, etc. — that is, of purely vital processes. Furthermore I say that the imagined movement of the person born blind is of another character than that of the sighted, for in them no visual phantasy mixes itself into the tactile phantasy, whereas our tactile phantasy never functions in an unmixed manner. From a purely mental standpoint the “movement-representation” of the blind is exactly the same as that of the sighted — that is, a person born blind forms for himself with the word “movement” the same concept as a sighted person; only this concept is, in the case of the person born blind, not so richly illustrated through vital processes as in us sighted persons. Here it now shows itself clearly how important it is to distinguish between mental activity and vital happenings. One and the same concept has, in the case of a blind and a sighted person, a different vital outfitting [vitale Ausstattung]: and the concepts must accordingly, in logic, be subjected to an investigation not only with respect to the understanding-intention, but also with respect to their vital dowry. Two persons can bind with a concept the same thought-intention, and they can nevertheless fall into dispute over the content of the same, because the one person illustrates the same concept with other experiences than the other; an important theme that unfortunately is not wont to be sufficiently taken into account in logic.

If someone executes an imagined movement towards the point P at which he was touched, then he attains hereby to an imagined sensation [eingebildete Empfindung] of the point P. This is what I have hitherto, in the investigation of the imagined movement, not yet pointed to, because I did not wish to complicate the difficult concept of imagined movement straightaway with the still more difficult concept of imagined sensation. But if anyone gives himself an exact account of which experiences he has when, in imagination, he touches with the hand some part of his own body, then he finds that upon the imagined movement there necessarily follows, temporally, hard upon its heels, an imagined sensation. How is this possible? One has executed with the hand no real movement towards the point P, and yet there appears in the point P a peculiar vital happening, which one best designates as imagined sensation. Whoever is mystically disposed — that is, gladly obscures his own understanding in an artificial manner — will perhaps wish to assert that the imagined movement of the hand works “telepathically” into the distance and, penetrating through the air-space, causes a vital happening in the point P. We have no ground at all for such an unreasonable assumption: the imagined sensation takes place, after all, within the same life-process in which just now the imagined movement too

took place; so that the two must be bound with one another through this very life-process, and not through foreign layers of air. The nerve-wave that corresponds to the imagined movement calls forth an opposite nerve-wave, which forms the substrate of the imagined sensation. The imagined movement turns over into an imagined sensation.

Hereby we attain to a new and rational conception of those experiences that take place in any arbitrary perception. If our body is touched at a point P, then the contact-sensation thus arising calls forth an imagined movement, through which we point more or less distinctly to the point P; this imagined movement awakens the opposite process of the imagined sensation: so that we now have in the point P not only a real, but also an imagined sensation. But just as now the imagined movement discharges itself in a small, scarcely perceptible real movement, so the phantasy-sensation too leads to a scarcely perceptible real sensation in the point P. In short, in the perception of the touch at P there takes place a series of vital processes that form a circular process [Kreisprozeß] — that is, beginning and end of the process fall, in respect of place, approximately together; the process ends roughly there where it began. Only through such a circular process is the perception of an impression made possible. This is the principle of the closedness of all perception-processes.

Here there now comes forth, with complete intuitiveness, the opposition in which I find myself to the sensualistic philosophy and physiology. The philosopher of sensation, who grounds all perception upon sensations (and upon composition or association of sensations), believes that a centripetal sensation-happening from the periphery towards the brain suffices in order to attain to the perception of an impression. For him perception rests upon non-closed centripetal happenings. Over against this I maintain the doctrine of the closedness of the perception-processes, because I do not apprehend the mere sensation as a sufficient vital substrate of a perception. Perception can be had only by such a being as is endowed from the outset with the capacity to move itself and to be able to seize something. Just as now, in the real seizing of an object — for example, a staff — the hand closes itself around the staff, that is, a visible happening takes place which in a previous lecture we designated as the “closing of the life-chain”: so our vital process closes itself also in the mere perception of an impression, to be sure not in a visible manner, as in the grasping of a staff, but in a manner imperceptible to foreign observers, vital, through the return of the vital perception-process into itself. Every perceiving is an imag-

ined seizing — that is, in place of the real grasping of a thing there enters, in mere perception, a grasping through imagined movement and imagined self-contact.

One recognises here perhaps what final intention I pursued when I introduced the concept of the “closing of the life-chain” into the investigation. If we touch one bodily part with the other, then there arises hereby an intuitable ring, which renders us the most excellent services for the grasping of that non-intuitable ring which plays a decisive role in every perception. For if a foreign body touches us, and we content ourselves with the mere perception of the impression, without ourselves palpating the touched place through a real movement, then in place of the real movement and the real self-touching there enter an imagined movement and an imagined self-touching — that is, the “closing of the life-chain” is brought about through imagination-happenings. This closing of the vital perception-processes through imagination-happenings is, to be sure, not perceptible for a foreign observer; but even he who executes the same does not become conscious of his imagination-activity, because otherwise the circular process of which there is talk here would not have had to be discovered. But once one has heard something of the “imagined grasping” after the touched place of skin and of the “imagined self-contact”, then one is astonished how these facts, which necessarily take place in every tactile perception, could remain undiscovered. One then no longer comprehends how one could bethink oneself of the touched place of skin otherwise than through the imagined grasping after the same, and through the imagined contact-sensations that spring from this. And one recognises that these movement- and sensation-phantasms, which are an indispensable condition for every tactile perception, have automatised themselves in the course of life to such a degree that they are, as it were, lost for consciousness and had to be newly discovered through reflection.

But whoever is caught in the traditional association- and apperception-psychology, and in particular whoever regards the new — however it may otherwise be constituted — already because it is new, as something strange, indeed even as something suspect: to him it is to be advised that, in the judging of the perception-theory just sketched, he not leave out of account the following well-known facts. When someone occupies himself in his imagination very vividly with what has befallen him, then it easily happens to him that he — without really noticing it — speaks words to himself, gesticulates, indeed conducts a formal soliloquy. For if processes of imagination are very lively, then they press, against the will, to the execution of movements, to visible mimic expressions, to audibly uttered words, exclamations, sentences. In such cases we come to know the nature of the phantasms quite properly. The imagined movements, which

otherwise express themselves only in scarcely perceptible real movements, break forth with elemental violence and lead to generally perceptible real movements, gesticulations. The imagined sensations become so powerful that the real sensations, which stem from the real surroundings, grow pale: and the person does not see, hear, etc. what takes place around him, but is determined in his conduct through an imagined milieu. Everyone knows these relations from a thousand experiences upon other persons and upon himself. The psychiatrist makes them the object of a special study. Here they shall only be pointed to, in order to confront a generally disseminated prejudice. One does not take the vital happenings of imagination in earnest, and one goes herein so far that one does not regard them as real happenings. An imagined movement rests just as well upon a real vital happening as a real movement does. There corresponds to it a just as real nerve-process as to the real movement. Indeed it discharges itself, too, in a mostly imperceptible, but often also in an against-the-will executed, generally perceptible real movement. The like holds also for the imagined sensation. It rests upon a real vital process, there correspond to it real nerve-processes, and it leads to real sensations, which sounds wonderful, to be sure, but is very well known to every hypnotist. One should not believe it, but it really stands thus, that the reality of the vital imagination-processes is no generally recognised, or at least no clearly expressed, principle of nerve-physiology. This comes from the fact that the hollow expression “association of ideas”, as it stems from English psychology, frustrates from the outset every scientific investigation of phantasy. One holds the phantasms in themselves to be “psychical happenings”; one confuses them with the mental activity, of which the phantasms are the vehicle, and thereby uproots the whole phantasy-life of the human being. But just as the bodily sensations and feelings do, so our phantasms too root deeply in the organisation of our body, especially of our nervous system, so that the mental phantasy — that is, the phantasy bound up with consciousness-activity — can never be understood if one does not consider it in connexion with the animal-vital phantasy and the real nerve-processes corresponding to it. How shall it be possible to form a genuine science of madness if we do not explore the vital happenings of the healthy and the diseased phantasy, since after all all so-called “mental illness” rests by no means upon the disease of the mind, but upon the diseasing of the vital phantasms? How shall it furthermore be possible to build up a genuine science of poetry and of the fine arts in general, if the physiological nature of the productive

phantasy — in distinction from the merely receiving phantasy, which in most human beings is the predominant one — is not investigated? How shall it finally be possible that we carry through scientifically a theory of perception and a theory of knowledge in general, if it is not yet recognised that all mental activity whatsoever has vital phantasms for its necessary nearest substrate — that there can therefore never, with us human beings, be a mental activity without the support of nerve-processes that serve specially the phantasy?

When someone stands before a ditch and in imagination sets across over the same, then this leap executed in phantasy is, considered from a purely practical point of view, as good as a nothing — that is, where it comes to making a real leap over a ditch (because perhaps the saving of life depends upon it), there a leap executed merely in phantasy is (with regard to the practical purpose) not at all different from a non-leaping. But since actions executed merely in imagination are, from the purely practical point of view, as good as no actions at all, it is understandable that in the predominantly practically-minded everyday life phantasy-happenings can be apprehended, as it were, as something non-existent, as something wholly unreal. This philistine-practical mode of thinking penetrates also into science and has as its consequence that phantasms, taken in themselves, are not apprehended as real vital processes, but are regarded as something hovering between being and non-being, to which a non-being can sooner be ascribed than a being. This childish mode of thinking confuses the real imagination-happening with the unexecuted action — that is, it confuses a something with a nothing. But whoever has made clear to himself that a leap over a ditch executed in phantasy requires just as much a real nerve-process as the real leap does, comprehends also at once that to the imagined sensations too there correspond real nerve-processes. For in that a person attempts in imagination to set across over a ditch, there awaken in him either such imagination-sensations as correspond to the reaching of the yonder bank, or predominantly such phantasy-sensations as are bound up with the inability of getting across and with the plunging down into the depths, etc. It is expedient to paint this out thus, because in this way the turning-over of the imagined movement into the opposite processes of the imagined sensation is most easily made comprehensible. One then also notices that the imagination-happenings, where they are bound up with more intense emotional happenings, let their reality be felt forcefully; whereas, in the indifferent perceptions of everyday life, the phantasy is blunted through millions of repetitions, so that its processes, in consequence of the automatic character of the same, no longer excite our attention

. And one then no longer doubts that, when our body undergoes an indifferent touch, it is that imagined movement which points to the touched place, as well as the imagined contact-sensations that soon follow, through whose help the touch is grasped — that is, represented or perceived.

It now becomes a question how matters stand with the perception of the remaining senses. Whether, namely, in seeing, hearing, etc., an in-itself-closed vital process, or rather nerve-process, lies at the foundation of our perception, just as with the touch-sense? To this it is to be answered that every sense-perception, from whatever mode of sensation it may proceed, has as its necessary presupposition a nerve-process returning into itself, or closed, by means of the phantasy-processes, and that precisely hereby the unitariness in the exercise of our sensory functions in any arbitrary sense-perception is made possible. In the perceptions of every sense-circle the imagined movement and imagined sensation play the same role as in tactile perception, so that the phantasy is everywhere the uniting band between the different sensory functions. An exceptional position within the compass of all our modes of sensation is taken by the touch-sense in so far as the formation of all the remaining senses is dependent upon its formation and oriented towards it. This comes to expression in this, that with the touch-sense there must be talk of a closedness of the perception-processes in a twofold sense. We bring, namely, through the real movement of a bodily member, the same into real contact with another bodily member — that is, we close the life-chain really. But we can do all this also in mere imagination — that is, we close the life-chain only in phantasy. The first kind of closing can be characterised as mechanical, the second kind, on the other hand, as vital; for in the first kind there comes forth a generally visible movement, that is, a mechanical process, through which the self-contact takes place, whereas in the second kind this real movement is suppressed and replaced through vital imagination-happenings, or rather nerve-processes. Only with the perception through touching is such a twofold kind of closing of the perception-processes possible; with all the remaining sensory functions the closing can ensue only through imagination-happenings. For only the touch-sense is a real grasping-sense, whereas to the remaining senses this character must be denied, as this, moreover, will come forth more distinctly in the following expositions.

For the present we will now take into our eye the perception through the sense of sight and its connexion with tactile perception. Here we stand over against the modern conception

that visual perception is “co-ordinated” to tactile perception, and that a dependence of the former upon the latter does not subsist. As a chief representative of this co-ordination-theory we have already come to know Wundt in the preceding lectures. He declares roundly that the doctrine of the primacy of tactile perception within the compass of all the remaining modes of perception was a mere prejudice of the psychology of the eighteenth and in part also still of the nineteenth century. He speaks of a “prejudice dominating the whole psychology of the eighteenth and in part still of the nineteenth century, which saw in the touch-sense, as it were, the educator of the remaining senses.” ... (Phys. Psych., vol. II, p. 683).

We have already in a previous lecture furnished a proof that our visual perception is dependent upon tactile perception, supports itself upon this, and we will now adduce a new proof for this — moreover at once evident — proposition. When we distinguish the mirror-image of a body from its original view, then this distinguishing rests upon the fact that we can palpate the body itself, but cannot palpate its mirror-image. Now if someone were to possess from the outset no passive-active touch-sense, then he would be incapable of distinguishing a mirror-image from the original view of a body; he could not at all come upon the thought that the mirror-image stands in a natural relation to the original view of the body: for the mirror-image would be for him quite as original as the original view. Of a reflexion of the light-rays, of a refraction and in general a deflexion of the same, there can be talk only because we ascribe this deflexion to some bodily things, whose existence becomes manifest to us through tactile perception. But were there no tactile perception, then all optical images would be of equal worth, and there could no longer be talk between optical originals and their mirror- or lens-images. A catoptrics, a dioptrics, and in general an optics exists only for beings that are from the outset capable of a tactile perception: because of a displacement of the optical images in comparison to the original, only he is able to speak who can palpate the original body and convinces himself that the optical images cannot be palpated. It is astonishing that such a truism must be set forth and that the dependence of visual perception upon tactile perception must first be proved.

It is the condition of possibility of every scientific optics that we must be capable of seeing a body at the very place where it really finds itself — that is, that we, on the foundation of visual perception, transfer the optical original image of a body to the very place where we also, by virtue of our

tactile perception, find it. This fundamental postulate of every optics is nothing further than the concise expression for the dependence of visual perception upon tactile perception. The optical original image of every body is necessarily transferred thither, where the body itself is found through the touch-sense; that is, tactile perception prescribes whither the original image of a body must be transferred. Every other optical image of the body is already no original image, but a mere copy of the same, and appears in comparison to the latter more or less spatially displaced and deformed. How important it is to proclaim such “self-evident” propositions with emphasis proceeds from this, that they, despite their alleged self-evidence, can be designated as “prejudices” and set forth as errors.

But there now arises also the question how it becomes possible for us to transfer a visual perception into the very part of space that tactile perception prescribes to it — that is, how we bring visual perception to concordance with tactile perception? This is a question that is commonly not raised at all, although it encloses within itself a fundamental problem of the doctrine of perception. How is it possible to transfer a visual sensation to a place that the touch sensation prescribes to it: since after all this touch sensation cannot be viewed, and that visual sensation cannot be palpated? Already this question contains a complete proof that mere sensations cannot possibly be a sufficient vital foundation of our perception. Had we nothing further than touch sensations a and visual sensations b, then it would really never be possible to refer a and b to the same place and thus also to the same thing. For a visual sensation stands over against a touch sensation just as wholly foreign as this latter against the former, so that they can through themselves come into no community with one another. After we have discerned that visual perception must direct itself by tactile perception, the question now steps before our mind in all sharpness: how it becomes possible for visual perception to satisfy this fundamental demand? For were there no means through which visual perception is enabled to set itself in agreement with tactile perception, then it would be all over with the possibility of seeing. If there is no means of transferring the optical image to the very place where one also has the touch sensation, then the optical images are wholly unusable.

The solution of the problem, how, by means of visual perception, we can find the same place that we have already found by means of tactile perception — that is, how we bring visual perception into con-

cordance with tactile perception — is a rather simple matter, which nevertheless, precisely in consequence of its simplicity, contains many an instructive thing. If we observe with the eye some point P of our left hand and touch the same point with the index finger, then we hereby cover the point P: we make it invisible. If we now move the finger a little to the side, then the covered point P comes forth again for the eye; and it disappears at once when, through an opposite movement of the finger, we palpate the point P again. It is experiments of this kind through which we already in the first months of our life-course learn to bring visual perception into agreement with tactile perception. Whoever observes sucklings finds that in the fourth, fifth, and sixth month they observe their hands and feet in a peculiarly attentive manner, when they bring the same into contact with one another or with other things. PreyerWilhelm Preyer (1841–1897), physiologist; his Die Seele des Kindes (“The Soul of the Child”, 1882) is a founding work of scientific child psychology, based on systematic observation of his own son’s development. makes the following interesting remarks upon this: “Thus the touch sensation appearing at the finger-tips upon the first successful grasping-attempts is in any case very interesting to the child, otherwise it would not, after the grasping and seizing, observe its own fingers persistently and attentively, even (in the 23rd week) when, in the moving-about with the hands, the one hand by chance seizes the other.” (“Die Seele des Kindes,” p. 68.) “In the 18th week, in the grasping-attempts — precisely when they fail — the own fingers are attentively observed. Probably the child has expected the touch and, when it did not take place, was astonished at the failure-to-appear of the touch-feeling.” (loc. cit., p. 157.)

The commentaries that Preyer adds to his observations are for the most part dictated by a traditional and untenable psychology. We shall be able to penetrate to a real “psychology of the child” only in the measure in which we learn to understand ever more exactly our own consciousness-activity in connexion with our own vital process. One must already be well equipped with a whole system of questions concerning this connexion when one steps up to the investigation of the child, because otherwise the necessary points of view are wanting, under which the observations upon the suckling are to be subordinated. One of the most important of these questions is, how we set the different sensory functions in agreement with one another, and first of all visual perception with tactile perception. Preyer begins, for example, his exposition with the visual sensations, which is already for this reason a perverse procedure, because all our perception is attuned to tactile perception. Now as concerns the concordance of visual with tactile perception, it is made possible precisely thereby, that we cannot have touched and viewed one and the same

point in the same instant. It sounds somewhat paradoxical that, precisely because tactile and visual perception, in respect of one and the same point as well as one and the same instant, exclude one another, they are enabled to set themselves in agreement with one another. If we draw the finger along a red line, then the point just now coming forth for visual perception is the one that the touching finger has just left. In that, then, through the touching finger in every instant a point is covered for visual perception, this latter can follow the moving finger, bring itself into concordance with the same. Visual perception is, as it were, “educated” through tactile perception — that is, the former is able to transfer a visual sensation to a determinate place only because the path-breaking touch-sense already attained to a place-perception. Visual perception can, however, follow the traces of tactile perception because this latter is able, in every instant, to cover a point — that is, to hinder visual perception in the grasping of a point. It is — to use a simile — as though tactile perception could in every instant jostle against visual perception and drive the same away, so that, through this being-displaced, visual perception finally learns to nestle itself closely to tactile perception without friction.

One recognises here distinctly how little would be gained were we to designate the co-functioning of tactile and visual perception as an “association” of the same. To be sure, the expression “association”, considered in itself, is a quite innocent word; but it is used in psychology in such a way that thereby problems are covered over and nevertheless set forth as solved. When someone says that the visual sensations “associate” themselves with the touch sensations, then he has not given us the slightest enlightenment as to how this happens; indeed, he has done away with this problem out of the world. One then ceases to ask how it becomes possible that disparate sensations, such as the visual and touch sensations, bind themselves with one another — that is, can be referred to the same place. One also no longer asks after which kind of happenings step between the touch sensation and the visual sensation in order to bind them for consciousness. One no longer asks anything at all, but feels oneself happy to have been able to utter such a valuable word as “association”. Here there lies before us a concrete example of what one has to understand by modern scholasticism in the evil sense of the word. Modern psychology is in great part sensation-scholasticism, representation-scholasticism, association-scholasticism, apperception-scholasticism, etc. etc. — that is, it uses certain technical expressions in order to obscure for us the

questions with which we ought properly to occupy ourselves.

If, through the active touch of a point P with the finger, we did not cover this point, then our visual perception would not be capable of transferring the visual impression of the point P to the very place where tactile perception too found it. Were our body, then, wholly transparent — that is, did one part of the same not stand in the other’s light — then a concordance between tactile and visual perception would be an impossibility, and in consequence visual perception itself abolished. Wholly transparent beings could thus have no visual perception. Considerations of this kind show us how intimately the material constitution of our organism hangs together with the functions of the same, and stir up in us a flood of further questions, which we here, to be sure, cannot pursue further. I mention this only because it is important to point to the fact that one of the chief tasks of philosophy consists in stirring up questions and not in covering them over through learned expressions.

If visual perception is to set itself in agreement with tactile perception, then it must be possible to follow the active touch-movements of the limbs with the movements of the eyes and of the head, or also conversely the glance-movement with the touch-movement. In that we move the finger, for example, along a line, we can direct the glance, gliding along with it, to the respectively newly-becoming-visible point of the line, and thus, as it were, fasten visual perception to the heels of tactile perception. It is thus a concordance of the active touch-movement on the one hand and of the eye- or rather head-movements on the other that lies at the foundation of the communal use of the sense of sight and of the touch-sense. Were there no such movements brought into agreement, then there would also be no agreement between touching and seeing.

These movements, however, need not always in reality be executed, but can be replaced through imagined movement. Our glance roves easily and quickly over the contours of things, but the touch-movement need not in reality keep pace; it accompanies the glance only in imagination, and does even this in a very negligent manner. The livelier the imagined touch-movements with which someone is from the outset wont to accompany the roving of his glance, the more is he predisposed to drawing-from-the-copy. He will easily learn drawing, because the formation of real movements is always dependent upon the formation of corresponding movement phantasms. But even he who has little aptitude for drawing follows the roving of his glance with some — even if crude and clumsy — movement phantasms of his touch-sense. In general, with the sighted person visual perception plays a

leading role, and the movement phantasms of the touch-sense follow more or less idly in its trace. This, however, changes nothing in the fact that visual perception, in its first formation, necessarily had to lean upon tactile perception. The localising is originally first learned by the touch-sense; nestling close to it and supported by it, the sense of sight too learns it. But once the sense of sight has brought it so far as to be able somehow to localise its impressions, then it becomes, with great rapidity, the leader of the touch-sense and the master of our perception-activity in general. But in doubtful cases — where, namely, it is to be decided whether one has to do with mere optical copies or real bodies, whether a body is moving really or merely apparently, etc. etc. — tactile perception always remains the highest authority.

Twelfth Lecture: The Projection of Visual Images. Movement as the Only Energy Given Actively, and Vision as the Pupil of Touch#

The projecting-outward of visual images. One says that this projecting is a “psychic act,” because one believes that one thereby rids oneself of the problem of projection. The “projecting” is no psychic act. The mysticism of unconscious inference. The dispute of the nativists and empiricists in the theory of perception. The sterility of the dispute. The problem of projecting is identical with that of localising. Imagined movement as the solution of the projection problem. The unique character of movement. It is given to us in a twofold, that is, in an active-passive manner, whereas the remaining energies are given merely in a passive manner. The ambiguity of the term “stimulus.” Solution of the question why the physicist is compelled to apprehend the remaining energies in the image of movement. Relation of visual perception to tactile perception. Eye-movements. Why, despite the two visual images, we nevertheless see only singly. The passive-active character of touching in distinction from the merely active character of looking. In visual perception only the active or the other-sensation is developed, the passive sensation, however, is suppressed. With the sense of hearing, on the contrary, the other-sensation is suppressed and the self-sensation predominates. The temperature-sensation as the reciprocity- or exchange-sensation.

Gentlemen! The doctrine of the vital processes of visual perception, the physiological optics, forms one of the most interesting sections of human knowledge and may be regarded as an attainment of the specifically modern spirit, of which the latter may rightly be proud. But since physiological optics, precisely in its most fundamental conceptions, stands under the influence of that sensualistic psychologism which set out from England, it suffers from the one-sidedness of this mode of thinking, and tears visual perception out of the connexion of the remaining modes of perception, whereby the same often becomes wholly unintelligible. As little as optics is a self-contained and isolated domain of physics, so little may physiological optics too be treated like an independent part of sense-physiology. And just as the chief progress of physics in the nineteenth century rests upon this, that through the doctrine of the unity of the energy-types all parts of physics were bound in the most intimate manner with mechanics: so the further progress of sense-physiology too depends in the first place upon how far one succeeds in recognising the various

sensation-functions as bound up with one another and in particular with the touch-function. For in that one makes tactile perception the foundation of all sense-perception whatsoever, one brings sense-physiology into the closest connexion with the physiology of movement. And precisely upon this everything depends. For under the influence of psychologism these two chapters of the specifically animal physiology fall apart, because modern psychologism is indeed enamoured of the sensations, but by its whole nature is shy of movement.

The dependence of physiological optics upon sensualistic psychologism comes to expression first of all in the so-called “projection hypotheses.” The excitation of the retinal points, so it is said already in Porterfield (1759)William Porterfield (c. 1696–1771), Scottish physician and physiologist, author of A Treatise on the Eye (1759), which developed an early account of the outward “projection” of retinal excitations. and Tourtual (1827)OCR “ourtual”; reconstructed as Caspar Theobald Tourtual (1802–1865), German anatomist whose Die Sinne des Menschen (1827) treated the projection of sense-impressions., is transferred outwards, “projected” [projiziert] outwards in the direction of certain straight lines. In a very widely disseminated textbook of physiology, well suited for medical physiological study, the following is to be read upon this: “Through a psychic act the excitations of any arbitrary point of the retina are transferred outwards again in the direction through the nodal point . . . The transference outwards takes place thereby in such a manner that all points seem to lie in a surface hovering before the eye, which is called the field of vision. The field of vision is thus the surface of the excited retina projected outwards and inverted; hence the field of vision appears again upright, since the inverted retinal image is projected outwards inverted.” I cite these lines because in them generally prevailing modes of thinking come to expression in the most concise and most fitting form.

A psychic act it is supposed to be that transfers the inward retinal image outwards, and thereby accomplishes the little trick of inverting the whole image, of transforming the up and down, the right and left, into their opposite. What one does not know, that one calls a “psychic act.” Thus one most easily rids oneself of the most important problems. Since one does not know how to explain to oneself how the seen image of the real object hangs together with the retinal image, one forms the word “projection” and ascribes to the mind the capacity to project a retinal image out into the space outside the body, and to do this according to certain geometrical rules. There is nothing to be objected against the expression “projection” in itself; indeed one could not wish for a more fitting designation of the problem in hand: but it remains incomprehensible how one believes oneself to have solved a problem by giving it a Latin name. One speaks of a projection hypothesis and not of a projection problem. A hypothesis, however, is devised in order to lead some problem towards its solution: so one seems to believe that there dwells in the word “projection” a magical force,

by virtue of which it not only names the problem, but through the mere naming also already solves it.

Characteristic it is, however, that many physiologists ascribe the capacity to “project” to the psyche. For herein it comes to expression how they picture to themselves the relation of physiology to psychology. What one does not like to lay hold of in a natural-scientific manner, that one presents to the psychologist. A more convenient procedure can hardly be conceived. What confusion of concepts this frivolous proceeding must have as its consequence can well be easily measured. If one calls the “projecting” a psychic act, then one has cleared out of the world the question whether to this act there corresponds any vital process, or rather a specific nerve-process, or not. But precisely therein consists the physiological problem of projecting: whether there is any nerve-process through which it is made possible. Precisely this important physiological problem, however, is to be set aside, and therefore one calls the projecting a “psychic act.” On the other hand, one demands of psychology that it occupy itself with a mental act that no human being has ever yet performed. For never yet has a human being, by means of a mental act, laid hold of his retinal excitation and transferred it out of the fundus of the eye into the air-space. But since now the projecting is supposed to be a mental act, one compels the psychologists to speak of an unconscious mental activity, of an unconscious judging, indeed even of an unconscious inferring. Even so great a physiologist as Helmholtz has, in his theory of perception, betaken himself onto the precipitous terrain of unconscious mental activities, and one sees from this example that even the tone-setting natural-scientists of any epoch are at times not free from a dangerous form of mysticism. For what is to be attained with the “unconscious inference”? Either there correspond to the unconscious inference any nerve-processes, and then it is the task of the physiologists to uncover these nerve-processes and to show whereby the nerve-processes of unconscious inference distinguish themselves from those of conscious inference; or else one understands by the unconscious inference a mental activity that supports itself upon no nerve-process at all, and then one is driving a metaphysics in the very worst sense of this word. Now the “unconscious inference,” however, is nothing further than a word that sounds indeed witty or also profound, but that is not taken in earnest even by him who uses it. For where in the world would a physiologist be found who would seriously wish to examine which nerve-processes distinguish the unconscious inference from the conscious, or who would assume an unconscious mental activity in which the nerve-processes of the organism have absolutely no part.

Quite as it is with the unconscious judgements and inferences upon which visual perception is supposed to be based, so is it also with the so-called “innateness” of our capacity to invert the retinal image and to transfer it into the air-space; for it is not to be grasped what knowledge we have gained thereby, that we designate the projecting as an innate behaviour. To be sure, the organic tissues that make possible the vital processes lying at the foundation of perception must already have developed in the mother’s womb — that is, all tissues and organs or organ-systems that are later necessary for the vital processes of perception are innate to us: but how thereby the transferring-out of a retinal image into the air-space is supposed to be made intelligible seems to me quite undiscoverable. In the second half of the nineteenth century there surged between the “nativists” and “empiricists” a rather lively dispute concerning the physiological fundamental problems of sense-perception, and this dispute seems to wish to drag itself over, although much weakened, into our century. Hopefully it will gradually fall into oblivion, for there is little more unfruitful than to dispute over the innateness or non-innateness of processes, where it is yet beyond doubt that the tissues which lie at the foundation of these processes must necessarily be innate, but that the processes themselves, which play a role in every sense-perception, can first come forth only after birth. Behind the dispute of the “nativists,” who insist upon the innateness of certain fundamental functions, and the “empiricists,” who wish to derive all functions of sense-perception from experience after birth, there really conceal themselves the great problems of physiology: how the histological tissue-elements of our organism hang together with the life-functions — that is, how the doctrine of the tissues and the doctrine of the functions of the organs are to be brought into a rational connexion. Instead, then, of disputing over innateness and non-innateness, it will everywhere be good to uncover the positive problems that result from the determination of the functions by the structure, and conversely from the reaction of the functions upon the structure of the organs.

Here it is also in place to point to the misuse that the “empiricists” practise with the word experience. They say our knowledge stems from experience and do not notice that with this turn of speech they bring a tautology to expression, and that through this tautology they cover over, or rather set aside, a fundamental truth of the theory of knowledge. Whoever “experiences” something takes cognisance of something, so that the term experience already includes within itself the taking-cognisance. If, then, someone says that our items of knowledge stem from experience, then this wise assertion is just as valuable as though

he were to say, our items of knowledge stem from our acts of taking-cognisance. One would trouble oneself no further over such empty talk, did it not serve to keep one of the most significant fundamental truths of human knowledge from coming to consciousness. For in order to win items of knowledge, one must experience something. Experiences — that is, processes of the life-process — are unconditionally required in order to be able to unfold mental activity, in particular to be able to cognise something. At the foundation of our mental activities there lie everywhere vital processes, and to uncover the connexion of the two — that is the task of genuine empiricism.

It is asked, then, whether to the so-called “projecting” there corresponds a vital process or not. The answer to this question is contained in the preceding lectures, for the problem of localising is identical with the problem of projecting, which was only therefore not recognised because one artificially isolated the doctrine of visual perception and of tactile perception. We owe it to our real and imagined grasping-movements that we are able to transfer touch-impressions somewhere — that is, to project them somewhere, to localise them somewhere. A being that could execute no voluntary movements in reality and (what is inseparably connected therewith) also none in imagination, would be incapable of transferring, of projecting, of localising its touch-impressions, visual impressions, and all the remaining kinds of impressions anywhere. There are, then, quite determinate vital processes, or rather nerve-processes, which lie at the foundation of all transferring of impressions into a point of the air-space, of the skin-surface, or also of the body-cavity: these are the imagined movement and the imagined sensation united with it.

In order to let the fundamental significance of this pair of concepts come forth, I will show in what manner they are serviceable to the unification of the animal-vital processes on the one hand and of the physico-chemical energy on the other.

If I glide with the index finger of the right hand over the back of the left hand and describe a straight line, then I can imitate all this, as it were, in imagination: I can, through an imagined movement of the right index finger, call forth a continuous series of imagined touch sensations on the back of the left hand. To a single imagined movement there corresponds a flowing series of imagined touch sensations called forth through the same. The geometer expresses this physiological truth by saying: a line is generated through the uninterrupted trace of a point moving onwards. He is not, however, clearly conscious that into his geometrical truth a physiological one plays in: namely, that to the moved point there corresponds the movement phantasm of a limb or of any arbitrary thing, and to the continuous

traces there correspond imagined sensations. But could someone execute no real or imagined movement, and had he too from the outset no imagined contact-sensations of the movement, then he could (even if he otherwise possessed all the remaining senses) never grasp what it means that the traces of a moved point yield a line.

There is now in the whole world of mechanical processes, besides movement, no single other process that would be given to our reflecting consciousness in such a manner as movement. For on the one hand we generate it for our consciousness in the form of an imagined movement, and on the other hand we awaken in ourselves through this imagined movement a flowing series of imagined contact-sensations, and conduct ourselves in this wise receivingly towards the movement. This active-passive being-given of movement for consciousness I will designate as an “imaging of movement” [Abbilden der Bewegung], whereby nothing else is to be said than that to our consciousness a movement is given actively through imagined movement, passively through imagined contact-sensations.

There is in the whole infinite realm of mechanical processes, besides movement, no single other process that we should be in a position to image in the manner characterised above. Cold, warmth, taste, smell, colour, tone are given to me immediately only passively, through real sensations, and for reflection through imagined sensations, and not in that twofold active-passive manner as movement is. This comes to expression in modern physiology and psychology in this, that one speaks of a stimulus that “releases” the sensation of cold, warmth, of smell, taste, of colour and of tone. The expression “stimulus” belongs to that great quantity of mystical and bashful concepts with which modern psychologism presents us on all paths and byways. No human being knows what a “stimulus,” in distinction from a sensation, is supposed to be. This mystical expression affords the advantage that one can apprehend the sensation itself as a stimulus, but that one can also regard the nerve-process of the sensation, and finally also the mechanical process that acts upon the organism, as a stimulus. Properly, with the word “stimulus” the mechanical process is to be designated that acts upon the skin or the sensory apparatus; but then one would, on the one hand, have had to distinguish clearly the vital processes that take place in the organism from the mechanical stimuli, and on the other hand one would also have been compelled to point openly to what kind of mechanical processes these are that “release” in us the sensation of cold, warmth, taste, smell, colour and tone. These mechanical processes, however, are as such nowhere perceptible; they are

given to us merely as sensation, and are therefore in a high degree mysterious. But since one did not wish to express this openly, one introduced the mystical expression “stimulus” into science. It seems to me, however, better to correspond to the natural drive for truth if we confess openly that those mechanical processes which correspond to our vital sensations — cold, warmth, smell, taste, colour, tone — are not “given” to us. Given to us, among all mechanical processes, is only movement, for we sense not only the contact of a thing moving towards us, but we are also capable of producing a movement in reality as well as in imagination. The twofold being-given of movement for our consciousness — on the one hand through imagined movement, on the other hand through imagined sensation — first makes it possible at all that we distinguish the sensation from the movement, the vital process from the mechanical. Had we merely such sensations as cold, warmth, smell, taste, tone and colour, then we could never attain to a concept of the mechanical processes: there would be for us no external world and we should have no consciousness at all. These modes of sensation, namely, are not given to us twofold, that is, in an active-passive manner, so that they appear to us only as sensations and do not unveil the mechanical processes which lie at their foundation. This character-trait of the said modes of sensation seduced the sensualistic idealists into regarding warmth, cold, smell, taste, etc. as subsisting merely in consciousness, as mere “ideas” (Berkeley). The remaining shadings of sensualism speak cautiously of any stimuli through which the sensations are released: although such stimuli, as mechanical processes, are nowhere immediately given for consciousness. Only in the domain of the touch-sense is there given to us not only the sensation but also the releasing stimulus, namely the movement: so that only the touch-sense enables us to distinguish vital processes from the mechanical processes, namely the movements, through which the vital processes are called forth. Upon this rests the exceptional position of the touch-sense in the compass of the remaining sensory functions, as well as that of movement in the realm of all mechanical processes.

It now also becomes intelligible upon what ground physics is compelled to devise its own theories for the processes of heat, of sound, of light, of electricity, of chemical combination and separation, and why it is necessitated to apprehend all mechanical processes in the image of movement. No physicist strives to make movement more intelligible to himself through another kind of mechanical process; but every physicist is compelled, in the investigation of the phenomena of heat, light, etc., to call his movement-intuition

to his aid. Whence comes this? The answer to this question can be found only by the epistemologist in conjunction with the biologist. It is grounded in the nature of human phantasy that it is able to apprehend all mechanical processes only in the image of movement. For our phantasy is so constituted that of all the remaining energy-types it furnishes only imagined sensations, but of movement it places at our disposal not merely imagined sensations, but in addition images movement through imagined movement. All the remaining energy-types are given merely in their vital effects, namely in sensations, or rather imagined sensations: only movement is also known to us as energy — that is, as self-produced movement, or rather as imagined movement. But since now the mechanist cannot content himself with the mere vital effect of the mechanical processes, but precisely wishes to investigate the mechanical processes, since further phantasy among all mechanical processes images only movement, there remains nothing else for the mechanist than to apprehend all the remaining mechanical processes in the image of movement. It is no accident, no caprice, and also no matter of expedient choice, what determines the physicist to make all mechanical processes graspable through movement-images. All theories that elucidate heat, light, etc. through movement-images are necessary theories. Were light, for example, given to us through real and imagined light-production of our vital process, just as movement is given to us through real and imagined production of the same — that is, were there an active light-phantasy, just as there is an active movement-phantasy — then the construction of a physical light-hypothesis would be wholly superfluous, and we could then apprehend the remaining energy-types in the image of light.

Inspired physicists such as Maxwell and Hertz made interesting reflections upon the use of intuition-affording analogical images in physics. Hertz in particular emphasises that our perception offers us no complete connexions and conformities to law, and that we must assume that the manifoldness of real happening is incomparably greater than that of perceptible happening. Of those processes, now, that remain inaccessible to perception, we should have to design images (or rather symbols), and indeed these images must be so constructed that their thought-necessary consequences are at once also images of the nature-necessary consequences of those non-perceptible processes. The image, however, that we lay beneath all happenings inaccessible to perception is: mass that finds itself in movement. Hertz gives a faithful representation of what the physicist must really do in order to attain to an understanding of the phenomena of light, electricity, etc.;

but he does not explain why the use of analogical images is wholly unavoidable, and why precisely movement must be that model-image with whose help we make graspable all the remaining processes of mechanical nature. It is also not to be wondered at that a physicist, in so far as he restricts himself merely to the investigation of mechanical (non-living) nature, is never able to explain why he necessarily makes use, in all parts of the doctrine of energy, of the movement-image. For only the physiologist can set forth that it lies in the nature of our vital process, namely of the phantasy-process, to be unable to image any mechanical process besides movement. If, then, the physicists opine that it stands free what images we employ in the explanation of the mechanical processes, and that one should only ever give the preference to the simplest image: then this turn of speech is yet, taken at bottom, to be regarded merely as an evasion. It does not, for example, stand wholly free whether someone may lay movement at the foundation of the explanation of the mechanical processes (heat, light, etc.) or not; for one must either renounce entirely the understanding of mechanical nature, or one is compelled to elucidate all the processes of the same with the movement-image. And this unconditional compulsion stems not from this, that movement would be the “simplest” of all images, as the physicists opine, but from this, that phantasy is at all capable of no other imaging than the movement-imaging. (“Imaging” must of course be taken in the sense in which it was defined above.)

We recognise from this example how biology participates in all the fundamental theories of the physico-chemical natural sciences. For it depends upon the nature of our vital process what conception we can and must form of nature. The more deeply one penetrates into the cognisance of those vital processes that are designated as sensation, feeling and phantasm, the more intelligible also becomes the cognitive methodology that the mechanist follows in the investigation of mechanical nature. Thus, for example, the fundamental proposition that human phantasy among all mechanical processes is able to image only movement (in an active manner) is decisive for the whole construction of a scientific physics and chemistry. For the unity in all mechanistic natural sciences will, in consequence of this proposition, be possible only through the apprehending of the remaining energies by means of the model-image of movement. If one then wishes, penetrating further and more deeply, to decide which theories of heat, light, etc. are the most suitable for explaining the respective phenomenon-circles on the foundation of the movement-image, then one will not only have to investigate the respective phenomenon-circles ever more exactly, but one will also be necessitated to fathom the connexion of our modes of sensation with the touch-sense ever

more deeply; because mechanical nature cannot be understood without relation to the life-process through which it is apprehended. To be sure, this relation can also be reversed: without mechanical natural science nothing will be accomplished in biology.

As now the doctrine of movement, dynamics, is the foundation of all sciences of mechanical nature: so the doctrine of imagined movement must be made the centre-point of all science of the animal-vital functions, or rather of sense-perception. One must free oneself from the prejudice as though sensation, or rather feeling, taken for itself, were already a sufficient vital foundation for perception, and one must learn to discern that all our modes of sensation and feelings would be processes falling apart from one another, were there no imagined movements and no imagined sensations awakened through the same, which establish a connexion between the different sensations and feelings, and make possible the perceiving of them through consciousness. In short, one must give up the physiological prejudice as though mere centripetal nerve-processes (sensation-processes) could already be perception-processes, and one must finally learn to discern that only circular processes of the nervous system can be the vital foundation of a perception-activity. The physiology of sense-perception must be reshaped into a doctrine of the circular processes of the nervous system.

For this purpose a revision of the whole nerve-physiology, or rather of the sense-physiology and in particular of physiological optics, will be necessary: tasks, to be sure, that can be in some measure mastered only by a generation of researchers. Most openly does that circular process come forth with the active-passive touch-sense, where it can even be outwardly symbolised through that which I called the closing of the life-chain. Because now this closing in the domain of the touch-sense takes place in a twofold manner, namely outwardly (mechanically) and inwardly (vitally), whereas with the remaining senses this closing goes on merely inwardly: therefore tactile perception must be regarded as the fundamental mode of perception setting us in connexion with the external world, but all the remaining ones merely as secondary modes of perception oriented towards the former. In particular it must be emphasised that the so-called “projecting” of impressions — by which is now understood the transferring of the same through imagined movement and imagined sensation — belongs originally merely to tactile perception, and that visual perception would be absolutely incapable of projecting any visual impression anywhere, did it not learn this art through the concordance of the eye-movements with the movements of the limbs. To be sure, Helmholtz is very much inclined to appreciate the significance of tactile perception for visual

perception, but that physiological school which isolates the various sensation-modalities from one another can still always be regarded as the predominant one. The difficult chapters of physiological optics, which treat of the eye-movement in connexion with the accommodation of the eye, of binocular and stereoscopic seeing, etc., would have to be reworked in the sense that one brought to bear in them the doctrine of the circular process and of the primacy of tactile perception. The solution of this task I reserve for a special work, and content myself here with the following generally intelligible intimations.

The eyeball moves in the eye-socket, padded with very fatty connective tissue, like a joint-head in the corresponding joint-socket. Its movements, which were very thoroughly studied by Donders, Listing, Meissner, Helmholtz and Hering, etc.F. C. Donders (1818–1889) and J. B. Listing (1808–1882) formulated the laws of eye-rotation (“Donders’ law,” “Listing’s law”); Georg Meissner (1829–1905), Helmholtz, and Ewald Hering (1834–1918) were leading physiologists of vision., need not here be described at length. Let only this much be remarked, that they are rotations about a determinate point, the turning-point of the eyeball. One must distinguish raisings and lowerings, further a right- and left-turning, and then also “wheel-rotations” of the eyeball; but these otherwise important details have, in the connexion of our general considerations, no further interest. For our purpose it is only to be brought out that the rotations of the bulb in a certain sense — like in general the rotation of any sphere about a fixed point, when the same is bound up with no forward movement of the turning-point — can be designated as a two-dimensional movement. For one can apprehend this rotation as though the sphere in question were enclosed in the hollow space of another fixed sphere closely surrounding it, and were rotating in this hollow space of equal volume. The surface-points of the rotating sphere thus describe lines upon the inner surface of the hollow sphere enclosing it: that is, they describe nothing but lines that cannot step out of a sphere-surface. In so far, then, as the bulb is approximately a sphere, and in so far as the eye-socket enclosing it makes approximately every forward- and backward-pressing of the same impossible: one may say that the retinal points during the eye-movement (with the head held fast) always describe only lines along a sphere-surface and cannot step out of this. This boundness of any movements to a surface that cannot be left may well be designated as a two-dimensional character of the same. When we say that our visual perception is originally a surface-like one, then the proper significance of this turn of speech is to be traced back to this, that the eye-movements, which are decisive for the character of our visual perception, may in the above sense be characterised as surface-like.

Could the bulb thrust forth out of the eye-socket and move outside the orbit — that is, were its mobility geometrically of such a kind as the mobility of our hand — then visual perception too would be from the outset a three-dimensional one. Now it scarcely needs to be said what absurdity it involves to wish to lend the bulb the mobility of the hand: for one eye would then be superfluous, and one could at once demand that we should see with the hand. To be sure, the eye too has a certain substitute for the third dimension of mobility lacking to it: it is capable, as one expresses this, of “accommodating,” of adapting itself to various distances. For if the glance directs itself from more distant-lying onto near-lying objects, then the lens becomes thicker, its front surface arches, so that it may remain capable of uniting upon the retina the light-ray-bundles falling upon it. The arching and the flattening of the front lens-surface is a movement that is given to the eye as a substitute for the mobility lacking towards the third dimension. A certain substitute for this lack is also represented by the twofoldness of the eyes, for the object to be seen is fixated by two eyes from two different points of space. But precisely the peculiar functioning-together of the two eyes, their firm attunement-together to a communal perception-activity, is that through which the system of the eye-movements distinguishes itself essentially from the system of the limb-movements.

Whereas we can very well grasp with the hands after two different things, and even when we grasp the same thing with both, yet remain well conscious of having in each of the two hands different contact-sensations, this is in general by no means the case with the eyes; rather, in a normal seeing the image furnished by the one eye is by no means distinguished from that of the other; indeed, we apprehend the impressions furnished through two eyes so very much in one image, that we commonly do not raise at all the question how it comes about that two different systems of impressions, which act upon two retinas, can nevertheless yield only one image. This question, however, is for the theory of sense-perception for this reason of principled importance, because here it comes to light as clear as day that the mere sensation, taken for itself, by no means yet makes up the whole vital perception-process. For were mere sensing a sufficient vital foundation for perceiving, then we should necessarily have to see every object doubly, since to the two retinas there correspond just as well two different sensation-processes as, for example, to the two hands that palpate any thing. The philosophy of sensation finds itself in fact in the greatest embarrassment when it wishes somehow to

make intelligible how two different complexes of sensations can nevertheless furnish only one intuition.

It avails nothing here to speak of an “innate” capacity, as the “nativists” do since J. MüllerJohannes Müller (1801–1858), founder of modern German physiology, author of the doctrine of the specific energies of the senses; the chief nativist source for innate sensory functions.; it also avails nothing to say that one first learns through “experience” to fuse the two corresponding sensation-complexes with one another; one also comes no step further if one wishes to establish a rotten peace between the nativist and empiricist standpoints; indeed, it also profits nothing to speak with Darwinian turns of speech of a phylogenetically bred and inherited fusion of the two sensation-complexes: for all these modes of expression contain only a shoving-aside of the question how two different sensation-complexes can furnish, or in primeval times could furnish, one intuition. To say that this takes place through a “psychic act,” as many physiologists do, lets this alleged psychic act appear in a highly suspicious light. That “psyche,” which is always at hand where a physiologist no longer knows how to help himself, seems to stand in very near kinship with the “Deus ex machina” of the metaphysicians. It is to be sure gratifying that modern physiology has emancipated itself from materialism, and that it maintains a courteous intercourse with the “psyche,” but as a cloak for a physiological not-knowing the innocent psyche should not be used.

So long as sense-physiology lets itself be influenced by sensualistic psychologism, it will be impossible to grasp how two different visual impressions a₁ and a₂ can unite themselves into one intuition a. In order to be able to explain this somehow, there must, on the one hand, be recognised the difference that subsists between tactile perception and visual perception according to their fundamental character, and on the other hand the nature of their functioning-together must also be set forth.

Only within tactile perception is there a reciprocal double-sensation. One can, for example, touch the left hand with the right and, through this self-contact, establish the vital foundation for an apprehension of place. And what is especially to be brought out: one can accomplish this in a twofold manner. The contact of the two hands can be preserved, and one can nevertheless lend now to the right, now to the left hand an active bearing, so that alternately now the left, now the right hand appears as the pressed one. With the contact preserved, passivity-feelings appear alternatingly in the left and in the right hand: so that hereby one and the same place is given in a twofold manner: once as the place where the left hand is pressed by the right, the other time as the place where the right hand is pressed by the left. Thus one learns, through self-contact, to form the concept of a point on the left hand, that of a point on

the right hand, and that of the coinciding of both points into one point on the occasion of self-contact. The essential thing herein is that one is unable to grasp the concept of a determinate place without thinking it as the coinciding of two places, which the geometer expresses by saying that a point is given through the intersection of two straight lines. The common point of both straight lines is precisely the given point. This geometrical mode of thinking has a physiological substrate in the reciprocal contact of two bodily parts, in particular of the two hands. The point in which the two hands touch is given once through the pressure-direction of the right hand against the left, the other time through the pressure-direction of the left hand against the right, so that once a point a₁ is projected onto the left hand, the other time a point a₂ onto the right hand, and in the preserved reciprocal contact of the two hands the two projections a₁ and a₂ are grasped as determining merely one point a.

The eyes now are incapable of bringing the two projections a₁ and a₂ into actual contact with one another and of preserving them in this contact, as this happens in the reciprocal palpation through the two hands. Precisely for this reason visual perception would be, by itself alone, absolutely incapable of establishing from the two projections a₁ and a₂ the intuition a. One can now represent the characteristic difference of the two modes of perception in the following manner: just as the two hands can execute active touch-movements, so can both eyes too accomplish active glance-movements; but whereas, of the two hands, now the one, now the other can conduct itself passively, in order to be able to be alternatingly grasped actively through the other, it is not given to the glance of the one eye, conducting itself passively, to be grasped actively through the glance of the other eye. There is no passive glance and an active glance seizing it. The glancing of both eyes is active. Tactile perception is a passive-active, visual perception, on the contrary, is a doubly active mode of perception.

In this purely active character of the glance there lies grounded the fact that we cannot see the retinal images. For should the retinal image itself be capable of being viewed, then this would have to take place through the one retinal image conducting itself passively and being grasped in an active manner through the other eye: just as, say, the left hand is seized by the right. The incapacity of the one eye to see the retinal image of the other — that is, the inaccessibility of the retinal images to seeing — is only another expression for the fact that within visual perception only the activity of tactile perception is contained, but its passivity appears suppressed. If, in self-

touching, we designate the sensation that runs its course in the active limb as the active sensation, the sensation of the passive limb, on the contrary, as the passive, then we can characterise visual perception by this, that in it only the active sensation is developed, but the passive is suppressed. This suppressed passive side would then come forth if we could view with the one eye the retinal image of the other, just as we can seize the one hand with the other.

But since the expressions active sensation and passive sensation can easily be misunderstood, it is more expedient to use the expressions “other-sensation” and “self-sensation” instead of them. For if we grasp after a thing, then, as was already set forth in an earlier lecture, the sensation that we receive through such active behaviour can be designated as other-sensation; but if the passive hand is touched, brushed, seized, etc. by another moved body, then the sensations thus awakened can receive the name of self-sensation. If, then, we resolve the double-sensation that appears in touching into an other-sensation and into a self-sensation, then we can characterise visual perception by this, that in it the self-sensation is suppressed, so that the other-sensation may come forth all the more freely. With the sense of hearing the opposite is the case: here the other-sensation appears suppressed, so that the self-sensation may develop itself unfettered.

If, then, we abstract from the specifically qualitative element that is proper to the touch-, the visual- and the auditory-sensations, and that can be more closely characterised by no human word but must, in its differentness, precisely be experienced: then it is found that the three senses, in the role that falls to them within our perception, can very well be more closely grasped and also characterised in their differentness. In the touch-sense the other- and the self-sensation come equally to bear, so that it must be designated as the full sense. It, by itself alone, is already a sufficient vital foundation for a perception-activity. In it other- and self-sensation mutually condition one another, so that it unites in itself the whole fullness of sensing and hereby takes an exceptional position in the compass of the remaining senses. But precisely because in it the other- and the self-sensation appear bound to one another, the two components cannot freely unfold themselves, so that there is need of two higher senses in order to free the one component from the burden of the other. In the sense of sight there comes chiefly to bear the active side of touching, the other-sensation, so that, when there is talk of an external world, we straightway think it given through visual perception, whereas the

sense of hearing represents the unfolding of our self-sensation — that is, is a mode of sensation that sets our whole feeling-world into co-vibration.

In a quite peculiar and intimate relation to tactile perception stands the temperature-sense. For in it there comes to bear the reciprocity with which the other- and the self-sensation mutually condition one another within tactile perception. Properly we never sense cold or warmth in themselves, but we always oppose to the own-temperature-sensation a foreign-temperature-sensation. If we palpate with the hand a body that has the same degree of temperature as the hand, then upon the contact the difference of self-sensation and other-sensation is presently lost to us. But as soon as a temperature-difference is present, and we, for example, palpate with the warmer hand a colder body, then at once the other-sensation of cold comes forth, whereby at the same time the self-sensation is characterised as warm. Did we wish, through mere tactile perception, to separate the other-sensation from the self-sensation, then we should have to conduct ourselves now actively, now to set the foreign body into activity, so that through the change of our activity and passivity now the other-, now the self-sensation should appear emphasised. But if a temperature-difference subsists between the touched body and the hand, then the aid of the alternatingly active and passive bearing need not be drawn in. The temperature-sensation thus lets the other- and self-sensation, not sharply enough separated in tactile perception, come forth at once, so that it can with right be characterised as the reciprocity-sensation or also as the exchange-sensation.

One gains in this wise a schema for the relation of the sensory functions, or rather modes of perception, to one another. For the doctrine of perception finds itself in that unendurable state where the one sensory function appears set, like something wholly accidental, beside the other, and it remains wholly ununderstood what plan rests hidden in the multiplicity of the sensory functions. Or does one perhaps believe that with the construction of our organism and the nature of our intelligence any arbitrary six other sensory functions would be compatible than those which are really united with the same? How little we know the nature of our life-process and of the consciousness bound up with it comes forth most clearly from this, that the organisation-plan of our various sensory functions, namely the necessary belonging of precisely such sensory functions to this human life-process and this human consciousness, is as good as not at all made the object of natural-scientific research and of philosophical consideration. It seems to me, therefore, by no means superfluous to design a schema of the

relation of the sensory functions, because hereby a first step is made towards the deeper investigation of their building-plan or of their unity. To be sure, the qualities of the different sense-circles are so constituted that their difference does not let itself be more closely described with words; but since they are all bound with one another through phantasy and are, through phantasy, offered to consciousness as a means to perception-activity, the role that they play herein lets itself very well be apprehended as a natural plan of their functioning-together. It is then found that tactile perception appears “differentiated” in three directions. The double-sensation that forms the content of the touch-sense lays itself apart, in the higher sensory functions of seeing and of hearing, in such a manner that the active component or the other-sensation attains its proper unfolding in the sense of sight, the passive component or the self-sensation in the sense of hearing. The temperature-sense, on the contrary, brings to effective bearing the characteristic mutual conditionedness of other- and self-sensation, which through their union in the touch-sense is easily blurred. As concerns the sense of smell and the sense of taste, they form a belonging-together pair of sensory functions, which we designate as nutritive sensesOCR “entritive”; reconstructed as nutritive (nutritive Sinne), confirmed by the following clause linking them to the nutrition-process., because they evidently stand in the most intimate connexion with the nutrition-process. For the doctrine of perception they come into consideration only in the second line. One occupies oneself with them most expediently in the doctrine of the vegetative life-process and in the theory of the affects.

This schematic survey of the six modes of perception of the human being now also facilitates the apprehension of the relation of tactile and visual perception, in that it works out with the greatest distinctness the peculiar and incomparable superiority of the latter, and nevertheless also its unavoidable dependence upon the former. The attuned-together glance-movements of the two eyes, or rather the glance-phantasy, transfer the visual impressions thither, whither tactile perception prescribes them; at least one learns in earliest childhood in this manner the “projecting” of the visual impressions. Once the understanding between the two senses has come about, the touch-sense too is already outstripped. For whither tactile perception is able to transfer only an imagined touch sensation, thither visual perception transfers a real visual sensation. What, on account of the great distance, must remain a phantasm for tactile perception, that is for visual perception a real sensation. Thus seeing lends to touching, as it were, wings.

At the same time it becomes intelligible how it thus becomes possible that, despite the twofoldness of the retinal images, we in general nevertheless see only singly. The phantasy-process that binds itself with the two

retinal impressions is only one, so that we transfer both impressions thither, whither precisely the unitary phantasy-process transfers them. If with the two retinal impressions two phantasy-processes bind themselves, then we do in fact see doubly. The phantasy-process is unitary when the two retinal impressions are taken up into a closed nerve circular process [Nervenkreisprozeß]. There is talk of two phantasy-processes when two closed circular processes arise. This, to be sure, cannot here be further set forth in terms of nerve-physiology.

Thirteenth Lecture: The Two Kinds of Phantasm and the Critique of Hume’s Association Theory#

There are two kinds of phantasm: such as are excited externally or mechanically, and such as are excited inwardly or vitally. Voluntarily and involuntarily arising phantasms. Critique of Hume’s association- and representation-theory. Refraction of phantasy. Disturbance of perception-images through memory-images and vice versa. Two kinds of distractedness that spring from such disturbances. Antagonistic nature and conflict between the two kinds of phantasm. The to-and-fro swinging of consciousness between the two kinds of phantasm. Only the intentionally induced phantasms are pale, stunted, and very imperceptible; the involuntarily arising ones, by contrast, vie in intensity with the reality phantasms and accord, in their nature, with the dream-images. The involuntarily streaming phantasms are excited by the emotional life. The emotional excitation or the feeling is the connecting element between externally and inwardly excited phantasm.

Gentlemen! We have hitherto considered the phantasms merely in their boundness to sense-perception; but it is now necessary to investigate also those phantasms through which we are transposed 1. into a spatially distant milieu unreachable for sense-perception, 2. into the past, 3. into the future, or 4. create for ourselves, in the midst of the real world, another world, as the poets and artists do. All these four kinds of phantasm represent, in a vital or physiological respect, only one genus, and only the consciousness-activity that combines with them offers significant differences. Thus an investigation of consciousness-activity presses upon us ever more urgently the more deeply we let ourselves into the exploration of those vital processes that lie at the foundation of all consciousness-activity whatsoever, and which we have designated as phantasms. At first, however, we wish still for a short while to push back the problem of consciousness-activity, in order then to be able to devote ourselves to it all the more unhindered.

Whoever does not recognise that all the processes that we immediately perceive are indeed given through sensations and feelings, but can be grasped by consciousness only by means of phantasms, has comprehended as good as nothing of the nature of human phantasy. Only he who has learned to find the phan-

tasm (the imagined movement and the imagined sensation) everywhere within the perception of that which takes place before us in the present can also undertake to examine those phantasms too which tear us away from the perception of the present. I use the expression “tear away” intentionally, because in it the chief result of our following investigations is anticipated: namely that the phantasms which we now consider are called forth through opposite or inverted vital processes than those phantasms through which we perceive the immediately present.

Everyone knows the fact that, during the perception of present processes, “memories” obtrude themselves upon us uncalled and unwilled, which by the philosophers of sensation are also designated as “reproduced sensations” and by many thinkers of this school directly as specific “representations”. These involuntarily obtruding memories are phantasms which are well to be distinguished from those phantasms that appear when we intentionally wish to call past processes or mental activities to mind. The intentional directing of our phantasms is (physiologically too) just as much distinct from the involuntary emergence of the same as a voluntary movement from a movement not subject to the will, an involuntary movement. Nothing, then, can work more confusingly upon the present investigation than when someone fails to distinguish phantasms that “stream involuntarily” from phantasms that are dragged forth voluntarily; for these latter are — as will show itself later — distinct from the former in their whole physiological nature. To be sure, the conscious and voluntary striving to call the past to mind usually also has the consequence that soon the phantasms begin to stream involuntarily as well; but this is one ground the more for distinguishing that activity, during which the phantasms appear as voluntarily directed, from the involuntary — indeed even against-the-will occurring — arising of the same.

When we perceive some object or process a and through it are involuntarily reminded of some other object or process b, one has spoken, since Hume, of an “association” of the impression a with the representation b. We have, as has already been emphasised, absolutely nothing to object to the word “association”, considered as a mere word, and whoever finds some aesthetic pleasure in it may go on applying it with all possible passion or predilection; only it must be asked that one not wish to exploit it for the obscuring or, as it were, the doing-away with a problem before us. For the question is, how does the impression a manage to associate itself with a representation b?

(I intentionally apply the traditional modes of expression.) Does there dwell within the impression a, perhaps, the faculty of associating itself with the representation b without the mediation of any process, or must some mediating process step between the two in order that they may associate themselves? In short, one demands an account of what in reality happens when an impression a associates itself with the representation b. For the expression “association”, however well-sounding it may otherwise be, gives no account of what really goes on when, in a perception, we are involuntarily reminded of something else. The whole process is, after all, so mysterious in the first place because we do not know what may lie (or also not lie) between a and b.

Instead, however, of concerning himself with the exact establishment of facts, Hume proceeded straightaway to the formulation of so-called laws of association. One did not yet know at all of what there was actually talk, and one had only given the unknown a name, and yet wished at once to discover laws. Otherwise one is wont to reproach the “speculative” thinkers with neglecting the facts, and, without having ascertained them, proceeding at once to the puzzling-out of theories and laws. Here one has an example of how one of the most significant heads of the so-called “empiricist” school proceeds when he formulates laws. Hume speaks of three so-called laws of association, or of three factors which bring about the association of an impression with a representation, or of two representations with one another: “There are now three factors from which such an association arises, and by which the mind is in such a manner led over from one representation to another, namely resemblance, immediate connexion in time and space (contiguity), and cause and effect.” (I cite from the excellent translation of the Treatise on Human Nature prepared by Theodor Lipps,Theodor Lipps (1851–1914), German psychologist and aesthetician, known for his theory of Einfühlung (empathy). His German translation of Hume’s Treatise (1895/1906) was standard; Palágyi cites it rather than the English original. The English terms quoted are Hume’s own. p. 21.)

Hume thus speaks of factors which effect the association. Such a factor is, for example, the resemblance of the representation a to the representation b that joins itself to it, whereby he also brings the contrast of the two under the title of resemblance. It seems, then, as though mere “resemblance” is to be stamped into a natural power, in order that, stepping between the representations a and b, it may effect their association. What, then, is resemblance? Is it some force that can bring it about that the representation a draws another representation b to itself? Hume himself feels quite vividly that with his three factors of association he has got into a most dangerous metaphysical speculation, and it must be emphasised to his honour that his empiricist conscience falls thereby into unrest, but, to be sure, soon calms itself again: “There is here” — so he means —

“a kind of attraction, which, as we shall see, has in the mental world just as extraordinary effects as in the natural, and presents itself in just as many and just as diverse forms. Its effects lie everywhere plainly before our eyes; but its causes are for the most part unknown; they must be traced back to original qualities of human nature, which to explain I make no claim. For there is just no more important demand for a true philosopher than that he suppress the unbridled craving to inquire after causes, and, when he has built up a doctrine upon a sufficient number of observations, content himself therewith, as soon as he sees that a further investigation would lead him into dark and uncertain speculations. In this latter case he employs his acumen far better upon examining the effects of his principle than its causes.” (loc. cit., pp. 23, 24.)

Here there lies before us a classical example of how a philosopher who wishes to get out of the way of an empiricist investigation sets the matter forth as though he wished to avoid metaphysics, while doing so, however, pursues the most foolhardy metaphysics. Resemblance, contiguity, and causality are set up, as it were, as three configurations of an attracting force (analogous perhaps to magnetism, electricity, and gravitation) which are just as efficacious in the realm of the human mind as the three named mechanical energies in the realm of nature. Thereby, however, it is emphasised that a genuine philosopher concerns himself no further about forces and causes, but supports himself upon mere observation. The observation, however, of that mediating process which shoves itself between the associated representations a and b is omitted; yet at the same time this empiricist omission is so represented as though one had not plunged oneself into any metaphysical speculation. The end-result is that one has 1. dealt metaphysics a side-blow, 2. played oneself off as the virtuous empiricist, and 3. done away with an empirical task out of the world and set in its place a mystical speculation.

But what is the matter with the Humean factors or laws of association is fairly easy to recognise. When one knows that the representation a has associated itself with the representation b, one can begin to speculate over the logical relation in which the two representations stand to one another. For some kind of logical relation must after all be capable in any case of being established between two representations. One will thus enumerate all possible relation-categories that can prevail between two representations, and will then be sure to be able, as soon as there is talk of two associated representations x and y, always to find some category-box in which the pair of representations can be lodged. Hume

constructs three such category-boxes, other thinkers construct four of them; James MillJames Mill (1773–1836), Scottish philosopher and historian, father of John Stuart Mill. In his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) he sought to reduce all the associative principles to a single one, contiguity. strove to replace them by a single box. Excellent researchers even in our own days still take sides, now for the one, now for the other association-box. Here contiguity-association, there resemblance-association. That makes for an ingenious polemic. At bottom, however, it is not at all a matter of the association-problem — that is, one does not investigate at all how we come from a perception to a memory. In the place of this problem there has obtruded itself the logical category-problem, without the persons in question noticing it. It is now only a question under which logical rubrics the relation of two representations is to be brought. But since the problem is not recognised as such at all, it also leads to no logical results. We may thus with full right speak of an association-scholasticism, under whose word-rubble the proper problems of the human phantasy-function lie buried.

It will perhaps be permitted, alongside the metaphor “association”, to introduce into the investigation also yet another metaphorical expression for the circle of facts and problems before us. When, in the perception of a process a, we are involuntarily reminded of a b, then for this mysterious happening we can use the metaphorical designation, borrowed from optics, that our phantasy, which was bound to the process a, now suffers, through the transition to b, a refraction. The advantage that springs from the mode of expression that our phantasy undergoes a refraction is twofold. Firstly, this metaphor is an unaccustomed one, so that it openly displays its metaphorical character, whereas with the word “association” one quite forgets that “consociation” likewise represents only an anthropomorphic simile, which was carried into the doctrine of vital processes. Secondly, the expression “refraction of phantasy” draws our attention to a fact which is covered over through the expression “association”. It is precisely upon this fact, however, that what matters to us depends, and not upon the metaphors that we employ.

For when we are reminded of a b through a process a, then the attention that was turned to the process a suffers, for a shorter or longer span, a curtailment. It is a generally known fact that whoever gives himself over to the perception or observation of any processes taking place before him suffers a disturbance through the involuntary emergence of memory-images. The more exactly facts are to be observed, the less will it be desirable, in the direct interest of the observation, that the observer should give himself over to memories during the same. An astronomer who

has to make time-determinations concerning a star’s transit will surely not be able to allow himself that, while he gazes through the telescope, a memory-image from “the beautiful time of young love” should obtrude itself upon him, and so forth, and so forth. A person upon whom memory-images obtrude themselves where something actually happening is to be taken cognisance of does well to leave the business of observation to other, more competent persons. One will, moreover, be able to confirm it with countless experiences, that the appearance of memory-phantasms really “spirits us away” from the present, if only for moments, in so far as that which is really happening during these moments can wholly escape our perception. Whoever, for example, listens to a lecture and is stimulated to a memory-phantasm through some word of the lecturer easily lets the next words, indeed even the next sentences, of the lecturer escape him.

Instead, however, of heaping up the individual examples, I mention straightaway a whole circle of facts which is especially suited to set in a particularly bright light the deflexion that our attention undergoes, or the refraction that our phantasy suffers, when from a perception we come involuntarily to a memory. I mean the circle of facts that we designate by the name “distractedness”. Peculiarly, the physiological psychologists do not turn their attention to this circle of facts; they do, to be sure, make experiments upon “the fluctuations of our attention”, but that so significant deflexion of attention, which so often expresses itself in a comical manner in distractedness, seems for them not to be present, or at least to be no object of possible experimentation. And yet it is quite impossible to attain to any correct concept of attention — and, what hangs together most intimately with this, of the phantasy-function — if one does not sharply fix one’s eye precisely upon that refraction of the two of which there is here talk. We say of the conduct or bearing of a person that it is “distracted” when the performances that are to be expected of him appear disturbed and confused through the refraction of his phantasy. It is important for our purpose to separate clearly from one another two kinds of this distractedness. One often notices it in children who are to learn something, that the teacher does not succeed in directing their attention away from the immediately present objects and towards phantasms of non-present objects. They are so greatly captivated by that which immediately occupies their senses that they are able to produce phantasms of non-present objects only in a very insufficient manner. Their attention springs every moment away from what is to be learned, and occupies itself with some immediately sense-evident object. They are

distracted with regard to the teaching-aim that hovers before the teacher. An opposite kind of distractedness comes to the fore in persons who are devoted to intensive mental occupations. They show themselves, namely, comically hindered through the phantasms of non-present objects in the perception of the real and in the adaptation to the present objects, as well as in the exercise of the functions that such a perception and adaptation make necessary. Their attention springs every moment away from the real surroundings and from their actual practical undertaking, in order to let itself be taken captive by phantasms of the non-present things.

The distinction of these two kinds of distractedness is of fundamental importance for this reason, that it vividly brings to intuition for us the peculiar antagonism between the phantasms which relate to the present and the phantasms which relate to the non-present. It is quite impossible to give oneself over with complete simultaneity to both kinds of phantasm. Our attention swings, as it were, like a pendulum to and fro between that which happens before us and something which does not happen before us. We come from the phantasms of the actually happening to the phantasms of the non-actually happening, and we return again to the former phantasms. The way from the actual phantasms to the non-actual, and the reverse way from the non-actual phantasms to the actual, must be apprehended as opposite. They are opposite vital processes which lead from the perception of the real to involuntarily arising memories, and conversely from these memories back again to the perceptions of the real or actual. During our whole waking-being, our attention swings to and fro between phantasms that are offered through the objects of the immediate surroundings and phantasms that are awakened through the former and are called memories. It is impossible that our phantasy should remain bound to the present things and processes without intermission for the duration; quite involuntarily, and probably also unnoticed, our attention glides away from the same and over to memory-phantasms, in order, just as involuntarily and unnoticed, to return to the actual world. Conversely, however, it is also not possible for the person sunk in memories to hang after the memories alone for the duration and unremittingly; rather, his attention glides involuntarily, and probably also unnoticed, over to the things of the surroundings, so that he does not wholly lose the contact with reality, but re-establishes the same in an intermittent manner. The chief thing remains to recognise

that our attention is either predominantly turned to the present, but thereby intermittently glides off to memories, or, conversely, is predominantly bound to memory-phantasms, in order to return intermittently to the real surroundings. One can call the former the real, the latter, by contrast, the ideal attention.

It is, to be sure, only a first and schematic approximation to the real phantasy-processes which run their course during waking-being that we just now sought to furnish; but without such schematic approximations reality can never be got at. We must, namely, leave out of account that we can intentionally direct attention upon the surrounding real objects and processes, and just as intentionally adjust it to the non-actual. I must here again emphasise that the phantasms which, in the intentional direction of our mental activity, appear as the substrate of precisely this intentional activity are in a very considerable manner distinct from the phantasms which emerge involuntarily. It is thus necessary that we leave out of account, for the present, the conscious and voluntary adjustment of our attention upon these or those objects, and fix our eye merely upon the involuntary gliding of the same. We speak accordingly, for the present, only of the involuntary gliding of our attention from the one object of the surroundings to the other, as well as of the involuntary gliding-off to memories and the gliding-on to other memories, and finally also of the involuntary gliding-back to the objects of the surroundings.

In this way it now comes forth with all desirable clarity with what grave infirmities the metaphor “association of the representation a with the representation b” is afflicted. Quite apart from the fact that “association” and “representation” are supposed to designate psychical or mental activities or products, and relate to something that does not here come into question, and leave precisely that unnamed of which there must here be talk — namely the vital processes of phantasy — the metaphor in question makes no distinction at all between the phantasm that relates to an actual, present object and to a non-actual, non-present object. Whoever speaks plainly of association of representations makes the impression as though he were thinking not at all of really living human beings, but of departed souls. A human being who has representations finds himself, after all, somewhere in real surroundings, and his phantasy occupies itself, after all, either with the actual surroundings, or it springs off to something non-actual, in order again to return to the

actual. But if one speaks only plainly of the representations a and b, then one does not know at all whether a and b are supposed to be phantasms that relate to the immediately actual or to the non-actual. The distinction between the boundness of phantasy to the present and the refractedness of phantasy which relates to the non-present is not recognised at all. What would we think of a physicist who makes no distinction between an unrefracted and a refracted ray, and would tell us that the ray a, which goes through the air, and the ray b, which goes through a glass prism, were “associated” with one another, while having, however, not the slightest intimation that the ray b is, in relation to a, a ray deflected or refracted out of its direction, and who would also have no intimation that, in a refraction through the prism, one must take into consideration not only the deflexion that takes place at the transition of the ray from the air into the glass, but also that which takes place at the inverse transition from the glass into the air? Exactly the like sort of disorientation, however, does that person too display who speaks plainly of the association of the representations a and b.

The wonderful thing about the play of our phantasms is that they — to put it figuratively — seem to be attracted and fettered by two opposite forces. It is as though the real surroundings and a mysterious power within us lay continually in conflict with one another, in order to tear our phantasy to themselves, and as though neither of the two powers were able to attain a lasting victory, but now the one, now the other power gained the upper hand, yet even while the one comes to predominance, the other were able, for moments and in an intermittent manner, to surprise our phantasy and fasten it to itself. It is not superfluous to give oneself an account, in such images, of what is rendered unrecognisable through the unhappy metaphor “association”.

The vital facts of which there is here talk in a metaphorical manner belong to the most significant for the whole mental character of homo sapiens. Let one mark how strongly the phantasy of a child or of a primitive human being is fettered through the surroundings, how easily, by contrast, the highly intelligent human being looses himself from these bonds, in order to tarry with his phantasy at things that are not present. Let one observe with what force a gifted researcher, coming from his thoughts, throws himself upon the observation of facts, and, when he has done enough in this respect, with what opposite force he “absorbs himself in his thoughts” and accordingly indulges in phantasms that do not relate to the present things; and one will divine that all the mental devel-

opment of the human being stands in the most intimate connexion with the formation of this force and counter-force. And one will marvel in the highest degree that it is the facts figuratively represented here that find the least consideration in “psychology”.

The guilt for this is borne by the two termini “association” and “representation”. It is hard to decide which of these two old sinners is the greater, for they are inseparable comrades. So we must, then, for a moment occupy ourselves again with the terminus “representation”, in order to point to the mischief that it instigates in the investigation of our phantasms. Hume distinguishes two kinds of consciousness-content: impressions and ideas. “The perceptions of the human mind” — so he teaches — “fall into two kinds, which I designate respectively as impressions and representations (idea). The difference between them consists in the degree of strength and vivacity with which they obtrude themselves upon the mind and enter into our thinking or consciousness. Those perceptions which appear with the greatest strength and violence we call impressions. Under this name I comprehend all our sense-sensations, affects, and feeling-excitations, as they present themselves at their first appearance in the soul. Under representations, by contrast, I understand the weak copies of the same, as they enter into our thinking and reasoning.” (loc. cit., p. 8 ff.)

There are, then, vivid and faded impressions, or also original impressions and pale copies of the same. This naive division stems from a peculiar illusion that one finds very generally disseminated in present-day science as among the educated public. Whoever, for example, utters the word “dog”, be it aloud or also softly to himself, accompanies the same with a very pale, schematic phantasm; and similarly it stands with all other words that relate to perceptible things or processes. In the intentional directing of our mind upon these or those things there now come forth these wretched, pale phantasms, which are stunted to the point of imperceptibility, and must also be stunted, in order that we may be in a position to develop a thinking-activity in which the sensible or vital substrate steps back in relation to the mental activity itself. In that we thus, in “thinking and reasoning”, make use of these stunted phantasms, it has the appearance as though all our phantasms which relate to non-present things must, in their nature, be something stunted and faded. Now I have, however, already emphasised above how important it is to distinguish from one another the voluntary directing of our mental activity and the phantasms that accompany it, and the involuntary emergence of phantasms. What would we think of

a physiologist who would be unable to distinguish the peristaltic movements of the intestines, which do not depend upon our will, from a voluntary hand-movement? Just as important, then, as it is to keep apart the willed and the non-willed movement, so significant is it also not to throw together the phantasm directed through our thinking and the involuntary phantasm. A mother, for example, who is reminded by something of her recently deceased child and breaks out in sobbing, has a quite different phantasm of her child than is that stunted phantasm which appears, at the uttering of the word “child”, in any arbitrary person who understands the sense of this word. I have chosen the above example in order to draw attention to the significance of the feelings and of the emotional life in general for the genesis of the phantasms.

All involuntarily streaming phantasms are excited through the emotional life (feeling, affect). Their vividness vies with the vividness of those phantasms that we have of present things: I say it vies, because without such a vying it would remain impossible to be reminded involuntarily of something. Whoever, in the contemplation of any things, is actually overpowered by involuntary memories has his attention torn away from the real things by an elemental power and turned to the memories. Were the appearing phantasm b weaker than the phantasm a of the present object, then this latter could not be displaced through b, and there would be no memory. To be sure, the phantasm b will usually succeed only for very short moments in overcoming the reality phantasm [Wirklichkeitsphantasma]Wirklichkeitsphantasma — reality phantasm. The phantasm bound to the perception of a present, external object; it is excited centripetally, through the mechanical processes of the surroundings. It is the first of the two opposed kinds of phantasm contrasted throughout this lecture, the other being the inwardly (vitally) excited memory- and daydream-phantasm. a; but this changes nothing in the fact that, for these short moments, a had to fade in relation to b in order that b might obtrude itself. I will at once adduce an example for such short-lasting displacement of a through b. How often does it happen that, in the contemplation of a human being — especially when he is engaged in movement — we suddenly discover a resemblance of the same to one of his relations, which had until then not struck us. In the next moment, however, we already no longer know wherein the resemblance consisted, and exert ourselves quite in vain to give an account of it. A certain bearing of that person, namely, awakened in us for a moment the memory-phantasm of a related person, but this memory-phantasm b was able only for a very short time to displace the sight a of the person standing before us, so that a in the next moment gains the upper hand, and we are consequently unable to return to b again.

When we see again today a well-known person whom we saw yesterday, then the memory-phantasm b of this person is already overcome through the real sight a before b could to any extent unfold itself, so that of b only the feeling of

acquaintance remains, through which it is excited. But that a memory-phantasm really was excited proceeds from this, that when, for example, the person wears a different head-covering, we at once perceive this. If we have not seen the person for a very long time, then the memory-phantasm b comes forth very vividly and sets itself in conflict with the real sight a, so that we notice the changes which the person in question underwent in her appearance in the course of that long time. What interests us here in these facts is merely the conflict between the memory-phantasm b and the real sight a. For from this conflict there results, for the thinking person, the insight that the real sight a in individual features had to be overcome through the memory-phantasm b at least for very short moments, because otherwise it would not have succeeded in perceiving the change in the person’s appearance.

Involuntarily emerging phantasms of non-present things are thus by no means weaker or paler than our reality phantasms; indeed, they must for very short moments be more vivid than these latter, because they could otherwise not come into effect at all. Only because that duration of time during which our involuntary phantasms (of non-present things) hold us captive is usually a very short one, and because it is also impossible for us to revive the same anew at will, do we not believe in their vividness. It goes with us at times so also with our dream-images. When we behold the things before us in full sunshine, we will not believe it that we could have dream-images which could measure themselves in vividness with the reality-images; but we have at times dreams that work upon us with such intensity that we are unable to free ourselves throughout the day from their after-effect upon our emotional life. Our involuntary phantasms (of non-present things), however, are in their whole nature identical with the dream-phantasms. When, in the perception of real things or processes, we are overpowered by memories without our doing, quite involuntarily, then the emerging phantasms are to be regarded as dream-phantasms, and our state as a dreaming for some moments. In fact we do speak also of a “waking dreaming” when those phantasms which obtrude themselves upon us and deflect our attention from the real surroundings have a longer duration. It is, however, not to be left out of account that even in waking dreaming our attention springs over for moments, and intermittently, to the real surroundings; for were this not the case, then we should have to find ourselves in the state of real sleeping or in some morbid, abnormal state. If, in waking

dreaming, our surroundings are indifferent to us and no intensive impressions come forth from the same, then the dream-phantasms can unfold themselves comparatively easily, and our attention will glide over to the surroundings only intermittently, for short pauses; but if the surroundings are unaccustomed or very restless, then the play of the waking dream-phantasms can easily be drowned out and disturbed. I mention these facts only in order to let the peculiar antagonism between reality phantasms (reality-intuitions) and imaginary or dream-phantasms come forth as sharply as possible. Now, once this opposition is grasped, the critique of the Humean and Neo-Humean representation-theories will let itself be summed up in the following points:

a) Representations, as mental activities or mental products, may never be confused with phantasms, which are the vital conditions of each and every mental activity without exception. Phantasms are just as real vital processes as, for example, a toothache or any arbitrary feeling of voluptuousness.

b) When Hume distinguishes impressions from representations, then, in order to give this distinction a determinate sense, it is first of all requisite to replace the representations by phantasms. Thereby it shows itself that Hume was actually of the opinion that impressions or sensations suffice in themselves in order to come to perceptions. (Philosophy of sensation.) In the preceding lectures it was shown, over against this conception, that all perception happens by means of phantasms which support themselves upon sensations and feelings. The whole real and intuitable world, just as it spreads itself out before us, is given to consciousness as a vital phantasm which is excited through sensations and feelings. In that Hume had, and could have, no intimation of the vital circular processes that lie at the foundation of our perception — there was, after all, at that time still no nerve-physiology in the present-day sense of the word — he really lacks a perception-theory and consequently also a proper representation-theory. The like holds also for the Kantian criticism. Kant’s great merit is that he combats English psychologism and seeks to free continental thinking from the same, and thereby to raise it to a higher cognitive level; this, however, does not succeed for him, because his critique of the understanding contains no proper critique of human perception or of the sensory functions. He remains, without noticing it, caught in the wholly insufficient sensation- or representation-theory of the English. (Locke, Berkeley, Hume.) Rein-

holdKarl Leonhard Reinhold (1757–1823), Austrian philosopher whose Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie (“Letters on the Kantian Philosophy”, 1786–87) did much to popularise Kant. His “elementary philosophy” sought to ground criticism upon a single first principle, a theory of representation (Vorstellungstheorie). felt this and demanded a representation-theory as the foundation of criticism; indeed, he attempted also to furnish one. What he offers, however, is mere scholastic formula-mongering. Nonetheless it is a significant merit of Reinhold’s that he, who in his time accomplished such great things for the recognition of criticism in Germany, at the same time also felt that criticism was unable to free itself from the umbilical cord of English psychologism. (One treats Reinhold somewhat unkindly nowadays, as this is to be seen, for example, from the otherwise interesting lectures of Fritz MedicusFritz Medicus (1876–1956), German philosopher and Fichte scholar, editor of Fichte’s works; his lectures on Fichte appeared in the early 1900s. on Fichte.) In vain did speculative thinkers of such mighty sweep as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel exert themselves to secure for German philosophy its independent, own idealistic stamp: since the sensualistic substructure of their thinking was not truly purified through Kant. Not as though the Königsberg philosopher had lacked speculative-critical power, but the biological research of his time gave him precious little stimulus to be able to carry through a real revision of English psychologism. Thus it could not fail that, after the fall of the German idealistic systems, English psychologism attained, as “empirical psychology”, to a most insupportable dominion in Germany. An essential improvement of the mental situation was brought about through the Fechner-Wundtian physiological psychology, but even this was unable really to overcome the English sensation- and representation-philosophy.

c) When Hume designates the sensations as vivid, the representations, by contrast, as pale perceptions of the mind, then he opposes to our sensations those stunted phantasms which combine with our words. It comes hereby to light that he does not distinguish the involuntary streaming of phantasms from the voluntary directing of the same in thinking and reasoning. He confuses not only the vital process with the mental activity; he confuses also the mental attention directed through the life-process with that mental attention which, conversely, is the directress of the life-process.

d) In that Hume does not recognise that the perception of the real happens through phantasms (which support themselves upon sensation and feeling), he does not notice that, instead of speaking of sensations and representations, he ought to have distinguished two kinds of phantasm: such by means of which we perceive, and such by means of which we relate ourselves to the non-actual. We have phantasms of that which surrounds us, and phantasms of that which is obtruded not through the surroundings, but inwardly. The expression “inwardly” is not to be taken metaphorically, but literally. The phantasms of the first kind are obtruded through the mechanical processes of the surroundings; the phantasms of the second kind, by contrast, are obtruded through the life-process of the organism itself, and thus from within.

e) Through the expression “association of the idea a with the idea b” the opposition or the antagonism of the two kinds

of phantasm is veiled, and so the whole vital foundation of our mental activities is distorted. It does not come forth that two mutually opposed powers — a power from without, namely the surroundings, and a power seated within the organism — vie with one another in order to determine and regulate the course of our phantasms. It is consequently also not recognised that we come from externally excited phantasms to inwardly excited ones, as also, conversely, from inwardly excited phantasms to externally excited ones, and that the two kinds of antagonistic phantasms mutually condition one another.

f) We wish now, however, to name by its name that inner power which excites phantasms in us, and thereby to point to those connecting processes which, in the association of a representation a with a representation b, serve as mediator between the two kinds of phantasm. These are the movements of the human emotional life, the feelings, the affects. When sensations excite in us phantasms of the surrounding things and processes, then it is unavoidable that these phantasms exercise some influence upon our emotional life. The emotional life thus excited awakens in us phantasy-processes which for their part react back upon our sensorium and thus deflect our attention from the objects of the surroundings at least for some moments. The stronger the emotional movement is by which we are seized, the less are we fitted to observe the surroundings; for the more are we overpowered by the inwardly excited phantasms. One can express this fact metaphorically thus, that our externally excited phantasy-processes are “refracted” through our emotional life and led over to inwardly excited phantasy-processes. In that Hume now did not recognise the connecting link between external and inner phantasms, our whole phantasy-life — and thus the vital foundation of all mental activities — remained shrouded in darkness.

Nonetheless it must be acknowledged that the doctrine of the association of ideas founded by Hume has a great significance for the development of modern philosophy. Hume expresses it everywhere that it is the imagination with which he actually occupies himself, and from the passage cited above concerning the attraction which one representation exercises upon another there speaks a deep intimation of that great mystery which he was on the point of unveiling: I mean the mystery of our imaginal life. If he did not succeed in grasping the mystery in such a way that it could straightaway also be further pursued and explored in a fruitful manner, this lay for the great part in the undevelopedness of the biological knowledge of his

age. For just this reason English psychologism, in all its shadings, as it has propagated itself in philosophy down to the present day, must be subjected to an inexorable critique and replaced by a doctrine that is adapted to the standing of present-day natural science and that satisfies the high demands of modern intellectual culture. If I am able to offer hereto even but some stimulus, then the purpose of these investigations is completely attained.

Fourteenth Lecture: Direct, Inverse, and Symbolic Phantasms. Sleep, Dream, and the Periodicity of Memory#

The distinction of direct, inverse, and symbolic phantasms. Our superiority over the animals rests, in an animal-vital respect, upon the possession of symbolic phantasy, which permits us voluntarily to occupy ourselves with the actual processes of our surroundings or to turn away from them. Critique of the Schopenhauerian conception of phantasy. Relation of waking and dreaming consciousness. Inversion of the life-process upon the transition from waking into the state of sleep. Dominion of the vegetative life-processes in sleep. Healthy deep sleep is dreamless. The dream phantasms are excited through the uneven course of the vegetative process. This awakens feeling-processes, which for their part draw the sensorium into sympathy and awaken inverse phantasms. Inverse phantasms agree by their nature with the direct phantasms, and only their mode of origin is a reversed or opposite one. The outer and the inner mechanical world; their relation to animal and vegetative life. The possibility of an inversion of the life-process rests upon the inversion of the relation of the outer and inner mechanical process. If sensation-processes excite feeling-processes, then the reverse too must be able to take place. From this it follows that the dream-vision can show no other qualities than waking perception. Critique of the term: reproduced sensation. The superstition that attaches itself to this term. In the realm of vital processes there are no copies as distinguished from original processes. Inverse phantasms are just as original as the direct phantasms. The possibility of remembering the past rests, in a vital respect, upon the periodicity of our vital processes.

Gentlemen! With this lecture I conclude the general investigation into the vital foundations of our mental activity. It is the animal life-process that forms the immediate substrate of all consciousness-activity, and this animal process presented itself to us as consisting, on the one hand, of sensations, and on the other of feelings. Sensations give us tidings of mechanical processes; feelings inform us of changes in our own vegetative life-process. Over both kinds of animal processes there spans, as a uniting band, the animal phantasy-process, the examination of which had to occupy us in special measure, because it is obscured in a particularly high degree by the association theories.

We had first to recognise that sensations and feelings do not suffice to make possible a perception of the external world. Only beings that can move themselves voluntarily

have at the same time the capacity to execute movements in imagination, in order, with the help of these imagined movements and the imagined sensations awakened through the same, to transpose or to project the impressions thither, whence the influence upon our sensation-process proceeded. This transposing or projecting of the sensations towards their point of origin always takes place through a vital circular process, or rather through a corresponding nerve-process. Since this process returning into itself was not recognised as such, a theory of perception could not arise. Sensations, and the feelings that attach themselves to the same, form a still unclosed process, and therefore lead as yet to no perception-activity of the mind. Only through the imagined movement and the corresponding imagined sensation is the process closed and the perception-act made possible.

Now the phantasy-process is, however, as was set out in the previous hour, a twofold one. The one circular process leads to the perception of the processes that surround us; the other circular process, on the contrary, diverts our attention from the perception of the surroundings, on which account we spoke of a “refraction” of the phantasy-process. One can set this double process in analogy with the double circulation of the blood. There is, as is known, a “lesser circulation” back to the lungs and the heart, in order to bring the blood into contact with the oxygen of the external world and to confer upon it ever new vitality; and there is a greater circulation, which is the expression of the inner supply of blood to all the tissues and of the unitary co-ordering of all the vegetative functions of the same. Corresponding to this double circulation, there are two circular processes of our phantasy, of which the one keeps us in contact with the external world and leads us to ever new perceptions, while the other diverts our attention from the real surroundings and conducts our consciousness to our past life, and then also to our future plans.

The simile just set out must, to be sure, be restricted to the involuntary phantasy-life, for this alone can show an analogy with the involuntary processes of the blood-circulation. We do indeed possess a certain vital power over our blood-circulation, in so far as we can hold our breath and temporarily regulate it voluntarily — or, more correctly, throw it into disorder; but this weak and mediate influence, which we exercise in such wise also upon our blood-circulation, cannot at all be brought into parallel with the magnificent power that we possess over our phantasy-life. For by virtue of that mental activity which attaches itself to our aloud-spoken sentences or to the inaudible “inner discourse” — or rather, by virtue of those pale phantasms which accompany our loud or inaudible inner discourse,

we are able now to turn ourselves chiefly towards the surroundings, now to turn away from them and “withdraw into ourselves”. We must therefore, besides the two named circular processes of phantasy, distinguish yet a third, so that it is expedient to name each one separately. I call the phantasms that serve for the perception of reality direct phantasms [direkte Phantasmen]; on the other hand, the phantasms that, emerging involuntarily, divert the attention involuntarily from the surroundings, inverse phantasms [inverse Phantasmen]; finally, those pale and stunted phantasms that accompany our outer or inner discourse may be designated as schematic or symbolic phantasms [symbolische Phantasmen]. These last play a very significant role in all our thinking, for without their help it would be impossible deliberately to turn away from the surroundings and to range about in thoughts, and then again deliberately to return to the surroundings and to make to oneself thoughts about what is taking place before us and what we ourselves are practically pursuing.

Our superiority over the animals rests, in a vital respect, upon those pale and stunted phantasms that we have just now designated as schematic or symbolic, and that accompany our outer or inner discourse. For the substructure of our phantasy-life agrees with that of the higher animals. In them too are found those two circular processes of phantasy that we named with the expressions direct and inverse. They have just as much an intuition of the external world as we do, and they can be reminded of something through involuntarily appearing phantasms just as we can. The difference between the phantasy-life of the higher animals and of man consists only in this, that the latter are able, by means of the symbolic phantasms, to turn away voluntarily from the surrounding reality, in order to be able to throw themselves anew upon reality as if from an ambush. The remaining animals of the earth lack this ambush. They are, with their phantasy, bound to the present. They do indeed possess a strong inverse phantasy-life, which may confidently measure itself with the human; but since this inverse phantasy stands at their disposal only in an uncalled-for, involuntary manner, it offers them no ambush into which they could withdraw deliberately to pursue a train of thought that has nothing to do with the real surroundings.

Herewith there is given the point of departure for a comparative psychology of man and the animals. One will first have to establish exactly the vital substrate of the human and animal intellect, and especially the difference of their phantasy-life. Such phrases as are nowadays current and common — as, for example, that between the human and animal intellect there subsists only a stepwise difference — are utterly worthless, for the question is precisely what one

understands by a “step”. Those admonitions too, that we should not overreach ourselves mentally and should not underestimate the animal, bring us no further in the cognisance of the difference of human and animal intelligence. One presupposes of everyone who investigates this problem in earnest the requisite love of truth, which is needful for the objective treatment of all scientific problems whatsoever. Since the vital phantasy-process everywhere lies at the foundation of our mental activity, the exact exploration of the same is a presupposition for every scientific investigation of animal intelligence. In demonstrating which nerve-paths serve the direct and the inverse phantasy, and further also the symbolic phantasy, it will have to show itself that the latter are wanting even in the highest animals (for example, in dogs and in apes). But however mighty an unfolding modern nerve-histology and nerve-physiology have also gained in the last decades, we are still far removed from being in possession of a rational interpretation of the nerve-structures; chiefly because the physiologists are, without knowing it, banished into the circle of thought of that dogmatic psychologism which renders the clear conception of the nerve-processes an impossibility.

There already lie heaped up today, in comparative anatomy, histology, and embryology, as well as in physiology, an enormous mass of facts concerning the structure and the functions of the nervous system throughout the whole animal kingdom, so that they can be utilised by the philosopher to illuminate the nature of animal phantasy and — what hangs together most intimately with it — of the animal instincts of sociability and of art. A precondition, to be sure, would be a tolerably sufficient understanding of human phantasy. Unfortunately the interest in self-knowledge is so slight that we have not yet been able to attain even the first elements of the same. But how is one to learn to understand animal intelligence, if one understands so little the measuring-rod that one must here bring into application, namely oneself?

Of the three kinds of phantasy-function, the symbolic or higher phantasy, which is proper to man alone, and which is the vital substrate of his logically cognising, as well as ethical-practical and aesthetic-artistic bearing, can be discussed more exactly only in the investigation of the mental activity of man. Here there interests us merely the purely animal phantasy-function, which consists of the two circular processes of direct and inverse phantasy. The former we have already considered in their most essential chief features, so that we have only to make some supplementary remarks about the inverse phantasy-processes.

The inverse phantasm diverts our attention from the direct phantasms, and betrays hereby its nature opposed to the direct. The inverse phantasm is,

according to its whole essence, nothing further than a dream phantasm [Traumphantasma]. The state that we designate as waking is thus by no means an absolutely or purely waking state, for which not only the one-sidedly practical everyday people, but also the philosophers, seem to take it. It is necessarily (and indeed in the vital-physiological sense) a swaying between two states, of which only the one represents proper waking. It is an absolute impossibility to hold oneself, for any duration and without cease, wholly to the direct phantasms of sense-perception; for one is, through what is perceived, quite involuntarily and even against one’s will reminded of past things, and so lapses, intermittently and for moments, into the stream of the inverse phantasms — only, to be sure, soon again to let oneself be captivated by direct phantasms (perceptions). But since with philosophers the inverse phantasy-life is for the most part somewhat stepmotherly outfitted, and the pale, symbolic phantasms predominate uncommonly with them, it is comprehensible that they confuse these stunted schemata with the dreamlike vivid memory-images of past experiences, such as are so well familiar to the poet and the artist. Hume really takes the stunted symbolic phantasy, which accompanies our conceptual thinking, to be the sole one, and confuses it, moreover, with the mental thought-activity of man. Indeed, even so lyrically and artistically gifted a philosopher as Schopenhauer makes no distinction between involuntarily emerging images of the past, which are bound up with great emotional upheavals, and those scarcely perceptible shadowy phantasms that accompany indifferent thinking or are artificially forced into being through such. In a highly original essay on “ghost-seeing” he says: “Phantasy-images are weak, faint, incomplete, one-sided, and so fleeting that one is scarcely able to keep present the image of an absent person for a few seconds, and even the most vivid play of phantasy holds no comparison with that palpable reality which the dream sets before us.” Against this it is to be remarked that the image of an absent person, if it is to be produced or held fast voluntarily, is a merely symbolic phantasm; nor is it ever able to hold its ground for several, indeed even for a single, second. A second is already a very considerable time-interval where it is a question of the development of phantasms, and one would have to find oneself in a very strong emotional excitation for an involuntarily arising phantasm to be able to maintain itself for a second. Schopenhauer evidently makes no difference between voluntary and involuntary phantasms, and he forgets the word of the prince of poets whom he revered: “If you do not feel it, you will never hunt it down.” It is a quite other kind of phantasms that are awakened through an emotional stirring,

than that consumptive and degenerate folk of symbolic and schematic phantasms that make discursive thinking possible. Every poet and artist knows this very well, and he is, accordingly, sometimes inclined to underestimate the symbolic phantasy all too greatly, where yet even the inverse phantasy must be kept in leading-strings by the symbolic, in order that a work of art can come into being. In any case, however, the philosopher, where it is a question of the problem of the inverse phantasy, must let himself be instructed by the called poet and artist. From the genuine aesthetician too we demand that he know how to distinguish sharply between the artificial symbolic imagination and that dreamlike mighty imagination which both, in conjunction, make possible the shaping of a work of art. For the rest, this must be demanded also of the epistemologist, because our whole cognitive activity remains unintelligible if we do not exactly explore its vital substrate, phantasy.

What an inapt conception Schopenhauer has of phantasy is shown especially by his following remark: “It is quite false that the images of phantasy are disturbed and weakened through the simultaneous impression of the real external world; for even in the deepest stillness of the darkest night, phantasy is unable to bring forth anything that would come anywhere near that objective visuality and corporeality of the dream.” — The deepest stillness of the darkest night is, to be sure, also of no use for the voluntary forcing-into-being of the phantasms; but it favours in any case the play of involuntary phantasy, as this is well known to everyone. The only question is whether one is seized by some emotional stirrings, so as to have, in deep darkness and equally deep stillness, many a vivid waking dream-vision, as everyone has surely already experienced. The belief in ghosts and the fear of ghosts spring, after all, from this source. The involuntary inverse phantasms are really disturbed and weakened through the simultaneous impression of the real external world, just as, conversely, the attention turned towards the real external world is disturbed and weakened through inverse phantasms. In that Schopenhauer fails to recognise this, he blocks for himself the way to the cognisance of the antagonism between direct and inverse phantasy. He remains, just like all the more recent authors, caught in the dogmas of English psychologism.

The waking of every man is constantly accompanied by a waking dreaming, and intermittently impaired by the same, however sober and dry of nature he may otherwise be. Only because these dream-images last but a short time and for the most part take up very small fractions of a second, and because they are confused with the overgrowing symbolic phantasms, do they easily escape the consciousness given over to the external world.

To be sure, the direct phantasy has, so long as we are awake, the upper dominion, even with such individualities as lead a deeply inward life, and for whom there is a question, as for the poets and thinkers, of a pronounced cultivation and formation of the inverse phantasy. For where the inverse phantasy begins, even in the waking state, to become lord over the direct phantasy, there a morbidity of the phantasy-life and an inclination to mental derangement already announce themselves. Persons who have undergone deep emotional upheavals are, as is known, inclined to dwell in imagination upon those scenes through which their emotional life was wounded — just as a bodily wound too draws the mental attention again and again upon itself. In that the wounded emotional life again and again produces phantasms of those occurrences through which it was wounded, and attaches to these further phantasms of an avenging satisfaction or of a fearful fleeing, it turns away from the contemplation of the external world, and peoples its surroundings with inverse phantasms, which can fasten themselves into delusion-formations.

The nature of the dream phantasm is brought nearer to the understanding only by our finding it again also in the waking state. It has already been pointed to in the second lecture how the mysterious character of the dream becomes the chief source of the mystical and the sceptical bent of thought. To the mystic his inverse phantasy seems more valuable than his direct, and he believes through the same to receive enlightenments that the (superficial) knowledge supported upon the direct phantasy is not able to furnish. The sceptic, on the contrary, finds that the direct phantasms of reality are desperately similar to the inverse phantasms of the dream, and is thereby led astray also as to the significance of the former. But once one notices that the dream phantasm everywhere plays a necessary role also in waking perception, then it loses its mystical character; and once one notices, further, that the direct and inverse phantasm, despite their similarity, have an antagonistic character, then one frees oneself from that scepticism which does not recognise this antagonism and inclines to the delusion that between reality phantasm and dream phantasm there subsists no difference.

While the direct phantasms are excited through the sense-sensations and then also draw, more or less, the emotional life into sympathy, the inverse phantasms, on the contrary, proceed from emotional excitations, and then also draw the sensorium into sympathy. Upon the transition from the one kind of phantasms to the other kind, the life-process is, for a few moments, as it were inverted. This inversion, which during waking is a strongly hindered one,

can unfold itself in sleep with great freedom. Through falling asleep, the sensation-processes and the feeling-processes that attach themselves immediately to the same are in high degree switched off, whereby the play of the direct phantasms — that is, the perception of the surroundings — becomes an impossibility. The whole animal life-process — in the sense in which we defined it — runs dry; that is, those processes upon which the perception-activity of our mind supports itself are weakened to such a degree that they lose their connexion with consciousness. So much the more unhindered does the vegetative life-process unfold itself — that is, the totality of all those life-processes that have no immediate connexion with consciousness and make up the own-life of the organic tissues. If sleep is right healthy and deep, then within the same every mental activity is completely arrested, for it is not excited from without through direct phantasms; from within, however, the vegetative life-process takes such an even flow that it awakens no intensive feeling-processes that could for their part excite inverse phantasms. Healthy, deep sleep thus signifies the dominion of the purely vegetative life-process, and therewith at the same time also that recreation of the organism which becomes necessary through the one-sided exertions and labour-performances of the animal process.

But if the vegetative process during sleep is an uneven one, then through the changes within the same more intensive vital feeling-processes are excited, which for their part draw the sensorium into sympathy and thereby call forth inverse phantasms — that is, dream-images. The inverse phantasms are thus distinguished from the direct phantasms only by their mode of origin and not by their nature. For they too can come about only through the excitation of the sensorium, exactly as the direct phantasms do. If, then, one abstracts from their mode of origin — that is, if one leaves out of account those feeling-processes which were called forth through the inner vegetative life and which act excitingly upon the sensorium — then there remain precisely those circular processes that play a role also in the direct phantasms. The same circular processes that appear in waking perception through the influence of mechanical processes upon the sense-organs are excited, during dreaming, from within through the vegetative life-process, or rather through the feeling-processes that proceed from the vegetative process. Touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting rest in the dream upon exactly the same vital circular processes, or rather nerve-processes, as in the waking state. Only the movements that are executed in the dream remain in general mere imagined movements, and degenerate only in pathological cases (as with somnambulists) into real movements.

One still meets everywhere nowadays with the prejudice that the sense-nerves can be excited only by mechanical (physico-chemical) processes of the external world. It is thereby forgotten that the organism itself represents the seat of a system of physico-chemical processes united through the life-process. Physico-chemical processes take place not only in our surroundings; for our organism too harbours a world of physico-chemical processes. Whoever, then, wishes to learn to understand the nature of the life-process must above all be clear about this, that the same is in a twofold manner influenced by the mechanical processes, through the mechanical processes of the surroundings and through those of the organism itself. Correspondingly, our life-process conversely exercises a twofold reaction upon the mechanical processes of nature: for one part, namely, the mechanical processes within the organism are, through the life-process, co-ordered and combined into a unitary system of simultaneous and temporally successive, rhythmically articulated processes; on the other hand, the life-process also reacts upon the mechanical processes of the external world, in that it stands with it in a traffic of matter and a traffic of energy. The same energies, then, that act from without upon the life-process can also influence it from within, and call forth inwardly the same kinds of sense-sensation as are excited outwardly.

By virtue of a dogmatic one-sidedness of our whole accustomed mode of thinking, we are wont to set the organism over against the external world as though the organism itself did not belong to the external world — that is, as though what we call its inner world (sensu proprio) were not equally the home of matters and energies, as is the external world. When, then, there is talk of the world of the mechanical (physico-chemical) processes, we must accustom ourselves to think of two such worlds, of one outside and of one inside the organism. The difference between these two physico-chemical worlds consists in this, that of the two the outer is not penetrated and organised through our individual life-process, while the inner physico-chemical world is designated as the inner precisely for the reason that it appears penetrated and organised by the individual life-process. Thus there now steps before us with greater clarity also the difference of the vegetative and the animal life-process. We call our life-process vegetative in so far as it co-orders and governs the inner world of physico-chemical processes; and we call it animal in so far as it seeks to grasp sensibly, and to govern through voluntary movement, the outer physico-chemical world, which it is unable to organise in a vegetative manner. Through our life-

process the whole physico-chemical nature is thus split into two parts, into a part which the life-process seeks to subjugate in a vegetative, and into another part which it seeks to subjugate in an animal manner.

The vegetative life-process in us is something non-intuitable, for it never hangs together immediately with consciousness. It becomes intuitable only through the chemico-physical processes through which it expresses itself or which it governs — namely, on the one hand, through a whole system of resorptions, excretions, and secretions, and on the other hand, through a whole system of rhythmically involuntary movements, such as respiration, the heartbeat, the constriction and dilation of the blood-vessels, and so forth. Changes in this realm of the involuntary movements announce themselves to us as emotional stirrings or feelings. By emotional stirrings, or feelings in the vital sense, we thus understand animal processes that take place through changes in the system of manifold resorptions, excretions, secretions — involuntary rhythmic movements in general — within our organism. Our emotional stirrings receive a mental character through the mental acts with which they are bound up. The higher an individuality stands in a mental respect, the more richly do its emotional stirrings interweave themselves with phantasms of various order and mental acts of various rank — that is, the more thoroughly mentalised, in general, can its emotional stirrings be. The much-cited word of the famous psychologist W. James, that we do not weep because we are sad, but are sad because we weep, contains only the half of a truth. There are emotional stirrings that are excited directly through the vegetative life-process and lead to mental depressions or cheerings; but there are also, conversely, such emotional stirrings as proceed from the effect of the mental bearing and its accompanying phantasms upon the vegetative life-process and the systems of involuntary movements and secretions bound up with the same. These latter are the emotional stirrings of mental and animal origin; the former, on the contrary, have their source in the vegetative life-process and stand in close connexion with the digestive processes, and so forth. The dictum of James points only to this, that modern psychology does not distinguish those two opposite ways upon which the phantasy-functions are excited, because it does not set the physico-chemical world, which determines our feelings, sensations, and phantasms by acting from within, over against that physico-chemical world which presses in upon our sensorium from without, excites from without sensations, feelings, and phantasms, and gives occasion to voluntary movements of the body. It will perhaps be permitted to characterise these two opposite

directions figuratively through the expressions: phantasy-processes that are excited from the animal pole and from the vegetative pole. The expression “vegetative pole” naturally designates no single point or place in the organism, but the totality of all the points from which those vegetative processes proceed that excite emotional stirrings and draw the sensorium into sympathy. By the “animal pole”, however, is meant the totality of the points at which outer mechanical processes act upon the sensing nerves of our organism.

One may take no offence at the fact that sensations can be excited from within just as well as from without. Is the nature in us, then, another than the nature outside our organism? It is, further, not to be left out of account that, after all, the influences too that take place upon our organism from without must penetrate into the interior of the same, in order to reach the sense-cells and nerve-fibrils. It is, after all, always the vital process that is altered through the influences of the external world, and this vital process can, after all, always be altered only in such a manner and in no other than the organism makes possible: whether the alteration may now proceed from without or from within. Finally it is to be considered that, if outer influences can, through the excitations of the sensorium, awaken feeling-processes in us, then it must also be possible that, upon the same paths but in the reverse direction, feeling-processes called forth from within co-excite the sensorium, and awaken in the same sensations, and hence also phantasms.

From this it follows that the dream-vision can never show other sense-qualities than the intuition of reality. One can in the dream perceive no other colours, tones, smells, tastes, temperatures, and so forth, than such as offer themselves to perception also in the waking state. Were the inner phantasms, despite the opposite paths of their being-excited, not of the same nature as the direct phantasms, then it could be possible that we should in the dream exercise sensory functions that are wholly unknown in the waking state; indeed, there might then take place no agreement at all between the sense-qualities of the dream-intuition and of waking perception. For if it lay in the nature of the dream-phantasy that it is not only excited in an opposite manner from the direct phantasy, but were also qualitatively different from this, then it would have to be qualitatively different precisely in all its performances — that is, to show neither colours nor shapes, and so forth, but to unveil a world that, although sensible, nevertheless has nothing in common with our waking sensible world. The mystics (occultists, spiritists, and so forth) would have us believe something of the kind. To be sure, credence could be given them only

if they would teach us to know the structure of the nervous system better than biology is able to do, and would at the same time also point out to us the nerve-paths upon which those mystical impressions called forth from within are produced — impressions that have nothing in common with our waking sensations and can be experienced only by inspired mediums. But now, the earnest investigation of the organism lies far from the mystics, and one may not expect from them an enlightenment even about the most everyday processes of the life-process.

One pushes a strong bolt before scepticism by demonstrating that dream-images are, according to their origin, opposed to the direct perception-phantasms, and thus can in principle never be confused with these latter, although, to be sure, in individual concrete cases one can remain in doubt as to whether a phantasm may be regarded as direct or inverse. On the other hand, one renders harmless the most dangerous mystical speculations by showing that dream phantasms agree, according to their quality, completely with the direct phantasms. A consequence of this agreement is, among other things, also this, that dreaming weakens the depth of sleep and under certain circumstances tears the dreamer hard to the boundary of waking, indeed even wakes him directly out of sleep. For the feeling-processes that spring from the unevenly surging vegetative life-process excite the sensorium just as if the same were stimulated from without. One hears, for example, in the dream a terrible explosion and really wakes thereat, and so forth. Were the inverse phantasms of the dream qualitatively different from the direct phantasms, then they could not excite the sensorium, and could then not impair the depth of sleep. Now, however, the whole significance of dreams rests upon this, that they either represent a transition from the waking state into dreamless deep sleep, or, conversely, represent inner waking-attempts through the influence of the somehow excited vegetative process upon feeling and sensation. These attempts can of course often miscarry, and there then follows again a period of deeper sleep, which in turn issues into dream-visions, and so forth. Quite especially are those dreams to be regarded as critical for sleep, where the dreamer would like to execute movements — for example, to seize, to chastise the enemy, or to protect himself — but feels himself powerless really to accomplish the movement. For in these cases the imagined movement is meant to pass over into a real movement, which, if it succeeds, also leads to the waking of the dreaming person. There are scarcely any dream-experiences that would so completely unveil the character of dreaming as those powerless,

forceless movement-attempts that play a significant role in many dream-visions. They prove that the dream phantasm lays claim to the same nerve-paths as the imagined movement in the waking state, which, when it is vehement enough, leads over into a real movement: in the waking state just as in the dream.

It depends upon the vegetative process, or rather upon the feeling-processes that it excites, which dream-visions we have. If these feeling-processes are similar to such as we have already experienced — that is, if they strike out a complex of nerve-paths that was already used in some experience — then the dream shows us many an image of our past. But since commonly the dream-mood is only approximately equal to a mood already had — that is, the complex of nerve-paths that are struck out through the feeling-process of the dream agree only approximately with the nerve-paths of former experiences — there are wont to creep into the dream-visions, which lead back, for example, into youth, many a modification. In general, dream-images may not be apprehended as “reproductions” of any experiences already had: they are, even when they bring known images before us, thoroughly original phantasy-processes, which show an agreement with former experiences only in the measure in which the emotional mood, which is brought about through the vegetative process, is similar to a mood of old.

We here occupy ourselves with the nature of the dream-vision only for the reason that, without the cognisance of the same, waking perception-activity too would remain wholly unintelligible. For those phantasms that arise involuntarily in the perception of any things are, as said, in nothing different from the dream phantasms: only they cannot commonly unfold themselves so unhindered, because our attention is all too quickly captivated again through the direct phantasms of the surroundings. We may not, then, regard involuntarily arising “memory-images”, by which we are sometimes overpowered in the midst of the observation of reality, as “reproduced sensations” or as “revived sensations”, as they are wont commonly to be conceived in psychology. The expressions “reproduced or revived impressions” are only metaphors, which, if they are for the rest recognised as such, may confidently be further used. With all our metaphors current in science it is always a question of whether a serviceable observation reposes hidden in them. The expressions “reproduced” and “revived” unfortunately have only a belletristic value, for there sticks in them nothing at all that would come up to a real observation. What they contain is a mere simile, in which the involuntary life-process is brought into analogy with our voluntary doing, namely with our voluntary

imitations. We can, for example, voluntarily copy, imitate the drawing-model that stands before us; mimic the gesticulations of another person, voluntarily reproduce the words that they have spoken, and so forth and so forth. Setting out from such examples, we begin to apprehend the involuntarily running life-process as though it, returning to earlier stations, were imitating itself, copying itself. Now, one can, in a scientific respect, think of no unhappier similes than those that wish to elucidate the involuntary processes of life through voluntarily executed actions. Through such similes one sets things directly on their head. For, conversely, the capacity of the life-process to undergo involuntarily similar processes to those that have already once been undergone must be used to make in some way comprehensible how it also becomes possible for us to imitate, to reproduce anything voluntarily. What, for example, should we think of the biologist who would wish to explain to us the occurrence of death by pointing to the cases of suicide and saying to us: just as the suicide takes his own life by will, so a man can also die quite involuntarily. Precisely this kind of wisdom sticks also in the following simile: just as a draughtsman can reproduce a drawing by will, so his phantasy can involuntarily reproduce an image already had. One certainly does not grow cleverer through such similes. At most one attains, by means of the same, that they quite gently spirit out of the world a problem that one ought to have raised.

The expressions “reproduced or revived” sensations moreover easily generate the prejudice or the superstition that processes which have once taken place could return once more. Indeed, they lead to a confusion of the concepts of “happening” and of “substance”. One imagines that a sensation which has once taken place passes over into a “latent” state — that is, becomes in a certain sense a “substance”, and in this latent substantial state persists often for many years, remains behind in the brain as a “trace”, or leads a metaphysical existence in the soul (as, for example, with Herbart), in order, one fine day, to be called back into life through “association” and to emerge as a memory-image. That such representations have exactly as much scientific value as any arbitrary belief in ghosts need surely not be set out at length. If one gives oneself an account of what is to be understood by an inverse phantasm or a dream-image, then there vanishes that gloomy superstition which is wont to be contained in the expressions “reproduced” and “revived”. Every inverse phantasm is just as much an original process

as any direct phantasm. All natural processes whatsoever are original processes, and there is nowhere in the whole universe a natural process that would be the copy of another natural process. Copies are known only to the human mind, in that it produces once more the thought that it has once produced, or voluntarily accomplishes once more, imitates, the movement that it has accomplished. But the natural process does not copy itself; it is, however similar the processes it may bring forth, everywhere absolutely primordial. It seems to me a kind of blasphemy to wish to impute to nature any copying of its own processes. Now, phantasms, however — be they now direct or inverse phantasms — are natural processes, so that it makes no sense at all to regard inverse phantasms as less original than the direct phantasms. They are only produced upon an opposite way through the life-process, but they can never stand to one another in the relation of original and copy, because such a relation can subsist only between human contrivances. When, then, Hume designates impressions as something original, but memories, on the contrary, as something copied, he carries a primitive anthropomorphism into the modern psychological mode of thinking. He preaches unnature and means thereby to be a naturalist: a character-trait in which, for the rest, all naturalists agree.

The opposite descent and the equality of birth of the inverse and direct phantasms involve a new conception of involuntary memory and of involuntarily active artistic phantasy. Just as a breathing-out is no imitation of the breathing-in, and the diastole of the heart no imitation of the systole of the same, so an inverse phantasm may not be regarded as an imitation of the direct phantasm. It lies in the nature of our vegetative life-process that it expresses itself in a system of periodic and involuntary movements that run between opposite phases. Myriads of life-rhythms that run in the cells and the fibrils connecting them of an organism combine into that great piece of music which we call our life-process. Intuitably perceptible, this life-symphony comes forth in the breath-draught and in the pulse-beat. The rhythms of our vegetative life, however, form the foundation of what we call our animal emotional life, our feelings or moods. Changes in the rhythms of our vegetative life, namely, are made known to us through feelings and moods. Now, however, the changes in the rhythms of our life-process are themselves again of a rhythmic nature: we come from hunger to satiety and again to hunger, and so forth; from waking to sleeping and again to waking, and so forth; so that in the corresponding changes of feeling and mood of our life-course too certain rhythms come forth. Upon this

periodic character of our life-process rests the possibility of being reminded of something. Were the life-process aperiodic or arhythmic, then there could be no memory, and hence also no perception; to be sure, a life-process without rhythms is not thinkable at all. In that now equal phases in the course of the life-process recur in the most manifold manner again and again, there necessarily arise recurring equal emotional situations, equal moods, which for their part awaken equal inverse phantasms, and give the mental activity occasion for remembrance of past equal life-phases. It is of the greatest importance to discern that the life-process already harbours within itself, through its character of periodicity, the motives for the mental activity of remembrance. For if one recognises this, then one also discerns that the recurrence of equal inverse phantasms rests upon the periodic recurrence of equal needs, feelings, and moods of the organism. But then it also becomes at once intelligible that an outer impression can lead to any remembrance only by its too awakening, for a few moments, a mood in us that is equal to a former mood, and consequently awakening inverse phantasms that are equal to other phantasms already formerly appeared. In short, the mood is the steerer of our involuntary remembrances. Equal moods produce equal inverse phantasms and make it possible for the mental activity to return again to what was experienced. Without repetition of equal emotional situations, an involuntary memory (and hence also a voluntary memory) would be an impossibility. It is this fundamental significance of the emotional processes, or rather of the underlying vegetative life-process, for all activity of memory and artistic production, that has been completely obscured through the association doctrine. James Mill was fully within his right when he wished to reduce the association-factors to a single one; only, to be sure, he ought to have sought a real factor and no box of categories. There is only a single real association-factor, and this is the emotional life. To be sure, I here speak merely of involuntary association. The voluntary steering of our mental activity belongs in logic and is the chief theme of this science. In that the association-psychologists did not distinguish the involuntary being-steered of the phantasms through the emotional life from the voluntary steering of the same through the understanding, they intermingled the emotional life with the activity of the understanding, psychology and aesthetics on the one hand with logic on the other, in such measure that none of these branches of philosophy could thenceforth take a healthy development.

Every memory-image of past experiences that emerges involuntarily in us is vivid in the measure in which the mood is, through which the remembrance is called forth. The weaker

the emotional excitation is, from which an inverse phantasm springs, the slighter the vividness shown by the memory-images that arise in us, and the more quickly are they driven out through the direct intuitions of the surroundings; that is, the more fleeting too is their course. But whether they may now be more or less vivid, they are always awakened through moods which are not the imprint or the copy of moods already past, but original emotional excitations. Every emotional excitation — like, indeed, every vital process — is original; and when at different times equal emotional excitations appear, this may not be interpreted to mean that the older emotional excitation had maintained itself latently, in order, on a suitable occasion, to revive itself anew. The thunder and lightning of today are no revival of the thunder and lightning of yesterday, and the same holds of all recurring natural processes, be they now of a mechanical or of a vital kind.

One must free oneself from the superstition that the intuitions which we have of the real objects could leave behind residues or traces in us, which, revived anew, emerge as memory-images. Inverse phantasms are not revived residues or traces of real intuitions, for the inverse phantasm is something exactly as primordial as the real intuition. Only he who comprehends this proposition can penetrate to a correct theory of memory and of artistic phantasy. Our consciousness uses the direct phantasms in order, by means of the same, to perceive reality; the inverse phantasms, on the contrary, in order to project them into the past or the future, or to create a world such as is the need of our emotional life. The further elaboration of this thought belongs in aesthetics.

Fifteenth Lecture: The Closedness of the Nervous System. The Fibril Doctrine against the Neuron Hypothesis#

Whether the nervous system must be regarded as a closed or an open system. The dispute of the fibril doctrine and the neuron hypothesis. Histological and physiological content of the neuron hypothesis. The grounding of the fibril doctrine by Apáthy. The principle of the closedness of the nervous system. Analogy with the closedness of the vascular system. The doctrine of closedness is a consequence of our theory of perception, hence an empirical proof of the same. The projection theory. The sophistical character of “psycho-physical parallelism”. The sophistical and superstitious views of a soul seated in the centre favour the neuron hypothesis. Vegetative and animal excitation. There is no animal excitation that would not have a vegetative excitation as its presupposition. The tropisms.

Gentlemen! Now that we have come to know, at least in their chief features, the vital processes that lie at the foundation of our perception-activity, it still remains to supplement our hitherto investigations in a mechanistic manner, in that we examine the material — that is, the anatomical and histological structural relations — which make possible the vital processes of perception. We must, in other words, cast a glance upon the anatomical and histological structure of our nervous system, in order to show at least so much, that the structural relations of the same can very well be brought into accord with our conception of the vital perception-process. Indeed, we must go yet a step further and emphasise that the structure of the nervous system, this most wondrous labyrinth of all labyrinths, can be explored anatomically and histologically only in the measure in which we also seek to design for ourselves a clear picture of its vital achievements. Just as the eye and the ear would remain absolutely unintelligible if, in the structure of the one or the other, we had to abstract from its seeing- or rather hearing-achievements, so could we also not lay out for ourselves the slightest concept of the structure of the nervous system, did we not keep in view that it represents the specific bearer of the vital processes of our animal sensing, feeling and phantasising. That researcher who penetrates most deeply into the connexions of our animal sensation-, feeling- and

phantasy-life will also give to the anatomist and histologist the strongest stimulations towards the understanding of those structural relations which present themselves to the free eye and, what is here far more important, to microscopic observation. For only microscopic observation is able to give disclosure as to which tissue-components of the nervous system must be apprehended as the proper conducting-wires of the nervous excitation, as well as to decide the chief question, whether the system of the nervous conducting-wires represents an in-itself-closed system, or whether we must regard the same as an open one, in which initial and terminal stations at the periphery and in the centre would have to be assumed. It has, as was already mentioned, succeeded to the path-breaking researches of Stephan v. Apáthy to bring light into this great riddle-question of the structure of our nervous system, and thereby to inaugurate a new epoch also in the conception of the nerve-functions. Like every far-reaching discovery, the Apáthyan one too had naturally to meet, among the champions of a traditional dogmatic mode of viewing, with a strong resistance; but the signs multiply that the facts which Apáthy demonstrates with the help of his microtechnical methods press through, step for step, to general recognition, and thereby also help to smooth the path of a rational theory of perception.

For all that, there at present still subsist two opposed conceptions concerning the finest structure of our nervous system: namely the so-called neuron theory, which received its name from the famous anatomist WaldeyerWilhelm Waldeyer (1836–1921), German anatomist who in 1891 coined the term “neuron” and gave the neuron doctrine its name, formulating the nerve cell with its processes as the structural unit of the nervous system. and as whose chief representative Ramón y CajalSantiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934), Spanish histologist, foremost proponent of the neuron doctrine; he later shared the 1906 Nobel Prize with Golgi for work on the structure of the nervous system. can be regarded, and the fibril doctrine [Fibrillenlehre], which was already divined by Max Schultze but first grounded by Apáthy, and which is very emphatically presented and championed by excellent biologists such as Bethe, Nissl, etc. Although it can have the appearance as though the dispute of the fibril doctrine and the neuron theory turned upon mere microscopic facts, which interest only the histologist, there conceals itself in reality an opposition also of the conceptions of nature in general behind the prevailing subtle differences of the specialist doctrinal opinions. The dispute of the two theories therefore merits the attention of all cultivated persons, and in particular of the philosophically thinking; for in the same it is a question of the conception that we must form of the vital achievements of the nervous system and, in connexion therewith, of the activity of human consciousness.

One commonly thinks that a mechanical stimulus which strikes our nerves propagates itself in a continuous manner towards the centre, in order there to come to consciousness. One is also of the view that a will-impulse propagates itself in a continuous manner out of the centre towards

the peripheral muscle, in order here to release a movement. This conception would now, in the sense of the neuron theory, have to be essentially modified. Neither the excitation-conduction towards the centre, nor the impulse-conduction towards the periphery, is supposed to be a continuous one: quite simply for the reason that, allegedly, no such histological conducting-path exists which would extend with organic continuity from the periphery up to the centre, or conversely from the centre up to the periphery. In the sense of the neuron theory the conducting-path both of the sensory excitations and of the movement-impulses would consist of isolated sections, which indeed stand in the closest contact with one another but form no organically continuous path.

So, for example, the conducting-path of our movement-impulses would consist of two isolated and mutually touching sections. When we execute some purposive movement with the hand, then, in the sense of nerve-physiology, the motor impulse proceeds from a pyramid-shaped ganglion-cell of the cerebral cortex and propagates itself continuously, through the nerve-process of this ganglion-cell — through the so-called neurite — up to another ganglion-cell in the anterior horn of the spinal cord. The neurite, however, reaches no further than just up to the said ganglion-cell in the spinal cord; it does indeed move into the closest vicinity of the same, yet without continuing itself, with organic continuity, into it. The motor impulse must accordingly make a leap, in order to get across to the ganglion-cell in the spinal cord: to be sure only a microscopically small leap, yet a leap all the same, since the neurite of the pyramid-cell, as said, does not grow directly into the ganglion-cell of the spinal cord, but stands merely in contact with the same. Only after the accomplishment of a microscopically small leap does the motor impulse pass over to the ganglion-cell in the anterior horn of the spinal cord, and reaches, through the neurite of the same, up to a muscle, which it sets into contraction. In short, the motor impulse-conduction is a broken one; for the motor impulse must, from lack of a continuously conducting substance, in the very middle of its path, overcoming a resistance, force its way violently into the realm of a spinal-cord ganglion-cell, in order to be able to reach its goal. Astonished, one stands before this alleged discontinuity of the motor conducting-path and asks oneself with bewilderment what purpose nature may pursue, since it holds it necessary to set against the movement-impulse proceeding from the brain, in the very middle of its path, a hindrance in the form of the brokenness of the path. No less strange-sounding too is the alleged fact that the sensory conducting-path likewise is no organically continuous one, but consists of two, indeed also of several, sections, which do indeed enter into close contact with one another, but

are not grown together with one another. Now if a conducting-path consists of two sections that enter into mere contact with one another, then one speaks of two neurons; but if it consists of three such isolated sections, then it is composed of three neurons, etc.

What, then, is a neuron? Nothing further than a ganglion-cell. Or, to say it more fully: a ganglion-cell together with all its processes. For let it be remarked that, since DeitersOtto Deiters (1834–1863), German anatomist who first clearly distinguished the two kinds of cell-process — the single axon (axis-cylinder process) and the branching protoplasmic processes (dendrites) — of the ganglion-cell., one distinguishes two kinds of such processes: namely, the ganglion-cell has protoplasmic processes, which, finely ramifying, show a little-tree-like shape and are called dendrites; furthermore the already-mentioned nerve-process or neurite, which represents the conducting-path of the nerve-process. The dendrites have merely microscopic dimensions; the neurite, on the other hand, can possess very various lengths and vary between microscopic size and the giant-length of more than a metre. The chief thing remains that one, in the sense of the neuron theory, regards the conducting part of the nerve-fibre, however long it may otherwise be, not as a self-standing formation, but merely as a product, as a component of the ganglion-cell. The ganglion-cell is, as it were, the queen of the nerve-world, and it is, in the sense of the neuron theory, so very much the sole ruler of the same, that besides it there exists nothing else at all in this realm. For everything else is a product, or rather a component-piece, of the ganglion-cell. The whole mass of the proper nerve-substance is accordingly nothing further than a system of ganglion-cells or neurons. When one speaks of conducting-paths, one may not set these up, as something self-standing, over against the system of nerve-cells or neurons; for they are merely long processes of the individual nerve-cells (which, however, do not grow into another nerve-cell), which awaken the appearance as though one might speak of a self-standing system of the conducting-paths over against the self-standing system of the nerve-cells. This is the histological signification-content of the neuron theory.

One sees that this histological content stands in the closest connexion with its physiological content. For if the nerve-fibre which, for example, proceeds from a brain-cell were bound, in organic continuity, with a spinal-cord cell, then one would not know to which of the two cells it should be assigned, and then the system of the conducting-paths could step forth, as something self-standing, over against the system of the cells. In the sense of the neuron theory, however, there never subsists any doubt as to which ganglion-cell one must assign any nerve-fibre, since such a nerve-fibre is always the component-piece of some determinate ganglion-cell and never grows together with another, but enters merely into contact with it. One can therefore compress the whole content of the neuron theory into the one proposition: it dismembers

all the conducting-paths of the nervous system, so that it may elevate the ganglion-cell to sole rule and make the nerve-fibre into a mere component-piece of the ganglion-cell, and in such wise may not let even the appearance arise as though to the system of the conducting-paths there belonged even the slightest self-standingness over against the system of the nerve-cells.

Now Apáthy’s fibril doctrine too will become easily intelligible to us. This doctrine does not dismember the conducting-paths of the nervous system, and also will not make the ganglion-cell into the sole ruler in the nerve-realm, but strives to let the morphological elements of the nervous system, each according to its peculiar significance, come into its due. Above all it guards itself against premature schematising and theorising and regards it as its chief task to demonstrate facts, to uncover hitherto unknown finest structural relations of the ganglion-cells and nerve-fibres, and this with a painstaking exactness, such as must above all be demanded of an exact natural science. It shows us, first of all, that as the conducting paths of the nerve-energy we must regard not so much the nerve-fibres as rather the finest fibrils passing through them, the neurofibrils. It shows us further that the neurofibrils pass without interruption out of the one ganglion-cell through the other, and that the alleged discontinuity of the conducting-paths sprang only from the deceiving appearance of an uncritical observation. Thus it first heals together again the conducting-paths of the nervous system that were dismembered by the neuron theory.

But Apáthy’s fibril doctrine does not stop at the mere continuity of the sensory or the motor conducting-paths, but proceeds to the significant principle of the closedness of our whole nervous system. It is, according to Apáthy, a prejudice to believe that a sensory conducting-path takes an unmediated beginning somewhere at the periphery and reaches an unmediated end somewhere in the centre. A similar prejudice it would be to believe that a motor conducting-path begins unmediatedly in a brain-cell and breaks off at the periphery at some muscle-cell. This would still always be a dismemberment of the conducting-paths and would signify the dominion of the discontinuity-principle. There are in general no so-called nerve-endings. The neurofibrils pass over, in the centre, continuously from the sensory ganglion-cells to the motor cells; they also come over, at the periphery, in continuous manner, out of the motor conduction into the sensory. If one follows the course of the fibril-bundles, no matter whether in the centre or at the periphery, then one finds that the individual fibrils do not break off, but at most, through bifurcations, pass over into the meshes of a finest elementary lattice with three-limbed

nodal points, so that, along the meshes of this lattice, one passes over continuously out of one conducting-path into the other, and indeed out of sensory paths into motor or also into sympathetic ones, as well as conversely. The structure of the whole nervous system is an in-itself-closed one. Apáthy elucidates this state of affairs through the intuitive comparison with the closedness of our blood-circulation. Just as the arteries and veins of our blood-vascular system end nowhere, but lead over into one another, so do the conducting fibril-ways too lead over into one another by means of the elementary lattices. To the closed tube-system of our blood-circulation there corresponds the closed fibril-system of our nerve-world. One will, I believe, call the founder of this doctrine of closedness the HarveyWilliam Harvey (1578–1657), English physician who demonstrated the closed circulation of the blood (De motu cordis, 1628); Palágyi casts Apáthy as the “Harvey of the nervous system” for showing it, like the vascular system, to be a closed circuit. of the nervous system.

But if it is supposed to be a fact that the conducting-paths of the nervous system run continuously, how does it come about — so asks the unprejudiced hearer — that differences of opinion concerning this can subsist among the natural researchers? To this it is, first of all, to be answered that the proper conducting-wires of the nervous excitation had first to be discovered, and that the discovery of the same and the convincing demonstration of their existence could succeed only to a master of the microtechnical methods. With the microscope alone, and with its rational handling — which is itself already a science of its own — it is by far not yet done; there is need still of another art or science — one calls it precisely microtechnique — in order to compel the organic tissues to betray to us, under the microscope, the secrets of their structure. It would here be superfluous to enter more closely into the methods of this art, and I restrict myself merely to the indication that the boundary-lines of two substances of the same optical refrangibility remain invisible under the microscope if the substances do not set themselves off from one another through difference of the colour-nuances. One must accordingly stain the tissue-elements, impregnate them, and one must subject the microchemical reactions of the tissues to the reagents acting upon them to a systematic study, because the progress of histological knowledge depends in no small part upon the fortunate employment of these reactions. Originally one held the freely visible nerve-threads to be the conducting elements of the excitation; then, however, after more exact knowledge of their composition, the fibres of the same were set up as the conducting element; and since Remak (1838) more closely explored the structural relations of the fibre, the so-called axis-cylinder of the same passed for the proper conducting-wire of the nervous excitation. This axis-cylinder of the nerve-fibre most researchers held to be a homogeneous substance, although the ingenious Max Schultze (1868–1871) perceived a fibrillar striation

of the same and arrived at the assumption that the primitive fibrils so named by him were to be regarded as the proper conducting element of the nervous excitation. Yet his surmise remained unheeded, because, at the then state of microtechnique, he was unable to ascertain the actual, distinct individuality of the fibrils. The further development of microtechnique through the path-breaking works of GolgiCamillo Golgi (1843–1926), Italian physician whose silver-staining method (the reazione nera, “black reaction”) revolutionised the visualisation of nerve cells; paradoxically he himself remained an opponent of the neuron doctrine., however, had the peculiar consequence that the researchers were misled into the assumption of the neuron theory. Golgi came forward with his famous silver-method already in the year 1873, but the same enjoyed a general dissemination only from 1886 onward, when, namely, his grandly conceived work “Sulla fina anatomia degli organi centrali del sistema nervoso” appeared. The Golgi method — so one calls, in short, his treatment of the nerve-tissues with potassium bichromate and silver nitrate — is excellently suited to uncover the topographical relations of the ganglion-cells and their processes, and has in this respect also rendered invaluable services. Unfortunately it is not suited also to the exploration of the exceedingly fine nerve-fibrils. The “reazione nera” of Golgi has, moreover, certain treacheries, and can, among other things, simulate the breaking-off of tissue-elements — namely pointed or also club-shaped endings — where it is merely a matter of an ending of the black precipitate of the silver solution. Thus it gave occasion to the arising of the prejudice — so fateful for the whole of modern nerve-histology — that the conducting-paths of the nervous system have unmediated initial and terminal points, organic discontinuity-points in general.

Where the effectiveness of the Golgi method fails, there first sets in that of the Apáthyan gold-method, which may perhaps be regarded as one of the most beautiful attainments of modern microtechnique, since it brings such fine formations as the neurofibrils are — whose diameter often amounts to only the ten-thousandth, indeed only the twenty-thousandth, part of a millimetre — to a surprisingly sharp and clear representation. Whoever now has occasion, in Apáthyan preparations, to follow the nerve-fibril-ways in the centre or also in the periphery, within or also outside the ganglion-cells, comes to the conviction that of natural beginnings or endings of the neurofibrils there can in fact nowhere be talk. The continuity of the neurofibrils is, however, among all the histological facts referring to the nervous system, hitherto for this reason the most significant in principle, because it is in general the only fact which grants us an insight into the whole of the nervous system, in that it shows up this whole in the light of closedness. Despite the mountains of highly significant facts which nerve-research has heaped up for nearly a century, there was still always wanting to us such a finding as

refers to the whole building-plan of the nervous system as of a unitary formation, until at last, in the continuity of the neurofibrils, we obtained the first key to the total conception of the nerve-tissue.

⁂

The doctrine of the closedness of the nervous system has now for us, for this reason, a quite special significance, because it forms the first and chief postulate of our theory of perception. Independently of every histological investigation, we have, on the ground of the consideration of those vital processes which form the foundation of every perception-activity, arrived at the conviction that the vital processes of perception are circular processes — that is, in-themselves-returning happenings — so that the continuity-doctrine of the neurofibrils contains only a histological confirmation of our theory of perception. The ruling psychologistic conception, however, knows nothing of vital circular processes, but stands on the basis of a mode of thinking that one can designate as telegraph theory or also as projection theory. The facts are telegraphed-in or projected-in into consciousness by means of the sensations, and this telegraphing-in or projecting-in constitutes the whole essence of perception. The dispatch-station finds itself at the “periphery”, the receiving-station, on the contrary, in the “centre”: a mode of expression that is for this reason especially convenient, because by the centre one can understand both the brain and the kennel of consciousness. If one is a physiologist, then one lets the whole telegraphic or projection-process of perception simply play itself out between the sense-cells of the periphery as initial station and the ganglion-cells of the brain as terminal station, and concerns oneself no further about “consciousness” and its activity, but leaves the cloud-cuckoo-land of consciousness to the psychologists. These now have a right to conduct quite serious deliberations over that cloud-cuckoo-land, and assume, by virtue of this right, that, corresponding to the physiological nerve-process, there runs within consciousness a “parallel” psychical or consciousness-process, to which we quite properly owe our perception. Now, however, with respect to the assumption of a “parallel psychical process”, there subsists a most painful difficulty, which everyone is easily able to notice. If, namely, one designates the physiological nerve-process by N, the parallel psychical process corresponding to it and supervening upon it by P, then there could earnestly be talk of two processes only if N + P — that is, the sum of the two processes — could lay claim, for itself, to more time-duration than the mere nerve-process N for itself alone. Now, however, every “experimental psychologist” must confess that he has no ground at all for the assumption that N + P should or could lay claim to more time-duration

than N alone. The nerve-process fills out the whole time of the perception, and for the alleged psychical process P there remains no special-time over. What is to be done in such a plight? One could, to be sure, with Berkeley and the panpsychists, transpose the whole physiological nerve-process N into consciousness, so that it would run, from its beginning up to its end, within consciousness, and would thus be a purely psychical process: but this would stand in contradiction with the fact that the nerve-process must already last a while before it comes to consciousness. There thus remains nothing over but to take one’s refuge in the sophistical assumption that the psychical process P can always run along only with a simultaneously taking-place nerve-process N, and that P is never able to run for itself alone. One expresses this euphemistically also thus, that the perception-process has “two sides”; viewed from the one side, it presents itself as a mere nerve-process, but viewed from the other side, it shows, in certain time-intervals, also a psychical face. This two-sides-theory belongs to the characteristic inventions of modern thinking. Once one drove sophistry only with abstract concepts, in that a concept A could, according to need, have now this, now that sense, and thus showed a Janus-face. Nowadays, however, even the facts already show a Janus-face, in that one and the same process may count not only as a physiological, but also as a psychical process. It is this sophistry of the facts that one is wont to designate as “psycho-physical parallelism”, and over against it one will have to emphasise that a fact, in all eternity, is only one fact — that is, can never have “two sides”, thus can never become two facts.

But whether one makes the perception-process into a happening with a psycho-physical double-countenance, or sets it up, in materialistic manner, merely as a nerve-process: one yet always thinks it as a centripetal process which takes its beginning at the periphery of the organism and reaches its end in the centre (brain), which has as its consequence that the perception-process comes by every intelligibility. For according to this conception we should have to perceive all happenings of the external world as arriving in the brain and taking place there. In order to escape this absurd consequence, one had to practise the sensation, which one had practised into the centre, by a miracle out again from there. Consciousness, or the psyche, was supposed to possess the mysterious capacity to shoot the sensations out into the surrounding space and there to “objectify” them into things. And one holds fast to this impossible assumption, merely because one had once lived oneself into the prejudice that the perception-process must be a purely centripetal process. What would be simpler than the assumption that

perception, and first of all contact-perception, rests upon a circular process — that is, that from the touched point of our skin a nerve-process proceeds and returns again thither, so that we sense the touch there where the circular process closes itself! But one was unable to bestir oneself to such an assumption, because one secretly, inwardly and unconfessedly cherished the superstition that in the brain a soul, a psyche, a consciousness, or some other ghostly being, sits like a spider and there lies in wait for the tidings which are telegraphed to it by means of the nerve-wires. From this superstition our materialists are just as little free as the spiritualists; indeed it seems that precisely the materialists have a quite special respect for the ganglion-cells of the cerebral cortex, since in these cells, after all, some bogey-man might in the end house. Were it not so, then they would surely not so convulsively hold fast to the conception that the perception-process, ending in the brain-cells, must be a purely centripetal process.

The superstitious consideration of the brain or “centre” had as its consequence that one was inclined to apprehend the nerve-paths as discontinuous ones. For if the perception-processes must be of a purely centripetal kind, then the corresponding nerve-paths necessarily have a beginning at the periphery and break off somewhere in the centre. Something similar — and only in the reverse manner — holds then also of the motor nerve-paths, which begin in the centre and break off somewhere at the periphery (at muscles or glands). The neuron theory is only a further development of this traditional dismemberment of the nervous system, in that it lets the nerve-paths break off not only at the periphery and in the centre, but also in the very middle of their course. It is therefore only too comprehensible that the doctrine of the continuity of the neurofibrils, which puts an end to every superstitious conception of the “centre”, must everywhere meet with a strong resistance. For it is, after all, a question of nothing less than a complete clearing-away of all the psychological false doctrines which have, for more than two centuries already, brought the human mind by every rational conception both of the life-process and of mental activity.

Notwithstanding, the signs multiply that the researchers are gradually coming away from the neuron theory and seeking to come to terms with the fibril doctrine. Characteristic of this gradual change of conviction is the more recent position-taking of Max Verworn. This ingenious physiologist might have been regarded as one of the most decided champions of the neuron theory, but lets it be clearly seen, in his most recent report on the state of modern nerve-research (at the XVth international medical congress at Lisbon), that his faith in the

tenability of the neuron theory has been seriously shaken through the investigations of Oscar Schultze on the histogenesis of the nervous system. Two things, he says, are to be kept apart: 1. The one is the question: Do the ganglion-cell and the axis-cylinder (the neurite) form a cellular unity, or does there belong to the neurite a self-standingness — that is, does it arise from cells of its own and grow only afterwards into the ganglion-cells? 2. The other is the question: Do the specifically nervous processes play themselves out in the ganglion-cells, and do the nerve-fibres, or rather the neurofibrils, serve merely for conduction; or are precisely the latter the seat of the proper nerve-processes, and do then the ganglion-cells have merely a nourishing function? This skilful bisection of the question serves him, on the one hand, to dissociate himself from his adherence to the neuron theory, or at least to prepare this dissociation; on the other hand, however, also to be able to take the field against a representative of the fibril doctrine. As regards, namely, the first question, it refers to the development of the nerve-tissue, and is thus a purely histogenetic question. “With its decision,” says Verworn, “the concept of the neuron stands and falls.” But since it is now, however, a purely histogenetic question, it does not concern the physiologist Verworn, and so he can easily give it up entirely. The question whether the neurite is an original component-piece of the ganglion-cell or grows into it only afterwards has — so Verworn opines — a merely histogenetic and, for the present, no physiological significance whatever, so that the physiologist could stand over against the whole dispute for or against the neuron-concept cool to the very heart. But if it really stands thus, why had Verworn earlier taken up the neuron theory with such fiery zeal? The neuron-question was, after all, also formerly a histological, or rather histogenetic, question, and could indeed also formerly appear quite indifferent to the physiologist. Or does Verworn first notice today that the concept of the neuron proceeded from a histological observation (and indeed from a falsely interpreted histological observation)? That surely cannot be assumed. Evidently the matter stands thus, that the faith in the neuron-concept has pretty well vanished for the excellent physiologist, and that he would in consequence most gladly let it drop; for which purpose he believes he must emphasise that the neuron-concept is of histological origin and has no significance for the physiologist. Such a glossing-over of the change of opinion seems to me, however, to be quite superfluous. Histological facts, and quite especially the facts which refer to the relation of ganglion-cell and nerve-process, have for the physiologist a quite extraordinary significance, today just as much as formerly. Yet we will not contend further with Verworn over this self-evident proposition, and will rather rejoice that the investigations

of O. Schultze give him occasion to dissociate himself from the untenable concept of the neuron. It always redounds to a researcher’s honour when, freeing himself from preconceived opinions, he gives himself over to the truth, as is the case here too with Verworn: “The new investigations of Oskar Schultze on the histogenesis of the peripheral nerves in the frog-larva — so he says — might seem suited in a much higher degree to shake one of the fundamental pillars of the neuron doctrine. Schultze describes, with very great clarity, in opposition to the earlier statements of His concerning the growing-out of the nerve-fibre from the neuroblast, the arising and development of the peripheral nerves out of the Schwann cells. I must confess that, if the statements of Schultze should be confirmed in full extent, then for me the point in time would have come at which I would let the concept of the neuron drop.” (Zeitschr. für allg. Physiologie, vol. XI.)

One sees from this citation that things stand badly for the neuron-concept. Not only does the histological investigation show that the neurofibrils nowhere break off; the histogenetic research too brings the clear proof that the nerve-process is no component-piece of any ganglion-cell, but, proceeding from nerve-cells of its own, grows into the ganglion-cell. The neurofibrils thus step forth, as self-standing formations, over against the ganglion-cells, through which they, forming elementary lattices, grow. The concept of the neuron must accordingly fall — that is, the dismemberment of the nervous system into myriads of cellular unities with appertaining processes must be given up. For the histological as well as the histogenetic research equally bears witness that we must apprehend the nervous system as an in-itself-closed whole which nowhere exhibits beginnings and endings.

As regards now the second question raised above, we must concur with Verworn in this, that the ganglion-cells, like all kinds of nerve-cells in general, are just as significant factors of nerve-life as the conducting-wires of the nervous excitation, the neurofibrils. Bethe, who acquired such great merits for the dissemination of Apáthy’s fibril doctrine in Germany, goes so far as to wish to concede to the ganglion-cells a merely nutritive function in nerve-life, so that merely the nerve-fibres or fibrils would represent the proper nervous factor of nerve-life. It seems to me, however, by no means to correspond to the spirit of the fibril doctrine if one — in order to emphasise the significance of the fibrils — somehow lowers the nervous significance of any other structural elements of the nervous system, namely of the ganglion-cells. The essence of the fibril doctrine consists by no means in bringing some structural elements of the nervous system to bearing at the cost of the others: this was, after all, precisely the fundamental defect

of the neuron theory, that it, in order to underline the significance of the ganglion-cells, let itself be carried away to the assumption of setting up the nerve-fibre as a mere appendage and accessory of the ganglion-cell, and in consequence of entering upon a dismemberment of the nervous system into a countless number of single cells, which stand in mere contact with one another. Since now this one-sided conception is gradually being given up, it would be a pity to fall into the other extreme and to apprehend the ganglion-cells as mere nourishing factors in the functioning of the nerve-fibres. Verworn rightly emphasises that phenomena of central fatigue, etc., make it doubtless that to the ganglion-cells in the centre a very significant role in the regulation of the specifically nervous achievements of the nervous system must be ascribed. But if one raises the question in such a form as Verworn does, then one once again easily falls into the danger of misjudging from the ground up the nature of nerve-life. The question, namely, how the nerve-fibres and the ganglion-cells divide the specifically nervous function among themselves, may not in this form be raised at all, if one does not wish to fall into byways. For the nervous system does not function for itself, but only with and through its connexion with the remaining tissues of the organism, so that its achievements can never be understood through the mere relation of the fibres to the ganglion-cells, but only through the relation of the whole nerve-tissue to the remaining tissues of the organism. One should, after all, not leave out of account that the nervous system can achieve nothing for itself alone, but that all its achievements are dependent upon its connexions with the remaining tissues. Those excitations which we are wont to designate as nervous are not the functions of an isolated nervous system, but come about through the action of other tissues upon the nervous system, or rather through the action of the nervous system upon other tissues. Or, more exactly: we must always think the nervous system as set in reciprocal action with other tissues, in order to be able somehow to comprehend its functions. From the mere reciprocal relation of fibrils to ganglion-cells the achievements of the nervous system absolutely cannot be made comprehensible.

One can also express this thus, that an animal life can nowhere subsist for itself in isolation, but must everywhere be embedded in a vegetative life-process, from which it receives stimulations and upon which it reacts stimulatingly in return. Everyone knows that external physico-chemical actions do not strike the nervous system immediately, but the skin-surface or sense-organs, such as the eye, ear, etc.: notwithstanding, this universally known fact is wont to be left out of account, and the nervous system to be set up as though it received the external actions immediately.

It must accordingly be enunciated in the form of a special biological principle, that every animal (nervous) excitation can subsist only on the ground of a vegetative excitation. The significance of the nervous system rests by no means upon this, that it, under the direct influence of external actions, produces animal excitations (such as sensation, feeling and phantasm), but upon this, that it, under the direct influence of vegetative excitations of neighbouring tissues, in which it is embedded, is occasioned to the production of animal excitations. Excitability, namely, is a general property of all living tissues which form the animal or plant body; not, however, a specific property of the nerve-tissue. Excitability belongs, for example, to the epithelia and muscle-fibres, as in general to every kind of organic tissue, and it is one of the fundamental errors of the traditional biological thinking to believe that only nerves are distinguished by the property of excitability. Modern biology lacks the conceptual distinction between vegetative and animal excitation, of which the former is a fundamental condition of all life, the latter, on the contrary, merely a property of nervous organisms. Vegetative excitations are characterised by this, that they can nowhere immediately enter into connexion with a consciousness; animal or nervous excitations, on the contrary, can very well have contact with a consciousness. If, then, some vegetative excitation of our own organism is to come to our cognisance, then it must awaken an animal or nervous excitation, because only by means of this can it first attain to consciousness.

The doctrine of “vegetative excitability” comes forward in modern physiology under the name of the “tropisms” (heliotropism, chemotropism, geotropism, stereotropism), without, however, receiving a clear conceptual formulation. Ingenious researchers, such as for example also Jacques Loeb, show themselves struck by the fact that plants display quite similar reactions to the action of light, gravitation, etc., as do the lower animal forms. This comes about because they are unable to distinguish the universal vegetative excitability of life from the specifically animal or nervous excitation which stands in the service of consciousness. Every nervous excitation has for its presupposition a vegetative excitation, or, if one pleases, a tropism. When light, gravitation, etc. act upon us human beings, then this first stage of this action (upon the skin and the sense-epithelia) is a vegetative excitation, thus a tropism; and only in that this excitation acts upon the nervous system does there arise an animal excitation (sensation, feeling, phantasm), which can come to consciousness for us. The tropisms

thus form the vegetative foundation of every animal perception-process, so that a biological theory of perception cannot be furnished without subjecting the relation of the tropisms to the nervous excitations to a scientific examination. This, however, cannot here be entered upon, because the investigation of the vegetative life makes necessary the construction of a system of the whole of biology. I wished merely to point to the fact that the doctrine of the nerve-process cannot be grounded upon the mere relation of fibrils and ganglion-cells, because those vegetative tissues (epithelia, glands, muscles) which stand in connexion with the nervous system play a decisive role in the coming-about of the nervous excitations. It would be a fateful error to believe that merely fibrils and ganglion-cells participate in the physiological work of the nervous system, and to leave out of account that sense-cells, muscle- and gland-cells are co-decisive factors in all nerve-processes. The fibril doctrine does not wish one-sidedly to emphasise merely the significance of the fibrils for the nerve-processes, but on the contrary to do equal justice to all factors that participate in nerve-life.

Sixteenth Lecture: The Simplicity-Dogma and the Boundless Compositeness of Sensation. The Punctual Character of Consciousness-Acts#

The simplicity-dogma of sensation. Proof that every sensation-process is boundlessly composite. The experiments with the colour-top show that the quality of a sensation can appear as simple, but need not be simple. All sensations are mixture-sensations, for all arise through a confluence of boundlessly many sections. Limited number of perception-acts in a second. Psychologism believes that our sensations are fully known to us. Were sensations elements of the world of appearance, then all natural research would be superfluous. Every sensation contains, despite its familiarity, a boundless mystery. How Locke fell into the error that sensation is simple. That we cannot resolve sensation into concepts is only a proof of its boundless compositeness, not of its simplicity. Only infinitely many judgements could exhaust a sensation-content. Inexhaustibility, or rather irrationality, of sensation. Wundt’s attempt to rescue the simplicity of sensation. The logical contradiction in his concept of sensation. Only the intermittency of perception-activity is able to explain its limitedness; indeed this intermittency is only the exact expression for this limitedness. The acts of our consciousness have a punctual character, that is, they are simple. Sensations, like all flowing processes, are physical; mental acts, on the contrary, are punctual, instantaneous. Distinction of consciousness from life-process.

Gentlemen! At the foundation of all our hitherto considerations upon the vital substrate of our mental activities there lies the assumption that we have a good right to regard life-processes and mental acts of the human being as happenings not reducible to one another. To be sure, we have already hitherto brought into the field many an argument for the justification of our fundamental assumption; yet it is high time to furnish the direct proof for the necessity of the distinction between life-process and consciousness-act in such a manner that the difference of the two should come forth with the greatest clarity through an unambiguous mark. This mark consists in this, that life-processes have a flowing character, the mental acts of the human being, on the contrary, are necessarily intermittent. It is, however, to be remarked that it will not be necessary to spread oneself out over all kinds of life-processes and mental acts: it will, namely, suffice to take into consideration merely animal-vital processes, in particular merely sensations, and, of the mental acts, merely the acts of sense-perception, in order quite

generally to prove that the sensation-process shows an uninterrupted flow, whereas the perception resting upon the same is brought about through intermittent acts. In order to conduct this proof with the simplest possible means, it will be expedient to subject to a critique the fundamental dogma of modern psychologism concerning the nature of our sensations.

It is a fundamental dogma of modern psychologism that our sensation-processes are simple psychical appearances. Over against this conception it will be our task to demonstrate that

1. sensations are no psychical appearances, but vital processes, 2. that every sensation is nothing simple, but a boundlessly composite [grenzenlos Zusammengesetztes]Zusammengesetztheit — compositeness. Palágyi’s thesis is that every sensation is “grenzenlos zusammengesetzt”, boundlessly composite, the contradictory of the simplicity-dogma..

We will first of all convince ourselves of the truth of the second proposition, and to this end let the first proposition stand undecided, or rather concede that sensations are really “psychical” appearances, because we should otherwise expose ourselves to the reproach that we understand by sensation something quite other than what is designated by this name in psychology. That such a misunderstanding may not arise, we will assume that we as yet had no inkling of the existence of sensing nerves or of a nervous system at all. We speak, then, of sensations in the same unprejudiced sense as anyone whatever who uses the words: warm, cold, soft, hard, blue, yellow, without binding them with anatomical and physiological items of knowledge.

Such items of knowledge are, namely, by no means needed in order to be able to decide the important question which is for us here of decisive significance, namely whether a sensation takes up a time-duration or not? To be sure there are very short-lasting sensations, such as for example flashes of light, the crackling of electric sparks, etc., which make almost the impression of the instantaneous; but no one will well venture so far astray as to wish to assert that sensations take up no time-duration at all. All sensations have necessarily some positive time-duration, for we attain to the concept of time-duration precisely thereby, that we think our sensations, or rather phantasms, ordered in time and ascribe to every sensation some time-interval. But that which takes up a time-duration is necessarily to be apprehended as a composite, because every positive time-duration must necessarily be thought as consisting of arbitrarily many temporal sections. If, for example, a sensation lasts one second, then I can think this second resolved into arbitrarily many millions or billions of parts, and obtain accordingly just as many sections within the sensation-process in question. In

general, a temporally flowing process or process can never be anything simple, because it lies already in the concept of such a one that it must be thought as consisting of boundlessly many parts. Therefore a sensation too, because it is precisely a temporally flowing process, can never count as anything simple.

Moreover, we can also convince ourselves, by means of the physiological experiment, that our sensations are of composite nature. The well-known experiments with the colour-top have a fundamental significance for the doctrine of sensation, in that they show that different sensations belonging to the same genus — thus for example different colour-sensations — can be mixed with one another, so that through the mixture there arises a colour-sensation which seems to be a simple sensation, although we are convinced through the experiment that the apparently simple mixture-sensation must be composed out of different simpler sensations. If, namely, one rotates the disc with differently coloured sectors, then, with a slow rotation, the individual coloured sectors will still be able to be distinguished; but with increasing speed of the rotations one presently reaches the limit where the different colours of the individual sectors wholly vanish and in their place there steps a mixture-colour spread uniformly over the disc. Colours lying near one another in the spectrum, such as for example red and yellow, mix to a mean colour (red-yellow); ones lying further apart, such as red and green, orange and blue, yellow and violet, yield, with corresponding intensity, a white or whitish-grey; these are the so-called “complementary colour-pairs.” Colours lying still further apart, such as for example red and blue, combine to no colour lying between red and blue, but to one lying beyond the latter (violet); finally there arises from the mixture of red and violet a colour that is not contained in the spectrum of sunlight: purple.

Here it does not at all interest us in the first place which mixture-sensation arises from two rapidly successive colour-sensations: for it is here only a question for us of the highly significant fact that two sensations following upon one another in a very small time-interval flow together into one sensation which is different from the two mixed sensations. It is the first fundamental proposition of a doctrine of sensation that sensations belonging to the same genus necessarily flow together with one another when they follow upon one another at suitably small time-intervals (or spatial distances). This principle of the mixability of sensations is, taken at bottom, already the expression for the boundless compositeness of every sensation.

For how is it comprehensible that two different sensations, which follow upon one another with the necessary rapidity, can flow together into a mixture-sensation different from both? Such a fact would be wholly unintelligible if we did not know that our perceiving glance is unable to penetrate into very small time-intervals. If two sensations (of the same genus) crowd themselves together within the hundredth, thousandth, or a still smaller fraction of the second, then their difference is lost for our perceiving glance. They fuse with one another and form, for the lagging perception-act, an apparent simple.

Were we able to bring forth a perception-act in every 1/100, 1/1000, etc. of a second, then it would be impossible that the differently coloured sensations following upon one another in the hundredth, thousandth, etc. parts of the second should flow together with one another. But we do not dispose over as many perception-acts in the second as it pleases us, and so it becomes possible that sensation-processes following upon one another in very short intervals fuse with one another and are grasped as a unitary total-sensation. If we consider this, then it at once becomes evident that every sensation arises through the flowing-together of extremely short-lasting partial processes which, in consequence of their brevity, remain unknown to us. If, for example, we gaze for one second upon a resting red point of light, then we scarcely become conscious of the time-sections out of which the sensation-process is composed. We can, however, in the course of the second, turn our eye rapidly away from the point of light and back again, and so bring it to a twofold sensing of the point of light. Unfortunately it does not stand in our power to turn our eye away and back during one second as often as it pleases us; for could we accomplish this procedure a million times in the second, and did the sharpness of our perception keep pace with these eye-movements, then we should during one second gain the million-times-repeated view of that red point of light; then, however, it would probably be no red point of light at all that would present itself to our glance. Our glance would be an analysing glance, which could resolve the red-sensation into millions of partial sensations. But since we are unable to produce those million-fold eye-movements (or lid-closings) during one second, and also do not dispose over the corresponding million-fold perception-acts in the second, there flow together for us millions of partial sensations into one sensation.

I should like here also to recall the well-known stroboscopic or cinematographic appearances. They prove that, with a moving human or other figure, we are able somehow to catch with the glance only single, few phases of the movement during the second, in consequence of which it

suffices to present a few phase-images of a movement with a corresponding degree of speed in order to awaken in us the illusion that we see a moving figure before us. But were a human perception capable of grasping, in the course of one second, millions of phase-images of any movement, then over against such a perception-power all our cinematographs would lose their effectiveness.

It is, then, a fundamental aberration of psychologism when it holds our sensations to be something simple. To be sure, such sensations as red, yellow, warm, cold, etc. seem to be “simple processes,” but they arise in reality through the flowing-together of boundlessly many partial processes which remain unknown to us, because we are not capable of producing boundlessly many perception-acts in the second. Although, then, we are familiar with nothing so much as with our own sensations, yet every sensation encloses within itself a boundless riddle. This it is that sensualism wholly fails to recognise. And again it is the ingenious and paradoxical Berkeley who draws the extreme consequences of sensualism, and thereby uncovers its fundamental errors. He entitles one of his chief works as follows: Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, whose intent is to set forth clearly the reality and perfection of human knowledge, etc. At the close of the first dialogue Philonous asks: “Do you not perfectly know your own sensations” (ideas)? Whereupon Hylas answers: “I know them perfectly.” This is, I believe, the most classical expression for the philosophical infatuation with the sense-sensations.

It suffices, then, according to Berkeley, to open one’s eyes in order that the ultimate elements of the world-edifice be at once revealed to us in a perfect manner. If I gaze, for example, upon the vault of the heavens, then in the blue-sensation there makes itself known to me, in a perfect manner, an ultimate element of the world-riddle. The sensation of coolness which a current of air coming from the sea fans towards me is also such an ultimate element, as no less the tone-sensation which is occasioned by the splashing of the waves. Thus, during a stroll on the seashore, one comes to know all kinds of ultimate elements of the world-edifice in a perfect manner. This is certainly, of all possible world-views, the most convenient; only it is incomprehensible how this mode of thinking was able to penetrate into the natural sciences, indeed there almost to wrest to itself the leading role. For if our sense-sensations are the ultimate and at the same time perfectly known elements of the world-edifice — as for example also a physicist like Mach seems to assume — then it is not to be seen wherefore we should need to occupy ourselves with a science, in particular with natural science! What can a researcher, in his

boldest, superhuman dreams, wish for other than that the elements of the world-edifice should somehow be revealed to him; but lo and behold, one need only open the eyelids in order to become partaker of such bliss. The dogma of the simplicity of our sensations has, then, as its consequence, that all natural research becomes a senseless superfluity. Wherefore still research, if the ultimate elements of the world of appearance — namely our sense-sensations — are anyhow perfectly known to us?

The sensualistic and psychologistic proposition of the simplicity of our sensations is, according to its proper content, nothing further than the complete denial of the possibility and serviceableness of any natural science. Nevertheless it is precisely the philosophising natural researchers of our days who warm themselves most for that proposition and make it the foundation of their world-apprehension. They stand under the influence of Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant, and regard our sensations as the simply known or given. Quite especially has this latter technical term, which stems from Kantian philosophy (cf. Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 29, 33), contributed much to the confusion of the thinking. To be sure our sensations are “given” to us; but it does not suffice to emphasise this givenness; rather, one must also ask how sensations are given to us? Then it shows itself that, for the scientific consideration of nature, sensations are given as problems, and indeed as boundless, never fully soluble problems. In the manner in which a sensation is given to us, the wonder is accomplished that something which harbours within itself an infinite mystery lies clear as day before our eye. It seems to be a paradox that something could enclose within itself the highest degree of knownness and the highest degree of unknownness, and yet thus it stands with each of our sensations. Boundlessly many elementary processes flow together into any sensation; the summation of the same (as it were the integral) is known to us, but all the elements out of which it flowed together are unknown to us.

From this peculiar nature of sensations it follows that, in the research of nature, we must indeed necessarily set out from our sensations, but that we can never remain standing at the mere taking-cognisance of the same; rather, all conscious natural research consists in a planful going-out beyond that which becomes known to us through sensation. The great physicist Hertz expresses it, that before our eyes far more in reality happens than what we are able to perceive, which has as its consequence that the connexion of what happens before us escapes us. In that we now show that every sensation flows together out of unboundedly many elements remaining

unknown to us, and that we can never dispose over as many acts as would be necessary in order to get at those elements, it becomes comprehensible that the ultimate and innermost connexions in the realm of all happening necessarily remain veiled for us, and that in this wise there are given to us, through our sense-perception, infinite problems, which the natural researcher seeks to solve on the path of asymptotic approximation, without ever having fully mastered his task. Only the doctrine of the boundless compositeness of our sensation can be the right epistemological point of departure for the natural researcher, and this fundamental proposition of the theory of sensation needs, in my opinion, only to be uttered in order that every natural researcher should hold it for something self-evident. The dogma of the simplicity of sensation, which lay at the foundation of the hitherto “empiricism,” is, on the contrary, the open and absolute denial of the possibility of every natural science.

In the critique of such a dogma, however, we may not content ourselves with setting forth its untenableness in a compelling manner; rather, we must also make comprehensible how it came about that such a dogma was able to make itself master of the most distinguished minds. We must enter more closely into the history of the simplicity-doctrine of sensation; not in order to heap up historical data, but in order to show that there hovered before the originator of the simplicity-dogma, Locke, a correct thought, which, however, unnoticed slipped away from him.

When Locke designates our sense-sensations as “simple ideas,” then there hovers before this brave enlightener evidently in the first place the correct thought that for a human child there can be nothing better known in this world than its own sense-sensations. In that he says this to himself, he recognises the fundamental significance of the sensation-life for all human knowledge, and thereby gives the impetus to that direction of thinking which is to be regarded par excellence as “modern” (in distinction from Greek thinking), and which I designate in all its nuances as “philosophy of sensation.”

But the circumstance that sensations are the best known would not have sufficed to suggest to Locke the thought that a sensation is something “simple.” Whoever, namely, takes the trouble to read attentively the somewhat broadly laid-out chief work of Locke and to collect the relevant supporting passages, finds that with the alleged “simplicity” of sensation he wishes to suggest to us yet another and highly significant thought. He wishes, namely, to impress upon us that sensations can never be “defined,” explained, by means of words and sentences, but must necessarily be lived through, experienced, in order to be in any way known. Whoever, for example, had never lived through the sensation “red,”

to him we should wish in vain, even with the highest expenditure of human eloquence, to explain what is meant by the word red. I scarcely need to say that I am in complete agreement with this fundamental proposition, which makes up the kernel of every genuine empiricism, and which I should like to designate as the principle of the inexhaustibility of experiences (vital processes) through symbols (judgements, concepts). We do indeed, by means of our symbols, give ourselves an account of what we experience; but never is a human mind able to devise such symbols as could offer an absolute substitute for the experienced. This inexhaustibility of experiences, even for the most finely devised and spun-out symbols of the human mind, hovered without doubt before Locke too; it seems, however, that his thinking went off the rails precisely at the moment where he wished to formulate this correct thought. He opined, namely, that sensation must be something “simple,” since after all all words (symbols) of the human being do not suffice in order to express or explain even a single sensation, such as for example the sensation red, through a multiplicity of other ideas. He should, on the contrary, have said that a sensation must be something boundlessly composite, since all trouble to exhaust and explain it completely through linguistic sentences is a vain one. Only when we make our own the principle of the boundless compositeness of every sensation does it become comprehensible wherefore it is impossible to set forth in words what we experienced in the sensation. Since, namely, every sensation flows together out of boundlessly many elementary processes, we should, in order to exhaust it in terms of the understanding, have to form boundlessly many linguistic sentences in which we should have to give an account of all the elementary processes out of which the sensation flowed together. Boundlessly many sentences would be necessary in order to be able to get at even a single sensation completely with the understanding; that is, language and logical thinking are incapable of exhausting a single sensation. This is the true fundamental thought of empiricism. One can give “names” to sensations, but these names are unable to replace the sensation. Herein lies the ground of that deep contempt which the nominalists cherish towards “names,” and wherefore they are so very bent upon “sensations.” They do not consider that they owe it to the art of naming that they have an understanding, and in consequence can reflect philosophically upon “sensations.”

If “empiricism” understood itself, and really knew what properly lies at its heart, then it would emphasise nothing so much as the boundless compositeness of our sensations. For this principle is, after all, nothing further than the adequate expression for the “unsayable” which we experience and take cognisance of in every sen-

sation, without ever being able to penetrate it with the understanding. But since now Locke designated the unsayableness of that which may flow together in every sensation as the “simplicity” of sensation, psychology remained standing at the unfortunate expression of a thought-intention which is at bottom correct, although every thinking person at once discerns that a temporally flowing thing (such as sensation) can never be anything simple, but must necessarily consist of temporal sections.

Among the more recent psychologists none seems to have felt more deeply the unsuitableness of the term “simple” in application to sensations than Wundt; but although his expositions (Phys. Psych., vol. I, pp. 339–344) clearly show that he is tormented by many a grave misgiving concerning the simplicity of sensations, yet he always knows how to allay the same somehow, in order finally to anchor himself in the simplicity-dogma. He speaks at some places very clearly of the flowing character of our experiences; indeed there are found in him sentences which for a moment awaken the appearance as though he wished quite openly to renounce the simplicity-dogma. Permit me to cite a few such characteristic passages: “Thus one can, for example, with lesser attention or with lacking practice in self-observation, be of the opinion that, during a longer contemplation of an object of sight, there persists continually the same representation, and that, at least in regard to this particular content, our psychical state is therefore not a flowing one, but one enduring between certain time-limits. Nevertheless one recognises easily, with attentive self-observation, that this opinion is a deception” (p. 339). Wundt expresses it here without circumlocution, that even such experiences as the images of the sense of sight, which seem to endure (to stand still), are yet of flowing nature. With this the following sentences stand in fine accord: “Not otherwise than with the alleged persistent duration does it stand with the apparent simplicity of psychical contents.” “Thus one might perhaps think the sensation of a luminous point or of a pure tone freed from all secondary tones and secondary noises were something psychically simple. But it is clear that one cannot represent a point isolated at all” .... (p. 340). One already expects that the illustrious leader of the German psycho-physiological movement wishes to write an open letter of renunciation to Locke and English philosophy of sensation; but he suddenly allays his grave misgivings towards the simplicity-dogma of sensations and becomes the most energetic representative of this doctrine. The manner in which he accomplishes this self-allaying is in the highest degree characteristic, for it shows that he was on the way to overcome the most malignant dogma of the philosophy of sensa-

tion, and to direct modern psychology into a new track, but in the decisive moment fell again into the old rut. He makes, namely, a distinction between sensation as it is really, that is, “empirically,” constituted, and sensation as we think it in abstracto. He says of sensations: “that they are on the one hand purely empirical elements, and that on the other hand they yet, in the isolated and enduring constitution in which we think them conceptually fixed, never exist in reality” .... “The psychical elements are thus, in so far, pure products of conceptual abstraction, as they, in the isolated and persisting state in which we think them for the purpose of the investigation of their fundamental properties, possess no reality. All the same they are immediate contents of real experience itself, since they can never be thought otherwise than with the properties belonging to them in immediate perception” (loc. cit., p. 342).

Wundt here openly expresses the contradiction in which he finds himself. Sensation thought in abstracto is quite different from sensation in concreto: this is the one assertion. Sensation thought in abstracto nevertheless agrees with sensation in concreto: this is the second assertion. In abstracto sensation is something simple, in concreto it is not. This is a bad state of affairs: for it is after all evident that a sensation cannot be at once simple and non-simple. But how did Wundt come into such a strait concerning the simplicity of sensation? This happened because he the one time abstracted from the time-duration of sensation, but the other time did not abstract from this time-duration. If one abstracts from the time-duration of sensation, then it becomes something simple; but if one does not abstract from this time-duration, then it is something flowing, and in consequence boundlessly composite. The only question, then, is whether one may abstract from its time-duration in the case of a sensation or not? Now the time-duration belongs just as much to the essence of sensation as it belongs also to the essence of movement. What would one think of a Galileo who demanded of us to disregard the time-duration of movement and in consequence to regard all movement as something simple?

Exactly as a movement ceases to be a movement when it does not run its course temporally, so it is all up with the concept of sensation when one deprives it of its temporal flow. That the temporal flow belongs to the essence of sensation, and in general to the essence of every “psychical appearance,” Wundt himself, moreover, expresses with great emphasis: “The psychical facts,” he says, “are events, not objects; they run their course, like all events, in time, and are in no following moment the same that they were in

a past one.“ (Grundr. d. Psych., 5th ed., p. 17.) Since now a sensation is an event, and runs its course in time like all events, it is in no following moment the same that it was in a past one; that is, it flows together out of boundlessly many elementary processes unknown to us.

I have already set forth the principle of the boundless compositeness of every sensation in my Logic at the Crossroads. To this book there fell the honour that the Halle philosopher Goswin UphuesGoswin Karl Uphues (1841–1916), German philosopher and psychologist at Halle, author of works on the theory of knowledge and perception. His Zur Krisis in der Logik (“On the Crisis in Logic”) was a polemical reply to Palágyi’s Die Logik auf dem Scheidewege. devoted to it a separate polemical writing under the title: On the Crisis in Logic. In the first part of this writing Uphues bristles quite decidedly against the view that one may apprehend sensations as something boundlessly composite and inexhaustible; for he opines that it would be all up with the certainty of every sensation-judgement if it stood thus, and that we moreover do far too great an honour to a sensation when we declare it inexhaustible. Here his words: “But with all this it is not proved that the impression is something boundlessly composite and inexhaustible, which Palágyi (pp. 182 and 185) asserts without proof. Were that correct, then indeed every preceding impression-judgement could be, through a following one, not merely corrected and supplemented, but also overthrown” .... “Apart from this, every impression, as appearance, is something finite and already for that reason not inexhaustible. Inexhaustible can be one and only one thing: the truth or the eternal and supra-temporal that lies at the foundation of the impression and is grasped in judgement.” (Z. Kr. in d. Log., pp. 24 and 25.) Later, however, on p. 97, Uphues allays his misgivings in the following form: “I must also concede that for our knowledge the impression is inexhaustible, and in so far, contrary to my earlier utterance, subscribe without reservation to the following words of P.'s: ‘Since we apprehend the impression as something boundlessly composite, we must also say to ourselves that it is inexhaustible for our knowledge.’ . . . The objection raised against the assumption of an inexhaustibility of the impressions through our knowledge, that this assumption makes all our knowledge of the impressions uncertain, can perhaps be removed by this, that one, with P., protests against the assumption of a simplicity of the impressions and holds fast from the outset to their compositeness.”

Perhaps I have succeeded in removing the last remnants of any misgivings against the compositeness of sensations through the grounds adduced in this lecture. In any case it gladdens me that such a thorough researcher as Uphues is able to come to terms with a proposition that is directed against a fundamental dogma of the whole modern psychology. But if he makes the principle of the boundless compositeness of sensations his own, then he

may also not close himself off from the consequent propositions of this fundamental principle.

There arises, namely, the question wherefore we do not know those boundlessly many elementary processes out of which a sensation flows together? The answer can be no other than that, for every arbitrarily small section of the sensation, there stands at our disposal no perception-act.

For if it really stands thus — and a doubt over this is well excluded — that the small sections of a sensation, which run their course in, say, the billionth parts of a second, remain unknown to us, then it follows from this with necessity that our perceiving consciousness does not keep pace with the flow of sensation, or in other words: that our perception does not flow along with the sensation. For did our perception keep completely equal pace with our sensation-process — that is, flow along with it, comparable to a parallel stream — then the smallest section of a sensation too could not remain hidden from us, and we should have to have the most exact knowledge also of the phases of the sensation which take place, for example, in the billionth parts of a second. In the contemplation of a moving living being, for example a leaping horse, we should then hold fast as many phases as it only pleased us; a disc with differently coloured sectors could be rotated with the most monstrous rapidity, and its colours would yet never fuse for us; in general, the smallest jerk that takes place within a movement-process could no longer remain hidden from us, and we should have to see every little blade of grass grow immediately, etc. etc.; in short, our senses would be boundlessly sharp. Now we know, however, very well that our senses are not infinitely sharp; indeed we are all so very convinced of this that not soon will a second conviction be found in which we all so very much agreed with one another as in precisely this one. For we are dissatisfied with nothing so much as with the fineness of our senses, and what hangs together with this in the most intimate manner: with the rapidity of the voluntary movements that we are able to execute. And in this dissatisfaction the primitive and the cultivated human being on all grades of culture agree equally; for the fineness of the senses and rapidity of the movements secures to the one his physical superiority over against the hostile nature-powers, but for the other it is at the same time the source of ever finer enjoyments of life, as no less the source of a more penetrating knowledge of the natural appearances. As concerns, for example, our present-day or modern culture, it is perhaps its most salient characteristic that it is filled with an almost boundless urge to procure artificial substitute-means (instruments, machines) for the in-

adequate sharpness of our senses and the shaming slowness of our movements. It is to be hoped, then, that no one will contradict me when I say that our movements are not infinitely rapid and our senses not infinitely sharp.

But what is meant by the limited sharpness of our senses? Precisely this, which I set forth above, namely that our perception does not flow along with the sensation-process, that we are therefore unable to grasp the smallest phases of our sensation-course. We can also express this incapacity thus, that it is not given to us to bethink ourselves of our impressions within one second as often as it pleases us. Could we bethink ourselves of our impressions 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times faster than we are actually capable of — that is, could we perceive 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times smaller phases of our sensation-process than is at present possible for us — then over against this increasing speed of bethinking none of our so-called simple sense-qualities could maintain itself, and they would finally have to fall apart into diverse qualities; indeed we should have to get into new, ever new realms of sense-qualities at present unknown to us, so that the whole world of our sense-perception would win another, to us unknown aspect. That fraction of a second, then, which we need in order to come from the one consciousness-act to the other, is of decisive significance for the whole sensible world-picture that unrolls itself before us.

Herewith it is laid clear that always some fractions of a second must elapse during which the sensation indeed already flows, but we have not yet been able to bring forth an act that could refer itself to it. In other words: the acts that refer themselves to the flow of sensations are intermittent; they have, during one second, a certain frequency, they have a certain pulse. Herewith, however, it is also said that the acts of our consciousness can be nothing flowing — that is, that every act takes up for itself an immeasurably small time-duration, a mere point of time, which is no longer resolvable into smaller time-sections. For were the acts of our consciousness something flowing, then they would either flow along simultaneously with the flow of the sensation-process, or they would flow after the flow of sensation with a certain belatedness. In both cases our perception would then be an infinitely fine one. For in the simultaneous flowing-along of consciousness with the sensation-stream there would correspond to every phase of this latter, be it never so small, a consciousness-phase referring to it. At bottom nothing would be altered in this if the consciousness-stream flowed after the sensation-stream in a belated manner, for there would again correspond to every phase of the sensation-stream, be it never so small, a phase of the consciousness-stream

; that is, our perception would be infinitely sharp, only it would temporally lag behind the sensation-stream. It would also avail nothing to regard the consciousness-stream as an extremely short-lasting stream, for so long as it takes up a measurable time-duration, for example a billionth of a second, one can think it resolved into arbitrarily many parts, and then there would again correspond to every phase of the sensation-stream, be it never so small, a phase of the consciousness-stream, and our perception would be infinitely sharp. If, then, our perception is to have a limited fineness, then only the sensation-process may be something flowing, and its smallest phases, remaining unknown, must flow together into a consciousness-act which is itself nothing flowing — that is, which takes place in an indivisible point of time. But if one makes consciousness itself into something flowing, then the phases of the sensation-stream can no longer flow together, because every phase of the same, be it never so small, is grasped separately through consciousness. A flowing perception would be an infinitely fine perception; or, more correctly spoken: a flowing perception would not be a perception at all, for, for an infinitely fine perception-power, the world of appearance resolves itself wholly into its elements; for it nothing flows together, for it there is no appearance in the sense in which there is for us; thus it does not even need to be a temporally flowing perception. In short, an infinitely fine perception transcends our power of comprehension. The one that we know is a limited perception, which is made possible only through flowing sensation-processes and, referring to them, non-flowing, punctual [punktuell]punktuell — punctual (Barry Smith’s rendering); Punktualität — punctuality. The consciousness-act occupies a mere indivisible point of time, with no extension and no internal time-sections, and is in this sense “simple,” in contrast to the boundlessly composite, flowing sensation-process. acts of consciousness.

It is expedient to illustrate graphically the proposition that to a flowing sensation-process no flowing consciousness can correspond, as is done in the following three figures:

[Three schematic figures, each pairing an upper line E (the sensation-stream) with a lower line B (the consciousness-stream): in the first, E and B are parallel and set vertically one beneath the other (simultaneous flow); in the second, they are parallel but obliquely offset (the consciousness-stream lagging); in the third, B is drawn much shorter than E (an extremely short-duration consciousness-stream).]The original prints three small line-diagrams here; they are rendered editorially in words, since Palágyi’s surrounding text fully explains them. E = Empfindungsstrom (sensation-stream), B = Bewußtseinsstrom (consciousness-stream).

If one represents the sensation-stream and consciousness-stream through two parallel lines, then the parallels set vertically one beneath the other can represent the simultaneous, the ones set obliquely one beneath the other, on the contrary, the non-simultaneous flowing of the two streams. In both cases there corresponds to each phase of the sensation-stream a phase of the consciousness-stream; that is, the fineness of perception cannot, with this relation, be a limited one, such as the human one is. The third figure

finally shows that the temporal shortening of the consciousness-stream too alters nothing in this relation, because to every phase of the sensation-stream there still always corresponds a phase of the consciousness-stream. A limited perception-power thus requires a flowing sensation-stream and a punctual consciousness-act, which refers itself to the sensation-stream, and in which the countless, unknown phases of the sensation-stream flow together.

Herewith we have established the distinguishing mark between consciousness and life-process. Since, namely, those elementary processes out of which a sensation flows together remain unknown to us — that is, do not fall into our consciousness — they can also not at all be apprehended as consciousness-processes or psychical processes. They are physical processes, and indeed vital physical processes, because they can come to consciousness immediately only for one single person. The whole sensation-process and the feeling-process accompanying it, together with the imagined movement and imagined sensation — in short, the whole circular process which lies at the foundation of our perception — is a vital process, and only the mathematical instant in which the circular process closes itself contains a mental act, the perception-act. Mental acts take place in indivisible points of time; they are really simple. The life-processes, on the contrary, through which our mind is stimulated to acts, in particular to perception-acts, are of temporally flowing, and so boundlessly composite, nature.

Seventeenth Lecture: The Punctuality of Mental Acts and the Pulse Theory of Consciousness#

Already the naive, uncorrupted human understanding recognises that our mental acts are non-intuitable. Modern psychology has robbed us of this fundamental insight. It is not our consciousness-acts that are triangular, but our phantasy-image, to which our consciousness-activity refers, is triangular. Psychologistics confuses this phantasm with the consciousness-acts that adhere to it. Our consciousness-acts are sensibly imperceptible because they have a punctual character. In what sense the single act of consciousness may count as infinitely fast. Two consciousness-acts cannot be performed simultaneously; between them there necessarily elapses a certain time. Much can be experienced at once, but mentally one can accomplish only one thing at a time. Purely logical proof of the fundamental proposition that our consciousness-acts are punctual or simple. From the punctuality or simplicity of the mental acts there follows their countability. We cannot count our mental acts immediately, because the referred act and the referring act cannot take place simultaneously. Since a referred act cannot be its own referring act, a mental act always already refers to a non-present mental act. Temporally separated acts can be referred to one another and thereby form a mental connexion. Mental connexions can subsist only if a persisting mental being, an I, subsists. The I is no mere act, but a being. Vital connexion of mental acts. Laying-apart of a judgement-act into conceptual acts, and gathering-together of conceptual acts into a judgement-act. Unity of consciousness is possible only on the foundation of the intermittency-theory. It is owing to intermittency that we can fall into error. As the error kat’ exochén we must regard the confusion of life-process and mental act. Mental acts are indeed countable, but not measurable. There are no “psychophysical,” but only vital-mechanical methods of measurement. New theory of estimation and measurement. Estimations prove the existence of vital processes. Psychology as the doctrine of the mental pulses.

Gentlemen! All physical processes, whether they be of mechanical or of vital kind, flow in time, and all that flows in time is a physical process. Of mental processes, consciousness-processes or psychical appearances, however, there may never at all be talk, because a mind can only be active, and its deeds or acts have a wholly instantaneous character — that is, they take place each time in an indivisible (mathematical) time-point. Modern psychology confuses the flowing stream of experiences with the mental acts in which they flow together, or, more exactly spoken, it does not

at all arrive at the concept of a mental act; it is, according to its essential content, a denial of the existence of psychical activities. In this respect it is a unique and unexampled science, for one will scarcely find another science that would directly deny the existence of its own object. It gives itself the appearance as though it merely denied the “soul” or “soul-substance,” but in reality it negates every mental doing, and sets in its place flowingly vital processes, which it of course necessarily falsifies, because it must pass them off for psychical processes.

Everyone who has not, through occupation with philosophy and science, deprived himself of his natural power of judgement, knows that mental acts are nothing of such a kind as one could touch, behold, hearken to, smell or taste. One is also wont to express this by saying that mental acts are nothing sensible. Modern psychology has robbed us of the recognition of this fundamental truth, which is just as evident as, for example, the proposition that a circle is no straight line. If I perceive, for example, something red, or think of any red object, then it is not my perception-act or thought-act that is red, but merely the direct or inverse phantasm is red, with which my mental act is united. If I think of a triangle, then it is not my thought that is triangular, but merely the phantasm is triangular, with which my mental acts are bound. The elementary truth, that our perception-acts and in general thought-acts cannot in themselves be red, green, sweet, bitter, triangular, spherical, and so on, was obscured, so that in the place of the mental activities the phantasms could be set, which form the vital substrate of our mental activity. The consequence of this darkening of the human mind was that the nature of our phantasms too was wholly mistaken, indeed that the problems of the vital phantasy-function vanished altogether from scientific discussion.

The naive, uncorrupted understanding knows, as said, that mental acts are nothing sensible, but it is unable to give itself any clear account: 1. how one can have a cognisance of the existence of mental acts, since they are after all sensibly not perceptible; 2. upon what it rests that a mental act remains inaccessible to our sense-perception? The first of these two problems we shall treat later; the solution of the second problem is already contained in the previous lecture. Our mental acts are punctual — that is, they take up no time-duration, they fill out no temporal interval, but take place at the absolutely exact boundary of past and future, in the absolute present or the absolute now, and for this reason cannot be sensibly perceived.

This apprehension of the mental acts seems to be a wholly novel one, but is at bottom nothing less than novel, for an inkling of the same is found even among the unlearned and unspoiled multitude. One is wont to say that thought is infinitely fast, and one is, with this assertion, in the full right, if by infinite speed one understands nothing further than that the single mental act in itself requires for its unfolding no time-duration; if, however, one adds at once that one can pass from the one mental act to the other only by means of temporally flowing life-processes, so that between two mental acts there necessarily lies a measurable temporal interval differing from zero. A person is unable to perform two mental acts at one stroke. This is a fundamental law of all human mental activity, which was indeed always surmised, but, like so many another fundamental law, was wholly mistaken by modern psychology. We have in this law a new expression for the fundamental difference between mental acts and life-processes. Much can be experienced at once, but mentally one can accomplish only one thing. Our life-process consists of countless simultaneously flowing processes, and our consciousness is beleaguered by a fullness of simultaneously flowing sensations, feelings and phantasms, but our mind is unable in a given instant to produce two or more simultaneous acts. Could we accomplish two mental acts at the same time, then this would mean that the speed in the succession of the mental acts had become infinitely great, that we therefore needed no time-duration at all in order to come from one act to the other, and consequently could perform arbitrarily many mental acts in an indivisible time-point. We then need not laboriously drag ourselves from one thought to the other, but would have grasped an infinite world of thoughts in a durationless time-point. We should be gods.

Whoever cannot reconcile himself with the punctual character of our mental acts, let him put to himself the question, how indeed we can at all arrive at the concept of a mathematical time-point? Is there, say, any such sensible happening — for example, a movement — that we could place into a mathematical time-point? Certainly not. And yet we are capable of thinking of that absolute now which in an absolutely sharp manner separates the past from the future. Whoever doubts this would have to assert that we are able to think of no absolute now, but merely of an empirical now, and that this empirical now must have a certain small time-duration, must therefore last, for example, a second*

[Author’s note:] Or, if one prefers, a thousandth of a second, or any arbitrarily small temporal interval.

long. Then, however, he would also be compelled to assert that the first half of the second and its second half take place simultaneously, which is an obvious absurdity. Since, then, it suffers no doubt that our concept of time could not subsist if we were unable to think of an absolute now, of a mathematical time-point, the question arises how this thinking is possible — that is, by means of what we actually mark off that absolute now, since nowhere is there to be found any such sensible happening as would be suited for the marking-off of a mathematical time-point. The answer to this question can only be the following: in that we think of an absolute now, we use this thought-act itself in order, by means of it, to mark off an absolute now. For supposing the mental act too had a certain time-duration, just like any arbitrary sensible happening, then the mental act itself too would be unfit for the marking-off of a mathematical time-point — that is, we should be incapable of thinking of a mathematical time-point. As certainly, then, as we human beings have a concept of time, so certainly do we also have a concept of the mathematical time-point, and just as certainly does the thought-act, by which we mark it off, take place in the mathematical time-point. This is the purely logical proof for the punctuality of our mental acts.

However little anyone may think of the human power of understanding, he should yet say to himself that we are at least capable, in thought, of setting absolutely sharp boundaries in the sensible world-happening. Sensible marks for these absolutely sharp boundaries there are, to be sure, none, because the sensible is something flowing. If, then, I assert that our sensations flow, our mental acts on the contrary are punctual, then I live in the conviction of having said something that everyone must necessarily say to himself, if he considers that by means of sensing one cannot set any absolutely sharp boundaries, but by means of mind one does set absolutely sharp boundaries. To me it seems to be a so-called “self-evidence” that our life-processes are of flowing and infinitely composite nature, our mental acts on the contrary of punctual and simple nature, for our sensibility disposes only over flowing marks, but our understanding sets absolutely sharp (punctual) marks at the spatial and temporal boundaries of things and happenings. From this there springs in fact an incongruence of human nature. We demand, by virtue of our mental nature, mathematical points as boundaries between things and happenings, but our vital nature, or rather our phantasy, is unable to produce such boundary-points. This fact it is that, thought through exactly, yields the principle of the flowing character of the life-processes and the intermittently punctual character of our mental acts.

From the intermittently-punctual character of our mental acts it follows that mental acts are in themselves something countable, whereby, however, it is by no means yet to be said that we possess a method by whose help we could really count them. How little we know our own mental activity may be measured from this, that we must hold the mere counting of our mental acts to be a problem that scarcely any problem of mathematics or of mathematical physics equals in difficulty; for already the mere insight into the countability of the mental acts must be regarded as a fundamental discovery in the science of human consciousness-activity. Also one must, before one enters more closely upon the idea of a real counting of our mental acts, first give an account of why we cannot count the same in an immediate manner, as we count any arbitrary palpable things or periodic happenings.

The answer to this delicate question is the following: a mental act that we perform never gives cognisance of itself, but always of something else. If I think, for example, of my friend X, then my mental activity is at first bound to the phantasm of this friend, so that another mental act is needed in order to be able to say to myself that I was just now occupied with a thought of my friend. It is something different to have one’s friend in mind, or to have in mind that one has him in mind. In short, a mental act a can always be ascertained only through another mental act a₂ that refers to the former. All mental activity of the human being is a relative, a relation-bearing activity. (Principle of the relativity of thought.) Were one now to wish to count one’s own mental acts, then in the same mathematical instant in which a mental act a takes place there would have to take place simultaneously the counting-act a₂ referring to the same. This simultaneity would, however, be unconditionally required, in order that the course of the mental acts to be counted be not interrupted through the course of the counting-acts, and in order that one be not compelled to count in their turn the acts of the counting too. Since now, however, two acts cannot be performed simultaneously, it is impossible to count one’s own mental acts immediately. This consideration furnishes us a new insight into the nature of our mental activity. No mental act can grasp itself; there is always needed another mental act by means of which one grasps it, refers oneself to it — that is, to a performed act. If one calls the act a₁, to which one refers oneself, the referred act [bezogener Akt]bezogener Akt — referred act: the prior act that a later act takes as its object., the act a₂ on the contrary, by means of which one refers oneself to a₁, the referring act [beziehender Akt]beziehender Akt — referring act: the present act that refers itself to an earlier, referred act. The pair encapsulates the relativity of thought: an act can never be its own referring act., then one may pronounce it as a fundamental law of human thinking, that a referred act cannot at the same time be its own referring act. Against

this fundamental proposition there is continually sinned in logic, for most thinkers are of the view that a mental act can refer to itself, and that precisely herein “self-consciousness” consists, as I could prove with a great quantity of citations. There is, however, no falser view of the nature of our consciousness-activity than when one believes that a referred act could at the same time be its own referring act. Only a being that could accomplish two or arbitrarily many mental acts at the same time would have the capacity to make the referred act at the same time into its own referring act. Whoever, then, believes that any one of his mental acts refers to itself, holds himself for a god. To hold oneself for a god, however, is one of the most everyday logical errors of the most everyday children of man.

Since now a referred act can never be its own referring act, the referred act is always already a temporally past one in the moment in which the referring act takes place. We always refer ourselves to already-past mental acts and live in the illusion that the referred acts, in the moment in which we refer ourselves to them, are still present. This illusion causes it that a science of consciousness-activity is unable to come up. To free oneself from this illusion is the first condition for the building-up of a scientific psychology and theory of knowledge. The wonder of our own mental activity consists in this, that the referred mental acts already belong to the past while the referring acts take place: that, therefore, referred and referring mental acts fall temporally apart and, despite this temporal falling-apart, form a mental connexion. We refer ourselves, by means of a mental act a₂, to the mental act a₁ quite as though a₁ were still present — that is, the mental belonging-together of the two acts lets us overlook the fact that between them a vital process had to run its course, which takes up a certain time-duration, be it even only a very slight fraction of a second. Mental acts can form a mental connexion, although they must fall temporally apart; this is the significant principle of the unity of human consciousness [Einheit des Bewußtseins]Einheit des Bewußtseins — unity of consciousness: the binding of temporally separated mental acts into a single connexion through the persisting I, possible (Palágyi argues) only on the foundation of intermittency..

This principle could never be clearly formulated, because the necessary temporal falling-apart of mental acts that form a mental connexion was never clearly recognised and pronounced. It was, however, impossible to formulate this temporal falling-apart in a determinate manner, because the mental acts were not recognised as intermittent and punctual, but were confused with the flowing vital processes in whose stream the mental acts, as it were, flash up.

Only he who learns to distinguish the vital stream of sensations, feelings and phantasms from the mental acts that flash up in that stream at certain (short) temporal intervals, only he is able to wonder at the fact of the unity of our consciousness; for only to him does it become clear that temporally falling-apart mental acts belong together so intimately as though they took place simultaneously. And only he who wonders at this can also raise the great problem: how it is possible that temporally falling-apart mental acts form a mental connexion, as though they took place simultaneously. This is the problem of the I.

In order to comprehend this problem, one must well distinguish the vital connexion of the mental acts from their mental connexion. All mental acts that a human being performs in the course of his life stand in a vital connexion — that is, they are bound with one another through the life-process of the human being in question. The mental acts that someone performs in the fourth month of his earthly life stand in this sense in a merely vital connexion with the mental acts of his fortieth year of life. But temporally very near-lying mental acts too can be mentally unconnected and have merely a vital connexion. If, for example, a person taking a walk is occupied with a series of thoughts R₁, and, catching sight by chance of a flower, plucks it apart in order to get to know its constituents, then the series of thoughts R₂, which occupied him during the plucking-apart of the flower, hangs together with the series of thoughts R₁ only in a vital manner. But what is to be understood by a specifically mental connexion can most easily be demonstrated by the following example.

If someone reads a book, then he must take cognisance of the sense of the single successive words in successive time-points. If, for example, the successive words A₁, A₂, A₃, A₄ form a sentence A, then the sense of the same has been grasped in the successive time-points t₁, t₂, t₃, t₄ and t₅, for there is needed yet a special act t₅ in order to grasp the sense of the whole sentence, which becomes apparent from this, that we can at times indeed have well understood the sense of the single words of a sentence without having also grasped the sense of the sentence. It is an act of quite another kind through which we grasp the sense of a sentence than that through which we understand the sense of the single words that form the sentence; also the mental act of sentence-understanding can never coincide temporally with the mental acts of word-understanding, because we can in general never perform two mental acts simultaneously. If I wish to pronounce any assertion, then I have in general performed the sentence-forming mental act temporally earlier and lay the same out afterwards in a series of word-forming mental acts,

whereas, on the contrary, the person who hears my assertion is compelled first to comprehend the sense of the single words and only afterwards to step to the sentence-forming act. But what is the chief thing, and what here principally interests us, is the fact that all our mental acts lie temporally apart, and that we are nevertheless capable of gathering mental word-contents together into a mental sentence-content as though the word-contents and the sentence-content had been thought absolutely simultaneously. It is as though there were mental brackets, through which the temporally successive word-contents, although they already belong to the past, are yet bound to the afterwards-thought sentence-content in such a manner as though they were all simultaneously present in the sentence-content. This peculiar “virtual being-present” of many temporally separated mental acts in a single mental act awakens in us the illusion as though we were really capable of performing many mental acts at one stroke, where we in reality yet possess only the incomparably more wretched capacity of referring ourselves, with a present mental act, to many past mental acts, and either of “laying apart” a mental act into many temporally successive mental acts, or, conversely, of “gathering together” many temporally separated acts into a single mental act.

That we are capable, as it were by means of mental brackets, of establishing relations between temporally falling-apart mental acts, as though these mental acts did not fall temporally apart, but were enduringly present: that is the wonder which is designated with the name “unity of consciousness,” and which compels us to apprehend all our mental acts as the acts of an “I.” For without this “I” all our mental acts, since they lie temporally apart, would also have to fall mentally apart. This “I” is in itself no mental act among the remaining mental acts, for otherwise it could, just as little as the remaining temporally separated acts, establish a unitary connexion, but is a persisting mental being, which precisely in consequence of its enduring being-ness is able to bring temporally separated acts into a mental connexion. That modern psychologism denies this mental being need not astonish us: for it, after all, there are also no mental acts and mental connexions, in distinction from life-processes and vital connexions. A science that calls itself “psychology” and negates the mental activity of the human being is only consistent if it also regards the mental being in the human being, our I, as non-existing.

One is, then, caught in an error if one believes that the intermittency and the punctuality of our mental

acts make the “unity of our consciousness” into an impossibility; on the contrary, there can be talk of a unity of human consciousness exclusively only on the foundation of the intermittency and the punctuality of our mental acts. For only where mental acts lie temporally apart is there need of a unification of the same. Whoever, however, assumes a flowing consciousness-activity, he denies in the one moment human consciousness altogether, in order in the next moment to make of the human being, robbed of his consciousness, a god. For did consciousness flow, then there would be nothing that would mark any boundary-points whatsoever in its stream; it would be a consciousnessless mash, the primal chaos of Greek mythology. In the next instant, however, this flowing consciousness can appear in the light of omniscience, because a consciousness flowing along with the appearances would have to grasp these appearances in all their infinitely small sections and to see absolutely through them.

Through the doctrine of the flowing life-process and the intermittent, punctual mental acts, on the contrary, the human being is characterised in accordance with his real nature. We recognise him in his limitedness and in his greatness, in his fever for truth and in his bliss-in-error. The intermittency of the mental acts unveils to us, namely, the insufficiency of his power of perception and at the same time also of his understanding: a being that is able to be mentally active only in an intermittent manner lives necessarily in a world of phantasms, which flow together out of infinitely many elementary processes impenetrable to his understanding. An intermittent mental activity has, however, also as its consequence that two mental acts cannot be performed at one stroke, that therefore the referred act cannot at the same time be its own referring act, and that the unity of consciousness can always be established only through “reference” of the acts to one another and to the I, but never through the real presence of many acts in one act. Now, however, such a being with intermittent mental activity is at the same time also conscious of the insufficiency of its power of perception and of understanding, and upon this rests its greatness. For it is able not only to grasp the thought of an infinite power of perception, or, what says the same, of an infinite understanding, but also to resolve to come step by step nearer to the same, whereby of course the attaining of this ideal remains an impossibility. It uses, namely, its understanding in order to construct such a world-picture as corresponds to a higher mobility, or rather a higher power of perception, than those with which it is originally outfitted — that is, it creates for itself machines that replace for it the lack of a higher mobility, or rather power of perception. But it uses also its

understanding in order to test this latter itself, and to get to know the infirmities of the same, so that, for the support of its understanding-activity, it may devise ever more perfect conceptual symbols, which symbols are properly to be regarded as a kind of mental machines, by means of which the mind knows how to master and to steer its own activity better than by means of the primitive symbols of the naive understanding.

But however much an intermittent mental activity, such as that of the human being, is able, as it were, to raise itself above itself, and to drive itself, working actively, towards a higher development, in that it keeps the ideal of an absolute intelligence in the mental eye: it yet remains at every stage of development beset on all sides by errors; indeed, it seems that the higher stages of development increase the dangers of the logical self-shattering of thought, so that most human beings feel an involuntary dread before deeper thinking, a dread that is comparable to the intense feeling of fear that seizes us at the edge of deep abysses.

But upon what does it rest that, in all striving after knowledge, we remain everywhere threatened by error? The rationalists trace back all our errings to sensibility and to the deceptions of the senses — that is, they make at bottom the animal-vital process (sensing, feeling and phantasy) responsible for the going-astray. The sensualists, on the contrary, are enamoured of the sensations and mistrust no one so much as the “understanding”; but since they do not acknowledge the existence of properly mental acts, there remains nothing else for them than to explain the sensibly graspable symbols of mental activity, namely the words, as the source of all errings (nominalism). Both parties are wholly in the wrong, for a life-process is in itself something just as innocent as any mental act. The error is to be explained neither out of the vital nor out of the mental nature, but out of the whole human being. The mode of conjunction of the mental activity with the life-process — which comes to expression through the intermittent character of the mental activity and the flowing character of the life-process — bears the guilt that we can err. A being that is able to come from one mental act to the other only by means of a life-process connecting the two acts, whose mental acts therefore, by virtue of this mode of conjunction, fall temporally apart, cannot possibly be wholly free from error. For since we can refer ourselves to a mental act always only by means of another, no mental act can grasp itself, so that it becomes possible to deny the existence of the mental act and to hold the life-process, which binds the mental acts with one another, for a mental activity. The confusion of the vital

process with the mental activity is, however, the error of all errors: the error kat’ exochén. The source of the possibility of all human erring is to be sought in this, that we can hold for mental what is merely alive, or for alive what is merely mental. For in that we do not rightly distinguish what we merely think from what we experience, we necessarily falsify both the experienced and the thought; we falsify, along with the experienced reality, at the same time also the thought. The epochal significance of psychologism in its conventionally predominant shape rests upon this, that it attempts to spin out the error of all errors, the confusion of vitality and mentality, into a philosophical system.

It is the character-trait of modern thinking that, in the boldness of its logical going-astray, it outbids all that was ever produced in antiquity in the way of errors. Hopefully this is merely an accompanying phenomenon of that grandly unfettered urge for knowledge by which the new age is characterised. Hamilton’s sayingSir William Hamilton (1788–1856), Scottish philosopher and logician; the dictum “Better a living error than a dead truth” (in his Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic) is here cited as emblematic of the modern temper.: Better a living error than a dead truth, is very characteristic for that bold forward-pressing, where a great going-astray is gladly taken into the bargain if it can be regarded as a means to the discovery of a truth. It seems that without the philosophy of sensation a modern thinking could not at all have come about. One had to make the attempt to set forth the animal-vital process as a psychical activity, in order that, through this confusion of the living with the mental, a powerful stimulus be given to separate the two as clearly as possible, without abolishing their unity, and at the same time to investigate both in such a measure as was not yet possible in antiquity.

The first step towards the founding of an exact psychology is the recognition that our mental acts have an intermittent-punctual character and must consequently be countable. A measurement of psychical acts is, however, an impossibility, because in such an act there is nothing measurable to be found: neither a spatial extension, nor a temporal duration; neither a palpable quality, nor a feeling-wise intensity. When, especially since Fechner, there is talk of psychical methods of measurement, then this mode of expression rests upon the conventional confusion of our fundamental concepts of mentality and vitality. But vital processes too are in themselves something thoroughly unmeasurable. Vital processes can be subject to a magnitude-estimation, but cannot be measured. Measurability belongs only to the mechanical (physico-chemical) processes. Already the simple fact that we are capable of magnitude-estimation and magnitude-measurement has a fundamental significance for the whole of human knowledge; for already this fact proves that we must necessarily distinguish vital and mechanical

processes. This it is that neither the vitalists nor the mechanists recognised in their endless disputes. How comes it that we can also estimate magnitudes and not only measure them; indeed, that a being which had no magnitude-estimation would also be incapable of any magnitude-measurement? What is the difference between estimating and measuring? Why can a mere estimating never at the same time be a measuring? Why can a measurement never be performed with such exactness that no estimation creeps into it? These are fundamental questions of the theory of science, which were never meritoriously discussed, indeed not really even raised. One gladly evades them, because the whole riddle of the vital and the mechanical lies concealed in them. The riddle of the living and the non-living, translated into the epistemological, is nothing further than the great riddle of estimation and of measurement.

Had Fechner put to himself the questions just raised, then he would at once have recognised that the experiments that occupied him were not “psychophysical,” but “vital-mechanical” experiments. Who would wish to subject mental or psychical acts to a magnitude-estimation or magnitude-measurement? And who does not see that it is always vital processes that are estimated in comparison to one another, but always mechanical processes that are measured against one another? If someone measures the length of a straight line with some measure, then he expects that another person, entrusted with the same measurement, will obtain a very approximate result, for one measures on things always only that which is the object of common perception — that is, one measures on them merely the mechanical. Now, however, a measurement can never be absolutely exact, partly because the things to be measured against one another are mechanically (physico-chemically) variable, partly because into every measuring a magnitude-estimation necessarily plays in, as was already emphasised in an earlier lecture. If one lays, for example, two lengths against one another, then it can happen that a person A finds the end-points a and a¹, further β and β₁, of the two lengths as wholly coinciding, whereas a person B opines that a and a¹ do indeed coincide, but that β and β₁ do not exactly cover one another, and that consequently the two lengths are not quite equal. For the one observer two points flow together where for the second they do not yet flow together. This rests evidently upon the vital processes of the two persons, or rather upon their faculty of estimation. One can now compare the various estimation-achievements of several persons with one another, or also make experiments upon how the estimation-achievements of one and the same person vary under different circumstances. From this there springs a science of the vital estimation-achievements, which is falsely designated as psychophysics,

and whose principles must first be worked out. To be sure, every estimation-achievement is always a mental doing, but it is never our mental acts whose magnitudes we compare with one another, but it is our own animal-vital processes that we estimate against one another. The significance of the estimation-achievements is at first to be sought in this, that they furnish an irrefutable proof for the existence of vital processes. If, then, any “mechanical monist” (a materialist) tells us that it must after all finally succeed to trace back all life-processes to mechanical ones, then we must make him attentive to this, that it can never succeed to carry out an absolutely exact measurement, because into every measurement a vital moment flows in as a “source of error.” The tracing-back of the vital processes to mechanical ones would be equivalent to the elimination of the vital sources of error from our measurements — that is, equivalent to the absolutely exact measurement. But as certainly as an absolutely exact measurement can never be reached, so certainly can the vital (individual) moment not be eliminated from our measurements, and just as certainly can the vital, in distinction from the mechanical, never be denied.

The experimental and mathematical investigation of our estimation-achievements has further the grand significance that the animal-vital can be measured in an indirect manner, and that accordingly a strict science of vital processes becomes just as possible as a strict science of mechanical processes. Vitalism ceases to be a romping-place of vague controversies and becomes a doctrine set on a par with mechanism. For if the vital moment presses itself in a quite unbidden manner into our measurement-operations, then we can answer this importunity by, conversely, carrying the methods of measurement in a just as unbidden manner into the estimation-achievements. We can check over our estimations with the methods of measuring, and arrive thereby at a measuring biology, in the vitalistic sense of this word. If, then, one divests Fechnerian psychophysics of that mystical confusion of concepts through which its sense and its proper intention is wholly distorted, then it ceases to be a psychophysics and becomes a measuring vitalism. The method of this measuring vitalism can, however, be characterised briefly and popularly in the following manner: estimation-achievements are varied in a suitable manner and controlled through methods of measurement.

While, then, estimation was ever only a most unwelcome adjunct of our methods of measurement and represented an eternal vexation of mechanistic natural research,

our age finally arrives at the insight that it is quite superfluous to vex oneself over the unavoidable, and far more advisable to make a virtue of necessity; for was estimation hitherto a mere foe of our measurements, which can never be driven off, it is yet at least possible, through the reversal of our tactics, to attack estimation and to encircle it as far as possible through measurement, so that it may betray to us its vitalistic secrets.

Measuring vitalism must above all set itself the task of measuring the vital processes, according to their time-duration, in an indirect manner, in that it presses a vital process between the temporal boundary-marks of two mechanical processes (as it were encircled from both sides) and, through the measurement of the mechanical boundary-marks, gains a fairly approximate measure for the time-duration of the vital processes. For if a very short-lasting mechanical process m₁ immediately precedes the vital process v, and a short-lasting mechanical process m₂ follows it, then the temporal distance of the two mechanical processes m₁ and m₂ can be measured, and thereby the time-duration of the vital process v can be ascertained in an approximate manner; and this all the more, because the approximate time-duration of the two bounding mechanical processes m₁ and m₂ can likewise be determined.

Upon this rests the epochal significance of the so-called “reaction-experiments,” which one was wont commonly to designate as the measurement of psychical times, or briefly also as “psychical measurement.” While the learned disputed, and even today still dispute, whether there are vital processes in distinction from mechanical processes, there had already been gained noteworthy methods of locking vital processes between the boundary-marks of mechanical processes and thereby making them temporally measurable. The same Helmholtz who nourished the apprehension that vitalism might lead to a disavowal of the mechanistic principle of the conservation of energy, and who for this reason remained averse to the vitalistic doctrine, was — as we shall see in the next lecture — engaged with the greatest zeal in making vital processes temporally measurable. For it is one thing to measure and again another to know what was actually measured.

The highest theoretical significance of the indirect vitalistic measurements rests, however, upon this, that they contain the prospect of the possibility of an indirect counting of the mental acts. Mental acts are, namely, bound with one another through animal-vital processes, and if it succeeds to measure animal-vital processes that bind two immediately successive mental acts, then the way of an experimental counting of our mental acts is paved. I call the time-interval of two im-

mediately successive mental acts, when they are homogeneous, a mental pulse-beat. If the mental acts that are immediately bound with one another through a life-process are heterogeneous, then there must be talk of a “transition-pulse.” The investigation of the mental pulses forms the proper task of scientific psychology. It is a pulse theory of human consciousness [Pulslehre des Bewußtseins].Pulslehre des Bewußtseins — pulse theory of consciousness: Palágyi’s name for the renewed psychology, which studies the intervals (pulses) between successive mental acts rather than treating consciousness as a flowing stream.

Eighteenth Lecture: Vitalistic Measurement, the Personal Equation, and the Necessity of the Concept of Matter#

Vitalistic measurement. The concept of reaction time. Astronomers found vitalistic measurement-methods; physiologists take them over and carry them further. The epochal significance of Bessel’s “personal equations” for modern biology and psychology. Bessel recognised that disparate modes of perception disturb one another; Wundt mistakes this fundamental principle of the theory of perception. Proof that matter is a concept necessary to thought. New foundation of metaphysics.

Gentlemen! Every measurement must be carried out by some person, and so there finally creeps into every measurement — whatever artificial arrangements one may also contrive — an individual, a vital moment, which to the purely mechanistic natural researcher represents nothing further than a vexatious source of error in his measurement-results. To whoever is wholly filled with the passion for exact measurements, everything vital easily appears in the peculiar light, as though it were a repugnant Something that spoils the most beautiful measurement-operations. One cannot take it too greatly amiss of an inveterate mechanist if he falls into such a one-sided mode of thinking; so much the more, however, is it to be reproached in the biologist if he conducts himself as though, for him too, the vital moment were nothing further than a source of error in our exact measurements, and as though the sole sin of living beings consisted in this, that they are alive. What for the mechanist remains a mere measurement-error must, for the biologist, become the most interesting object of his investigations. Quite especially, as the astronomers first noticed, there mingles into every fixing of a time-point a vital moment, the investigation of which is of the highest biological interest and in fact led to the formation of a vitalistic measurement-method, which was designated by the physiologist S. ExnerSigmund Exner (1846–1926), Austrian physiologist and pupil of Helmholtz; he introduced the term “reaction time” (Reaktionszeit) into physiology. with the name: measurement of the “reaction time” [Reaktionszeit].

One understands by the reaction time that time-interval which is required in order to perceive a sense-impression and to react to this perception with an unhesitating movement. The reaction-process is thus, even in its simplest shape, a most complicated process, in which a

series of mental acts is enclosed. Everyday life offers unceasingly examples of “reaction-processes,” for it belongs to our everyday doing and dealing to make sense-perceptions, to be pressed by the same towards some thoughts and resolves, and also to carry out these latter. The more thoughts insert themselves between the made sense-perception and the movement-reaction with which we answer the perception, the more complicated the reaction-process becomes. Fairly simple reaction-processes are, for example, the following: someone knocks at our door and we call out unhesitatingly: Come in. Someone calls our name and we turn the head unhesitatingly in the direction whence the call comes. Someone directs a question at us and we say unhesitatingly yes or no. We perceive during fencing that the opponent makes an attacking movement, and we carry out unhesitatingly the parrying movement. The conductor gives a signal and the driver of the tramcar grasps unhesitatingly after the braking-apparatus, and so on.

In that one seeks to measure the time-duration of reaction-processes, one really makes a scientific grasp into the full human life. It scarcely needs to be said, however, that such measurements cannot at first be carried out upon highly complicated life-processes, but that one must be at pains to construct a reaction-process of the greatest possible simplicity and to subject this to a temporal measurement. So, for example, a test-person (a reagent) is prepared for the fact that it will presently hear a sound-impression (or a visual impression, touch-impression, etc.), and one charges it at the same time to make the perception known unhesitatingly through a movement, through the releasing of a reaction-key. Such a reaction-process is called a “simple” one; but since the expression can mislead to misunderstandings, it is more expedient to designate it as a primary one. For the measurement of its time-duration one most conveniently employs the ingeniously constructed Hipp clockThe “Hipp chronoscope,” an electromagnetic timing device invented by Matthäus Hipp (1813–1893), reading to thousandths of a second; standard apparatus in early reaction-time research., which permits one to read off thousandth parts of a second. With the help of contrivances that need not here be described, the applied sound-stimulus (colour-stimulus, electrical stimulus), which acts upon the test-person, registers itself of its own accord in the moment of its beginning, in that it sets the hands of the Hipp clock in motion. Through the releasing of the reaction-key the clock comes to a standstill, so that it permits one to read off the duration of the time-interval between the beginning of the mechanical stimulus and the releasing of the key. This time varies, in respect of sound-impressions, between 180σ (Donders) and 120σ (Kries), whereby σ is used as the sign for the thousandth part of a second. Where it does not come down to exactness, one may say that the reaction time in general varies between 1/7 and 1/9 second.

The technique of reaction-measurements is a fairly difficult one, and the researchers are zealously at pains to develop it as rigorously as possible. Unfortunately the progress in the apprehension of the reaction-process does not keep equal step with the fine progress in the technique of the same. One still always speaks of “psychical” measurements, where it is a question of vitalistic measurements, and the properly bad thing about this state of affairs is: that the apprehensions of the mental acts and vital processes which are contained in the primary reaction-process diverge widely. One institutes the most comprehensive and most careful measurements, without really knowing what is being measured. This evil makes itself, moreover, very often noticeable in measurements generally, for in order to know what one measures, one must already have very developed concepts of the processes to be measured. Now, however, the conventional sensation-, representation-, association-, and apperception-scholastic sets itself inimically in the way of the unbiased and sober apprehension of the measurement-results. Whoever, for example, lives in the imagination that he is measuring “psycho-physical” processes can attain to no somehow intelligible apprehension of the primary reaction-process, or rather of the constituents of the same, for he lacks the elementary insight that the psychical cannot be measured. Mental acts take up no time-duration, and the whole so-called reaction time consists of nothing but vital sections, since the mental acts represent only mathematical boundary-points of these vital sections. Since, further, the vital processes that make up the reaction-process are accompanied by physico-chemical processes which run their course in the nervous system, one may say that (apart from slight corrections) the reaction time is taken up by nerve-processes. It does, to be sure, last for a certain time until, for example, the auditory stimulus presses from the sound-source to the auditory nerve, but the measurement-error that springs from this is a very slight one and can, if need be, be calculated. It is also to be considered that the reaction-process ends with a muscle-contraction, whose duration can show great fluctuations and, as Wundt too emphasises, has a strong share in the fact that the results of the reaction-measurements show a comparatively great non-uniformity.[Author’s note:] Upon the duration of these muscle-contractions I have made measurement-experiments, which I shall publish in a special work.

But although the significance of the reaction-measurements is very much obscured and their further and higher development almost frustrated, they nevertheless represent a landmark in the history of vitalism. The striving too towards the founding of an exact psychology, as a science of the mental pulses of the human being, receives its strongest stimulus from the doctrine of

the reaction-measurements. It will therefore be expedient to cast a glance at the history of these measurements, not, say, in order to heap up historical data, but in order to designate the paths which vitalistic measurement must take in order, on the one hand, to found an exact doctrine of the animal-vital processes, on the other hand also to make possible the formation of an exact psychology.

As is well known, it was astronomers from whom the impulse to the measurement of reaction times went out. One need not wonder over this, for astronomy is indeed a science that has to do in an outstanding manner with time-determinations and in this point shows a peculiar kinship with vitalistic measurement, which goes out in the first place upon time-determinations.

What the astronomers began, the physiologists continued in a glorious manner. There come into consideration, for our purposes, the works of four authors, whom I enumerate in their historical sequence:

1. 1814–1834. Bessel’s work on “personal equations” in transit-observations. (Abhandlungen of F. W. Bessel, ed. by R. Engelmann, Vol. III, pp. 300–304.)

2. 1850–1852. Two works of Helmholtz on the propagation-speed of the excitation in the nerves. To these are joined two investigations carried out with Baxt from the years 1870–1871. (Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen of H. Helmholtz, Vol. II, pp. 764, 844, 939, 947.)

3. 1864. The work of the Swiss astronomers Hirsch and Plantamour on the telegraphic determination of the longitude-difference between the observatories at Geneva and Neuchâtel. (Détermination télégraphique etc. Genève et Bâle 1864, Chez H. Georg, in 4to, avec 4 planches.)

4. 1868. The treatise of Donders on the rapidity of psychical processes. (Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie. Ed. by C. B. Reichert and E. Du Bois-Reymond. Year 1868, pp. 657–681.)

For the astronomer it is of importance that he determine, with the greatest possible exactness, the time-point of the transit of a star through the meridian, or rather through the middle vertical thread of a transit-telescope. The transit of a star through the meridian falls in general not together with a stroke of the seconds-pendulum, but it falls into the time-interval of two successive strokes of the seconds-pendulum. Now in order to be able to estimate also the tenth-parts of the second at which the transit of the star ensues, one makes use, since BradleyJames Bradley (c. 1692–1762), third Astronomer Royal, discoverer of the aberration of light; the “eye-and-ear method” of timing stellar transits came into general use through him., of the following procedure: one notes the place that the star occupied in the thread-net of the telescope at the last pendulum-stroke before the transit of the star through the meridian; further, one notes the place of the star at

the first pendulum-stroke after the transit through the meridian, and determines, from the position of the two places, through a most simple calculation, that tenth-part of the second in which the stellar transit [Sterndurchgang] took place. It is this the famous eye-and-ear method (also called the pointing-method), in which, as one sees, two senses, the hearing and the sight, are to be used in a peculiarly combined manner, since one must follow with the eye a moving luminous point, in order to note the place at which the point found itself in the moment when one just heard a pendulum-stroke. This combined use of two modes of perception in one observation gave the impulse to the reshaping of the theory of perception and consequently of the doctrine of consciousness generally.

In that combined use of two senses there makes itself felt, namely, between different observing individuals, a personal difference which the astronomers for a long time did not notice, as the classical case of MaskelyneNevil Maskelyne (1732–1811), fifth Astronomer Royal at Greenwich; in 1795–96 he dismissed his assistant David Kinnebrook for recording stellar transits progressively later than himself — the incident from which Bessel later derived the personal equation. and his assistant shows. Maskelyne complains, in the 1795 volume of the observations at the observatory in Greenwich, that his assistant, Dr. Kinnebrook, had little by little accustomed himself to observe the transits of the stars through the threads of the noon-telescope later than he (Maskelyne) himself. In the year 1794 and at the beginning of the year 1795 the observations of the two still agreed with one another, but in the August of the last-named year the assistant began already to record the transits with 0.5 sec., and in the year 1796 even with 0.8 sec. delay, so that Maskelyne saw himself compelled to dismiss the assistant. He did not for one moment think that it could be grounded in the mental, or rather physical, organisation of two persons, if they arrive at different results upon application of the eye-and-ear method, but was of the conviction that the assistant had accustomed himself to a false method and had become unfit for transit-observations.

It was reserved for the genius of BesselFriedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1846), German astronomer and mathematician, director of the Königsberg observatory; the first to measure stellar parallax, and the founder of the doctrine of the “personal equation.” to apprehend the difference of the mentioned observation-results as a personal difference of the observers; as a difference that “will let itself be ascertained in any arbitrary two observing persons and consequently, also in an anthropological respect, seems to be in the highest degree remarkable.” Through observations at the noon-telescope carried out in common with some befriended astronomers (Walbeck, Argelander, Struve), he fixed the personal differences between himself and the friends in the form of so-called “personal equations” [persönliche Gleichungen]. It emerged that Bessel always observed earlier than the named three astronomers, and that the difference could exceed the value of a whole second. Peculiarly enough, the differences diminished when no

continuous transit, but sudden appearances were observed, or when, instead of the seconds-clock, such a one was brought into application as struck half-seconds. It was also established that the personal difference changes in the course of the years, and so on.

Bessel framed for himself, in respect of this personal difference, the following apprehension:

“If one assumes that impressions upon the eye and the ear cannot be compared with one another in one moment, and that two observers use different times for the transference of the one impression onto the other, then there arises a difference; a still greater one, however, when the one passes from seeing to hearing, the other from hearing to seeing; that different modes of observation can alter this difference need not surprise, if one assumes as probable that an impression upon one of the two senses alone is sensed either wholly or nearly in the same moment in which it takes place, and that only the supervening of a second impression brings forth a disturbance, which alters according to the different nature of the latter.”

In respect of the last passage of this citation it must be remarked that in Bessel’s time the propagation-speed of the excitation in the nerves was regarded as an immeasurable one. One generally paid homage to the apprehension that between the acting of the stimulus upon the sensing nerves and the becoming-conscious of this impression as good as no time at all elapses. From this false assumption Bessel inferred quite correctly that, so long as it is merely a question of the function of one sense-organ, a personal difference between two observers cannot subsist, since the time-duration of the becoming-conscious of an impression is for both observers equal: namely, as good as zero. A difference between two observers — so Bessel opines — can take place only when two different sensory functions combine themselves in such a manner as is the case with the eye-and-ear method. Here it can, namely, come about that the one person accomplishes the transition from the one mode of perception more rapidly than the other person, and the difference thus arising can experience yet a further heightening through the fact that the transition can be brought about in two senses (from seeing to hearing or, conversely, from hearing to seeing). This is the Besselian theory of the functioning-together of two modes of perception, a theory which was — to the highest detriment of psychology — wholly left out of account by the psychologists.

It is, to be sure, true that Bessel (like Johannes Müller too) still made for himself an inapt concept of the speed of the propagation of the excitation of the nerves, since he held this speed to be downright infinitely great. The delay that

every human perception necessarily suffers, because the mechanical process must first excite a vital circular process in the nervous system, was still unknown to him; he had also consequently to believe that the perception-process, since it is an infinitely fast, hence undelayed, one, takes up the same time-duration in all persons, or, more correctly, runs its course equally durationlessly. But apart from this so easily comprehensible prejudice, which he shared with all his contemporaries, Bessel displays, concerning the co-operation of two senses, an apprehension that lets his wonderfully sharp gift of observation appear in the most beautiful light. He was a master of the “eye-and-ear method,” and his view about the co-operation of two senses weighs more heavily in the balance than the opinion of many a psychologist who stands under the influence of the association-scholastic.

Bessel sets out from the assumption that impressions upon the eye and ear cannot be “compared” with one another in one moment. With this cautious mode of expression there is really nothing else said than what we called the fundamental law of our mental activity: namely that, quite generally, two mental acts cannot be carried out in the same moment. This principle holds specially also for perception-acts; for two perception-acts that belong to different sense-circles, or also to the same sense-circle, cannot come to execution simultaneously. It is very well possible that we grasp several impressions, which belong to the same sense-circle, with a single perception-act; indeed a perception-activity would be altogether impossible if the grasping of several homogeneous impressions with one act (with one glance) were not feasible; but it is something quite other to produce two acts or two glances simultaneously than to snatch up, with one act or one glance, a multiplicity of impressions. The former is impossible, the latter must be possible if a perception-activity is to take place at all.

Since the conventional psychology knows only one vital process and holds this to be the mental activity, there really exists for it no mental activity, no mental act, no mental glance. Consequently it also does not attain to the insight that two acts or two glances cannot be carried out simultaneously, but that it must be very well possible to snatch up, with one act or one glance, a plurality of impressions, because otherwise all perception would be frustrated. An impression must, namely, border upon other impressions, and since it is grasped only when its boundaries are grasped, there must necessarily play, into the glance through which we grasp the impression a, a series of bounding impressions b, c … The number of such simultaneously snatchable impressions can be subjected to an experimental testing,

and has in fact been tested; admittedly, without the experimenters having pronounced the proposition that it is a mental act with which we can grasp a plurality of impressions.

Impressions that belong to different sense-circles can, however, never be grasped with one and the same mental act. For let us assume that the vital process of an auditory phantasm a and of a visual phantasm b were grasped with the same perception-act: then they would have, since they pour themselves into the same act, to fuse with one another; that is, there would have to arise a new mode of sensation, which would be neither auditory nor yet visual sensation, but something lying between the two, that is, a kind of bastard-sensation. Now, sensations of the same kind can, to be sure, fuse with one another and form a mixed-sensation, and this mixability is precisely a criterion of the homogeneity of the sensations: but heterogeneous sensations are designated as heterogeneous precisely for this reason, because they are not mixable, that is, cannot be grasped with the same mental act. The fact, then, that auditory sensations and visual sensations cannot be mixed — that is, that there are no peculiar intermediate-sensations between colours and tones (which would be neither colours nor tones, but a middle-thing between the two) — is a new and decisive proof for the fact that we must well distinguish the vital processes of sensation from the mental acts through which we perceive them. For if the visual sensations did not necessarily have to be perceived through another mental act than the auditory sensations, then it would not be comprehensible why they could not “psychically” flow together just as well as any arbitrary homogeneous sensations. (I use here the word “psychical” in the conventional sense, where it is regarded as flowing happening and is confused with the vital happening.) Why should the dear “psyche” struggle against the visual, auditory, touch-, warmth-, smell-, taste-sensations bastardising themselves in it at pleasure, since in it, in the sense of the prevailing apprehension, everything after all finds itself in the flowing state, and it disposes over no acts that would set boundary-marks at the boundary of the vital processes?

Bessel recognised very well that the visual and the auditory perception cannot take place in the same instant, but this sound apprehension of his was completely obscured by psychology. Wundt pays homage to the principle that two perceptions which belong to different sense-circles — for example, a visual and an auditory perception — can take place simultaneously; that is, he speaks — to make use of his terminology — of the simultaneous taking-place

of an auditory and a visual representation (Physiologische Psychologie, 5th ed., Vol. III, p. 69), because he believes that the denial of the possibility of the simultaneous taking-place of two perceptions of different modality would equally have also to have as a consequence that we should also be incapable of grasping several sense-impressions of the same modality with the same act. This fundamental error of his psychological system hangs together with the fact that he, in the sense of the conventional psychologism, makes no distinction between the mental acts of our consciousness and the animal-vital processes which form the substrate of our mental activity.

Now, however, precisely those experimental methods, about whose development Wundt too has made himself deserving, furnish a most interesting proof for the fact that two perceptions which belong to different sense-circles can never be grasped simultaneously. For whereas we are in general never in doubt over whether perceptions that belong to the same sense-circle take place simultaneously or not simultaneously, we come at once away from any reliability of our judgement when we are to establish whether two sensations of different modality competing with one another take place simultaneously or not. If, in the same instant, an optical and an acoustic process acts upon our organism, then we are subject to the most manifold “time-illusions,” in that we judge now the optical, now the acoustic process to be taking place earlier. Similarly it fares with us also when touch-impressions compete with visual impressions and auditory impressions. On the other hand we are not subject to these most striking “time-illusions” as soon as it is a question of impressions of the same modality which can be grasped with one act. Admittedly there are also such impressions of like modality — for example, simultaneous skin-impressions upon the upper and lower extremity — which cannot be grasped with the same perception-act, but for that reason we also never have, concerning the temporal succession of such homogeneous impressions, a reliable judgement.

Wundt himself pronounces it that, through the co-operation of disparate sensory functions, time-illusions are occasioned, which he calls “temporal displacements” [Zeitverschiebungen], but that such temporal displacements do not occur within one and the same sense-circle: “With the name of the temporal displacements were designated precisely those time-illusions in which simultaneous, or temporally only slightly differing, sense-impressions appear so displaced against one another that the in-reality simultaneous ones are perceived successively, or that an actually present succession is reversed — one thus apprehending the earlier as the later and the later as the earlier. Such displacements are found chiefly between

disparate sense-stimuli, that is, between the visual and auditory, visual and touch-, touch- and auditory-sense. With impressions within the same sensory domain they occur only then, when they act upon different single organs or upon places of one and the same organ far removed from one another — for example, upon the two eyes and ears, or upon a skin-place of the upper and of the lower extremity. That stimuli upon the same ear or eye, or upon one and the same skin-place, should be temporally displaced against one another, lets itself on the contrary never be observed“ (Physiologische Psychologie, 5th ed., Vol. III, p. 64).

Although, then, Wundt fixes in the clearest manner the facts which irrefutably prove that disparate perception-acts, when they come into temporal nearness, constrain one another and occasion the most perverse apprehension of their temporal succession — homogeneous impressions, on the contrary, which can be perceived with one act, do not constrain one another and never occasion a perverse time-apprehension — he yet remains standing at the apprehension that disparate perception-acts can take place simultaneously, hence do not constrain one another. This is the opposite view to that which already Bessel maintained and which formed the starting-point of the modern striving after an exact psychology. Wherein consisted this starting-point? What was the chief result of the Besselian establishment of “personal equations”? We must give a clear answer to these questions if we will designate the path that leads to the building-up of an exact vitalistic doctrine and of an exact psychology.

Although Bessel did not clearly pronounce it — and, by virtue of the historical circumstances, also could not pronounce it — it yet lies in the sense of his words that two modes of perception, like seeing and hearing, when they are to take place with simultaneity, disturb one another. Bessel discovered the fact of the interference [Interferenz] of animal-vital processes, although he was of course far removed from characterising his discovery in such a manner. Characteristic, however, for this great researcher is it that he set up the “personal equation” not as a psychological, but as an “anthropological” remarkability. He also speaks of no “association” of seeing and hearing, but makes use of a cautious mode of expression: the “transference” of one mode of perception onto the other. He is free from the confusion of concepts that the English psychologism occasioned. We grasp the essential of his vitalistic measurements when we discern that the vital processes which belong to disparate sensory functions disturb one another when they are to be grasped simultaneously. Only through this is the concept of a determinate sensory domain established. Psychologism is, in its conventional shape, incapable of establishing what

one must really understand by a determinate sensory domain. It finds itself, in this regard, upon the naive standpoint that visual impressions are something quite other than auditory impressions, and, what is still worse: it sinks deep below this sound apprehension, for it leaves open the possibility that visual sensations and auditory sensations can unite themselves in a hybrid manner, in that they flow together in one and the same perception-act. As against this senseless apprehension, we can now establish that sensations belong to different sensory domains only then, when they are unmixable, that is, disturb one another as soon as they are to be perceived simultaneously. The one extinguishes, on such an occasion, the other — which one can in a metaphorical manner designate as the “interference” of vital processes.

The fundamental condition for the possession of different sensory functions thus forms the reciprocal exclusion of every sensory function by every other on the occasion of their competition for simultaneous perception. Were the disparate sensations, in their competition for simultaneous perception, also really able to come to the goal simultaneously, then their disparate character could no longer remain preserved. All the senses would flow into one another, and there would be no sense-perception. Since two modes of sensation that compete for simultaneous perception disturb one another, there will in every case some one among them have the precedence, and there will necessarily some small fraction of a second have to elapse until the other mode of sensation is, as it were, admitted to audience. I call the smallest time which must elapse in order to pass from the one mode of perception A to a disparate mode of perception B the interference-pulse (or also the transition-pulse) of A in respect of B. Already Bessel pronounced it that it takes up another time-duration to come from seeing to hearing than from hearing to seeing, and this was the deepest glance that he cast, by means of the eye-and-ear method, into the relation of the two senses. It is thus one of the nearest and most important tasks of a scientific theory of perception to find exact methods for the determination of the transition-pulses from one mode of perception into the other, and at the same time to establish of what kind the vital processes are that correspond to such a perception-pulse. The interesting experimental investigations of Exner and Weyer on the so-called “time-thresholds” may be regarded as praiseworthy preliminary works towards the solution of the fixed problems. We shall first then to some extent understand the co-operation of the different sensory functions, when those processes will be known which form the transition-pulse between two disparate modes of perception. From our preceding investigations it emerges that

these pulses must be phantasy-processes, so that we shall — and partly already do — possess, in the methods for the investigation of the interference of different modes of perception, a means for the determination of the time-duration of phantasy-processes. Upon a closer illumination of this theme, as interesting as it is difficult, I cannot however here enter.

It is the association-scholastic that has hindered us from grasping the significant disturbance-problems which lie concealed in the co-operation of different sensory functions. How important these disturbance-problems are emerges from the following simple consideration. One and the same body a can exercise simultaneous effects upon the different sense-organs of our body, but we are not in a position to perceive these effects with absolute simultaneity. The touch-, visual-, smell-, etc. sensations which are called forth through the same body can simultaneously beset our consciousness, but they can come to consciousness only in some temporal succession. Upon this rests the riddle of matter [Materie]. Could the disparate sensible properties that a body possesses press simultaneously to our consciousness, then we would grasp them in that union in which they really find themselves, that is, we would have grasped matter itself immediately. If, then, the modern psychologism opines that disparate perceptions can take place simultaneously, then it does not notice that it is hereby asserted that matter in itself is immediately perceptible. Here it first shows itself clearly what boundless confusions of concepts spring from the bosom of the conventional psychologism. Why, then, do we really speak of bodies or of a matter? Only for the reason that we must regard properties as simultaneously subsisting and, in this simultaneity, bound up with one another, which, however, can never become perceptible to us in this absolute simultaneity. The sensible properties of a body do, to be sure, compete for a simultaneous being-perceived, but by virtue of the limited nature of our consciousness they do this in vain, for we are incapable of accomplishing two or more mental acts at once, and of receiving the simultaneously announcing-themselves disparate sensations in simultaneous audience. We resolve the simultaneity in the mode of conjunction of the sensible properties of a body into a non-simultaneity, in that we order the properties, conjoined through simultaneity, into a temporal series of perception-acts. Only through this consideration does it become clear to us whence comes the eternal complaint that we do not know what matter in itself may be. I now show what the proper sense of this complaint is. We cannot grasp matter in itself, because it is not given to us

to accomplish two or more perception-acts at once, in particular because we are not able to snatch up the disparate properties of a body with a single act. A being, however, which were able to accomplish two — and consequently arbitrarily many — mental acts in the same mathematical time-point, would, through one mental act, have grasped matter in itself; that is, matter in itself would be its mental act.

Without the determinations of “personal equations” through Bessel, we could not form for ourselves this new concept of matter. Thus does the seemingly widely lying-apart hang together, in science, in the closest manner. When the worthy Locke sets forth, in a hundred windings and turnings, that we, peculiarly enough, know absolutely nothing of a material substance, and yet are unable to manage without the same in our thinking, then this plight of the human mind is, through the vitalistic measurements that proceed from Bessel, indeed not removed — for this is after all not possible — but at least placed in the clearest light. And when Berkeley, in his paradoxical manner, declared that a material substance, of which one after all knows absolutely nothing, must also simply be denied, then the naivety of this “idealistic” view has, through the methods of vitalistic measurement, been set forth in a downright palpable manner. For since disparate perception-acts can take place only non-simultaneously, that is, only in temporal succession, we should have, in Berkeley’s sense, to deny that the properties which we perceive non-simultaneously have, in reality — namely in their material union — a simultaneous subsistence. There would then be nothing simultaneously subsisting, hence no world.

The vitalistic measurement-methods begun through Bessel and continued through other astronomers as well as through physiologists are, however, also suited to throw a new light upon the doctrine of the energies, as we intend to show in the next lecture.

Nineteenth Lecture: The History of Vital Measurement — Helmholtz, Hirsch and Donders, and the Reduction of the Psychical Interval to Zero#

On the history of the vital methods of measurement, in particular of the reaction-experiments. We arrive at no correct apprehension of the same, because the concepts of vital happening and of the mental act are confused. What representation the great physiologist Donders formed for himself of the purely psychical processes. How he approached, along the experimental path, the thought that mental acts take up no measurable time-duration. Primary and interpolated reaction-experiments. The technical perfecting of the same, bound up with the complete mistaking of their principled significance. The analysis of the reaction-processes is of the same import as an exact pulse theory of consciousness, and thus as the founding of an exact psychology.

After the measurements of Bessel pointed, in the most penetrating manner, to the personal or “anthropological” moment in the astronomical time-determinations by means of the eye-and-ear method, there arose among the astronomers a mighty movement to reduce this so-called “personal error” to a minimum, indeed even to bring it to a complete vanishing. One followed, to be sure, in the tracks of Bessel, but one did not understand the thoughts and forebodings that were laid down in his exceedingly laconic report on the measurements carried out by him. The English psychologism, in particular Locke’s metaphorical doctrine of the “inner sense” or the “inner eye” of the human soul, penetrates in a very disquieting manner into the interpretation of the measurement-results, as is to be seen, for example, from the considerations of the French astronomer and academician Faye (Compt. rend. LIX, 1864, p. 474), where the Besselian thoughts are presented in a watered-down fashion in Lockean manner. Nevertheless the striving after the eradication of the “personal error” in time-determinations had the significant consequence that one passed from the eye-and-ear method to the so-called “registration method,” in which no longer the co-operation of two senses, but the mere use of the sense of sight, was required for time-determination. In place of the investigation of the interference of disparate sense-perceptions there had accordingly to step the investigation of the single modes of perception. The experimental subject “registered” the perception of the visual

impression through an instantly executed fitting movement. It came to formal reaction-experiments, whereby the second epoch in the history of the vitalistic measurements was introduced.

In the meantime the measurements of Helmholtz concerning the propagation-velocity of the excitation in the nerve had exerted a liberating influence upon men’s minds. Helmholtz used for his experiments (1850) the well-known frog-muscle preparation, which is completely severed from the organism of the frog, yet left in connexion with the conducting motor nerve-strand. Such a preparation has the peculiarity that for some time (about two hours long) after the excision it still retains its vital character, which is not the case with warm-blooded animals. Through a momentary stimulation of the motor nerve that leads to the muscle, this latter falls into a lively twitching. The stimulation is brought about through tearing, pressing, cutting, cauterising of the nerve, or most conveniently through the electric current. If one stimulates the nerve first close at the point of entry into the muscle, and then at a point more remotely lying from the muscle, then it is found that with the latter stimulation the muscle-twitching follows somewhat later, in token of the fact that the nerve-excitation requires a certain time before it reaches the muscle.

Of a measurement of the propagation-velocity of the nerve-waves in the living nerve there can, in the sense in which Helmholtz grasped the problem, properly not well be talk. For, firstly, this velocity is a different one under different physico-chemical conditions (for example, at differing temperature); secondly, there must also be taken into account, what one commonly leaves out of consideration, that the nerve-waves in the course of their propagation can experience a retardation in certain morphological constituents of the nervous system (say in the ganglion cells or at the branching-points of the neurofibrils); and thirdly, that the nerve-waves which press to consciousness along different nerve-pathways can possibly also disturb one another. Nevertheless the investigations of Helmholtz were of historical importance for this reason, that they helped to destroy the prejudice of the boundless rapidity of the propagation of the excitation in the nerve. One recognised that all perception is a delayed one, and Helmholtz brings this new insight to a popular expression: “Fortunately the stretches are short which our sense-perceptions have to traverse before they come to the brain; otherwise we should, with our consciousness, limp far behind the present and even

behind the sound-perceptions; fortunately they are so short that we do not notice the delay and are not touched by it in our practical interest. For a proper whale it is perhaps worse; for in all probability he learns of the injury to his tail perhaps only after a second, and needs a second second in order to command the tail that it should defend itself.“ (On the methods of measuring smallest time-portions, etc., Wissenschaftl. Abhandl., vol. II, p. 880.)

One sees that Helmholtz does not cultivate any strict mode of expression where it is a matter of psychological facts. Instead of speaking of nerve-processes that traverse certain stretches, he speaks of perceptions as though these were something moving onwards. He is also of the strange opinion that, if the delay of our perceptions were a greater one than it really is, we should have to notice this immediately; for he holds it to be a stroke of luck that the delay of our perception is so short a one that it does not become noticeable to us. In general he seems not to value very highly the significance of the fact that we require a certain time in order to perceive something or to pass from one perception to the other, for it does not occur to him to descry in this circumstance the source of all the insufficiency of our perception-faculty. It is just something different to ascertain facts and to recognise their significance for the connexions of our thinking. How quite otherwise had the father of modern embryology, K. E. v. Baer, grasped the significance of the facts that come to light in the delay of our perception. Helmholtz remains, even in biology, merely the ingenious mathematician and mechanist that he was, but he had no sense for the vital and for the psychological. Yet that does nothing to the matter here: he had, after all, at any rate penetrated to the insight that all perception is a necessarily delayed one. And this insight was unconditionally needed in order that the doctrine of the “reaction times” could be developed.

In the development of the reaction-experiment a whole series of astronomers had a share; but these efforts were brought to a certain conclusion only through the Swiss astronomer Hirsch.Adolf Hirsch (1830–1901), director of the Neuchâtel observatory, who about 1861–1864 first systematised the registration method into reaction-experiments and coined the term “physiological time” for the measured reaction time. His apparatus allowed the passage of artificial stars across the meridian telescope to be observed. This artificial star, on its passage through the cross-hairs of the telescope, interrupted the electric current and set the hands of a Hipp chronoscopeMatthäus Hipp (1813–1893), German-Swiss precision mechanic; his chronoscope, driven by a spring-clock and controlled by an electromagnet, measured short time-intervals to thousandths of a second and became the standard instrument of reaction-time research. into movement. The observer, as soon as he became aware of the star-passage, closed the current by means of an instant hand-movement, whereby he brought the hand of the chronoscope to a standstill, so that the clock allowed the reaction time to be read off, which Hirsch designated as the “physiological time.” Hirsch was also the first who carried out comparative measurements of the reaction time with respect to sense-impressions of different modality, and ascertained that the reaction time to visual impressions is longer than that to skin-stimuli, and this in turn somewhat longer than that

to sound-impressions. His statements concerning his personal reaction times are the following: light 2000, sound 1496, electrical skin-stimuli 1820. Later investigations, however, make it probable that the reaction time to skin-stimuli is shorter than that to sound-stimuli. Thus, for example, v. Kries finds: light 1930, sound 1200, electrical skin-stimulation 117 σ.

Although the reaction times are very labile magnitudes, which for the present still furnish a weak foundation for inferences with respect to the nature of our vital perception-processes, yet from them at least the one thing is evident, that the perception times of disparate sense-impressions are unequal. A particular weight is to be laid, in especial, upon the circumstance that the reaction times for visual sensations are significantly longer than those for touch sensations; further, that the reaction times for temperature-sensations too are longer than those for touch sensations, as appears from the experiments of Goldscheider, Vintschgau and Steinach. Noteworthy too are the very long reaction times that Vintschgau and Hönigschmied found for taste-impressions, further Beaunis, Buccola and Moldenhauer for smell-impressions. One must, however, beware of over-hasty conclusions that could be drawn from the first comparison of the in any case so very fluctuating numbers; for the reaction-processes are, as was already emphasised, even in their simplest shape of a most highly composite nature, and there enter into them not merely the perception times, but also the time-portions for the connecting process between perception and act of will, as well as the time-portions which this act of will (execution of a voluntary movement) takes up. It is therefore a hazardous matter to wish to draw sure conclusions, from the differing length of the reaction times, about the differing length of perception times, quite especially when one also considers that the concept of perception time could not at all be fixed by modern psychology, because the share that imagined movement and imagined sensation, in general the imagination-process, has in every sense-perception was not laid clear. One must, within the perception time, at all events distinguish the portion of the sensation time from the portion of the imagination time, and it will be asked how these portions stand to one another with the disparate modes of perception. A light upon this exceedingly important problem cannot be thrown through mere reaction-experiments. Only the comparison of the results of the reaction-experiments with those of the interference-experiments of disparate modes of perception can lead to an exact doctrine of the relation and the connexion of the various sensory functions. To be sure, the

more exact cognisance of the anatomical and histological structure of our nervous system has herein a decisive say.

We may nevertheless not close our eyes to the fact that in the doctrine of the reaction times, even already in its present-day shape, a quite determinate finger-pointing with respect to the relation of the perception times of disparate impressions is contained. The fact that, on being touched by a foreign body, we perceive first the touch-impression and only then the temperature-impression, speaks so eloquent a language that one cannot misunderstand it. It is provided for, in the anatomical structure of our organism and in the course of our life-processes, that the sensation times, or rather the perception times, of disparate sense-stimuli be unequal. For were our organism and our life-process so laid out that the perception times of all our sense-organs were equal, then this would necessarily lead to the intermingling of all disparate sense-qualities and would make every perception an impossibility. Already the fact, then, that the reaction time for touch-impressions is different from the reaction time to temperature-impressions, makes us aware that it lies in the building-plan of our organism to avoid, if possible, the simultaneous knocking of disparate sense-impressions at the gates of our consciousness. The differing length of the reaction times for different sensory functions is a probability-ground for the assumption that disparate sense-impressions disturb and exclude one another if they are to be received by consciousness in simultaneous audience.

The composite character of the reaction-processes very soon incited the researchers to considerations upon this composition and to calculations of the time-duration of the single portions; yet these calculations rested upon very uncertain data concerning the velocity of the propagation of the nerve-waves, and upon still more uncertain assumptions concerning the composition of the whole reaction-process out of single portions. One did not consider that the resolution of the reaction-process into its natural portions is of the same import as the founding of an exact psychology and at the same time of an exact biology as a measuring, vitalistic science. For whoever ventures to resolve the reaction-process into its portions, and to wish to determine these singly according to their time-duration, must not only have gained a clear survey of the morphological (anatomical-histological-embryological) structure of the nervous system, but must also have formed for himself a clear intuition concerning the physiological functions of the nervous system, in particular concerning the manner of the division of labour and of the functioning-together of its morphological constituents. Finally it is also impossible to speak of portions of the reaction-process if one has gained no clear insight into the nature of our mental acts, in particular

of those mental acts that play a role in the perception-activity, further in the transition from this to an act of will, and finally within the act of will itself. Thus the highest tasks of exact biology and psychology run together in those measurement-tasks that one designates as the measurement of reaction times.

We are therefore still very far removed from being able to furnish a real and true analysis of the reaction-processes; but we are upon the path that leads to the solution of this exceedingly difficult task. A strong and fructifying stimulus to a further unfolding of the vitalistic measurements proceeded from the great Netherlandish physiologist F. C. Donders,Franciscus Cornelis Donders (1818–1889), Utrecht physiologist of vision; his 1868 paper Die Schnelligkeit psychischer Prozesse (“The rapidity of psychical processes”) founded the experimental analysis of reaction-processes and the subtraction method of interpolated reactions. whose treatise “The Rapidity of Psychical Processes” belongs even today still to the most worthy-of-reading that has been written upon this subject. Donders was indeed unable to keep himself free from the action of psychological influences, for he speaks of “psychical processes” where properly there ought to be talk only of vital processes; but he had grasped it more clearly than any one of his contemporaries, that, if there is to be talk of the measurement of allegedly psychical (and in reality vital) processes, these measurements must necessarily be time-determinations. He says in this regard: “But is, then, with psychical processes every quantitative treatment excluded? By no means! One important factor seemed accessible to measurement: I mean the time that is used for simple psychical processes.” In these sentences, which to be sure stand in need of some correction, the fundamental thought of an exact vitalism and of an exact psychology is pronounced. The corrections are the following: 1. There are no psychical processes, but merely psychical acts, and these are not measurable, but merely countable. 2. What Donders properly wishes to measure are vital processes, but these too are not directly measurable, but merely in an indirect manner, in that one catches them between mechanical boundary-marks and measures the temporal distance of these boundary-marks.

Donders directs his attention to the analysis of the primary reaction-process and furnishes an apprehension of the composition of the same that even today still may take up our highest interest. He resolves the reaction-process into 12 phases, as follows:

1. the action upon the percipient elements of the sense-tools; 2. the communication to the peripheral ganglion cells and the growth promoted up to discharge (Fechner’s “threshold”); 3. the conduction in the sensory nerves up to the ganglion cells of the medulla; 4. the rising activity in these ganglion cells;

5. the conduction to the ganglion cells of the organ of representation; 6. the rising activity in these ganglion cells; 7. the rising activity of the ganglion cells of the organ of will; 8. the conduction to the nerve cells for movement; 9. the rising activity in these cells; 10. the conduction in the motor nerves up to the muscle; 11. the latent activity in the muscle; 12. the rising activity up to the overcoming of the resistance from the signal.

Between this Dondersian analysis and our present-day apprehensions there lie forty years of anatomical and physiological progress, and thus a whole world. Nevertheless the schema of the 12 phases of the reaction-process, as it was sketched by Donders, is even today still very noteworthy; for one could indeed easily carry the knowledge that has since been gained concerning the structure and the achievements of the nervous system into the Dondersian schema, without essentially modifying the same. Here, however, only a single salient character-trait of the Dondersian schema interests us: a character-trait in which a whole world-conception comes to clear expression. Upon a more exact consideration of the 12 phases it is found, namely, that upon the conducting activity of any nerve-thread there always follows a heightened activity in the ganglion cells, and that from this rule there takes place, between phases 6 and 7, a most striking deviation. Here, namely, two rising activities in the ganglion cells follow immediately upon one another, without there being set between them the activity of a connecting nerve-conduction pathway! The “organ of representation” is connected through no nerve-pathway with the “organ of will”! There takes place here an interruption of all nerve-conductions, evidently because Donders thinks the whole transition from perception up to the execution of a movement — thus, to speak in the customary psychological style, the whole representation- and will-action — as a purely psychical one. The reaction-process contains a purely psychical stage, an interval of purely mental activity, during which the nerves have nothing to do. The whole reaction-process thus falls apart into a centripetal nerve-process, which corresponds to perception, into a centrifugal nerve-process with the inclusion of a muscle-contraction, which corresponds to the reaction-movement, and into a purely mental process, which inserts itself between the two physiological processes.

The significance of this apprehension lies in its openness. Without circumlocution a natural-scientist shows us here, one who is thoroughly filled with the striving after exact cognisance, that in the inner-

most of his thinking he is a metaphysician. The like one will be able to ascertain in almost all the great representatives of natural science. Donders’ apprehension of the exceptional position of the mental activities expresses itself in his following sentences: “But will the psychical activity ever be able to be taken up into the chain of the transforming forces? So far as we see, there does not exist for this the slightest prospect. The essence of all forms of work and capacity-for-work that we know and measure is movement or condition of movement, and no one can form for himself a representation of how out of movements, in whatever way they may be combined, consciousness or any psychical activity could spring.”

One sees that he is guided by a correct metaphysical feeling — such as is proper to every upright human being —: but he is in so far caught in an error, as he opines that the mental activity is something that flows in time and thus fills out time-intervals. He assumes accordingly, within the reaction-process, a purely mental interval, which a physiological process precedes and a physiological process follows. Here it comes clearly to light that whoever regards the mental activity as something not sensible and yet ascribes to it a flow in time, is pressed towards a dualistic world-conception. He must think the nerve-processes interrupted for a while, be it even only for ¹⁄₁₀ second, in order to win a span of time that is filled with psychical activity. Into the midst of the natural happening there mingles in this wise a supernatural happening, and indeed in such a manner that thereby the time-duration of the natural happening appears shortened, so that to the supernatural happening too a piece of time may be secured. As against this apprehension it must be emphasised, from the monistic standpoint, that all time of which we human beings speak is thoroughly filled with natural happening, so that nowhere is there to be found any such time-interval as would be filled by a supernatural happening, because the mental activity is nothing of such a kind as would be able to fill spans of time. Whoever wishes to take up any time-duration whatsoever for mental acts, thereby shortens the time which our nerve-processes need in order to be able to run their course. The whole reaction time is, in all its intervals, filled by vital processes, so that nowhere does a measurable time-duration for mental acts remain over, nor can it remain over. The natural-scientist therefore never needs to fear that into any temporal intervals of the happening which are to be measured by him there could insert themselves such processes as he would not know what to do with, namely mental processes. There are, as said, nowhere in the world mental processes, but merely mental acts, and these are not of such a kind that they would let themselves be caught through the network of mechanistic or vitalistic methods of measurement.

The natural-scientist therefore has the inviolable right, indeed also the indubitable duty, to conduct himself in all measurement-operations as though there were nothing mental anywhere in the world: since in fact nowhere in the realm of the measurable are mental acts to be met with. In this sense the natural-scientist may and shall be a “materialist,” for otherwise he falls into a wild and senseless superstition. To be sure, a natural-scientist must, however, also say to himself that measurement-operations can always be planned and carried out only by means of mental acts of the measuring person, that mental acts, then, even if never among the processes to be measured, yet must always be found in the measurement-activities of the researcher, and that the mind*, which is missed in the measurable processes, must announce itself all the more strikingly in the measurement-operations. But if anyone does not see that the mind dwells not in the measured process, but in the measuring deed, then such a person may certainly not be taken in earnest.

[Author’s note:] When there is talk here of mind, there is always meant the specifically human mind.

A natural-scientist like Donders, however, who is completely penetrated by the peculiar character and the significance of the mental activity, one cannot too greatly hold it against him that he clings to the illusion of being able somehow to get at the mental activity itself by means of ingenious methods of measurement. For precisely the illusion that the mental activity can not only arrange measurements, but at the same time become an object of measurements, winged his phantasy in the invention of methods of measurement that came to the benefit of the investigation of vital processes, and accordingly are indirectly also significant for the investigation of the mental activity. For the rest, Donders by no means asserts it as a settled matter that with reaction-processes there inserts itself, between the sensory and motor nerve-processes, an interval of non-nervous, purely mental processes; rather he leaves the question relating hereto standing as an open one. Here the matter-of-fact attitude of a genuine natural-scientist shows itself to us in its finest light. For although Donders, in all his measuring experiments, is greedy after nothing so much as precisely the determination of the time-duration of that purely psychical process which inserts itself between the nerve-processes, yet he declares that from his measurements precisely with respect to this point nothing definite shines forth. This time-duration — so he concludes — is at all events shorter than ¹⁄₁₀ second, but possibly it can be extraordinarily short, indeed reduce itself to zero. He himself probably did not suspect that precisely this last eventuality brings the full truth to expression.

Not thereby does the natural-scientist furnish a proof for the existence of mental activities, that he determines their time-duration measuringly; on the contrary, the natural-scientist can attempt to furnish a proof for the existence of mental acts only in an indirect manner, in that he strives to demonstrate that within the temporal intervals of the reaction-process nowhere does a span of time remain over for the purely mental activity. But this demonstration too will never be able to be furnished rigorously. We shall never be able to measure the phases of the reaction-process with such exactitude that we could ascertain that not even the billionth part of a second remains over which is specially consumed for a purely mental process. The more exactly we shall one day measure the phases of the reaction-process, with the greater probability will it be able to be asserted that purely mental acts take up no time-duration, but have a punctual character. Natural science can, by means of the vital methods of measurement, furnish only a probability-proof for the existence of mental acts, and it can — however paradoxical it may also sound — accomplish this only in that it shows, with ever-growing exactitude, that within the flowing time nowhere is there a flowing interval for mental acts to be hunted up. For methods of measurement are not there in order to measure mental acts — that is, the unmeasurable. Only the mind itself, which produces mental acts, can bear witness to the existence of mental acts, and it needs for this no special methods of measurement. It is, after all, a self-conscious mind that is able to give testimony of its own doing, and that needs for this no authentication through measurement-operations, because it is, after all, it that lends to all its deeds, and so too to the measurement-operations, an authentication.

Since Donders felt that by means of the primary reaction-experiment nothing definite could be made out concerning the time-duration of a purely psychical happening, and since he was thoroughly bent upon somehow capturing the purely psychical through measurement, he hit upon the original idea of lengthening the primary reaction time by inserting new consciousness-acts into the same. From the temporal lengthening which the reaction-process thereby suffered, it should then be determined how great the time-duration of the interpolated consciousness-act is. If, for example, the reagent is not informed beforehand which of his two feet, whether the right or the left, is to be stimulated through an electric shock, and he is charged, in the case of the stimulation of the right foot, to execute the signalling reaction-movement with the right hand, but in the case of the left foot with the left hand, then the time-duration of the reaction will at all events be a longer one than if the reagent is advised

that the stimulation will strike only the right foot and that he always has to react with the right hand. In this latter case one has to do with a primary, in the former case, on the contrary, with an interpolated reaction-experiment. The lengthening of the same amounted, according to the measurements of Donders, to about ¹⁄₁₅ second; thus he opined that the mental activity which took place, while the reagent took cognisance of which of his two feet had been stimulated and with which hand he had to react, lasted about ¹⁄₁₅ second.

Now, however, the question would first of all have had to be decided which vital processes, or rather which nerve-processes, run their course in this ¹⁄₁₅ second, and further out of how many portions they consist, or rather by how many mental acts they are bounded. For not the boundary-setting mental acts, but the vital processes that run their course between the same, take up that ¹⁄₁₅ second. Since now neither these vital processes nor the mental acts bounding them were subjected to any exact examination, it is comprehensible that concerning the nature of the interpolated psychical activities a dispute among the psychologists had to break out. All interpolated reaction-experiments, however ingeniously they may also have been devised, suffer from the fundamental defect that they rest upon assumptions which stem from the psychologistic confusion of concepts, in that they make no distinction between vital processes and mental acts. To this there joins itself yet the further significant circumstance, that the primary reaction times, which form the foundation for the calculation of the interpolation times, are most highly variable, fluctuating between wide limits, and thus form a most uncertain experimental foundation for inference with respect to the interpolated mental activities.

Thereby, however, it is by no means to be said that the method of interpolations introduced by Donders does not present a most significant enrichment of the vitalistic methods of measurement. Only the fruitfulness of the interpolation procedure will be able really to come forth first when the analysis of the primary reaction-process has first succeeded. Our efforts must accordingly direct themselves to the solution of this problem. Everyone who occupies himself with (primary) reaction-experiments very soon makes the disappointing experience that his reaction time shows, in almost immediately consecutive experiments, disproportionately great fluctuations, which can even reach 100 σ, which means as much as that during a single series of experiments there can result alternately numbers of which the one is almost half as great as the other. A certain insight into the nature of these fluctuations has been procured for us by the valuable work of L. LangeLudwig Lange (1863–1936), a student in Wundt’s Leipzig laboratory, who in 1888 distinguished the longer “sensorial” reaction (attention directed to the impression) from the shorter “muscular” reaction (attention directed to the movement). (Wundt’s Phil. Studien, vol. 4, p. 1888). Lange speaks of a longer and of a shortened reaction time, which he designates as sensorial and muscular

reaction. If, namely, one expects the occurrence of an impression to which one is to react through a hand-movement, then the attention is either more strained upon the perception of the impression, or one occupies oneself more with the preparation of a reaction-movement to be executed as rapidly as possible. The former form of the reaction-process would be the longer, the sensorial; the latter, on the contrary, the shorter or muscular. Some individualities incline more to the former, some more to the latter. Persons who are of a contemplative nature will be characterised by the longer sensorial, those inclining towards rapid activity, on the contrary, by shorter, muscular reaction times. For the rest, one can, through proper practice, pass over from the sensorial mode of reaction to the muscular; the reverse path, however, is far more difficult. The Wundtian school has distinguished itself through the investigation of these relations; let reference be made in particular to the more recent measurements of Alexiev and Bergemann, in which the technique of the reaction-experiments reaches its present-day culmination.

But however meritorious the heaping-up, sifting and computing-through of a great and carefully collected statistical material of reaction-experiments may also be, yet it should not be left out of consideration that such a recourse to the mere statistical illumination of significant processes can yet, after all, be only a recourse, and may not step into the place of principled investigations concerning the reaction-process. Historical experience shows that even the finest methods of measurement are of no use if one makes no attempt to give oneself an account of the nature of the processes to be measured, and that they finally grow shallow through the lack of clear theories, become exercises of patience, and degenerate into mere finger-dexterities. The customary psychologism suffers, as we have convinced ourselves, from the lack of a perception-theory; it does not know the significance of imagined movement and sensation for the coming-about of a sense-perception; it does not know the significance of phantasy for the unitary functioning-together of the various modes of perception, and still less does it suspect the principle of the interference of the disparate sensory functions. To this fundamental evil there joins itself that, confusing the vital process with the mental act, it stands hostilely opposed to a theory of the proper (logical) thought-activities, in that it resolves all thinking into “representing” and this into sensations. Since now there play into the reaction-processes, the more they are interpolated, so much the more proper thought-acts, it is comprehensible that the analysis of the reaction-process becomes impracticable. If one considers further that the chief constituent

of the reaction-process is formed by an act of will, and that the customary psychologism, even when it takes on a so-called “voluntaristic” colouring, yet at bottom denies the simple act of will, and, apprehending the will as a most highly composite process, finally resolves it into mere sensations and feelings, then one gives up every hope of being able somehow to analyse the reaction-process on the foundation of the customary psychologistic mode of thinking. A thorough purification and reshaping of all the fundamental concepts relating to the life-process and the mental faculty will be required in order to be able to carry through a positive resolution of the reaction time into its phases, or rather mental pulses. To be sure, the experimental methods of reaction-measurement too must at the same time experience a corresponding reshaping.

Twentieth Lecture: Self-Consciousness through Inner Speech, and the Critique of Locke’s Inner Sense#

How does one become conscious of one’s own consciousness-activity, in particular of one’s own perception-acts? The significance of the imagined symbolic movements for the consciousness of our perception-acts. Inner speech. Originally our symbolic movements are involuntary. Critique of Locke’s theory of inner perception. The corruption of modern philosophy proceeds from the concept of inner perception. The untenability of the concept of apperception. The social character of the human understanding. Sense-perception and intuition. Knowledge. We refer ourselves through symbolic acts to perception-acts. Higher symbolic acts. The significance of language. The modern psychical alchemy.

Gentlemen! The consideration of the reaction-process presses towards an investigation of those mental acts that are not perception-acts and may be designated as understanding-activity in a higher sense of the word. The human understanding is, namely, characterised by this, that it not only accomplishes perception-acts, in that it thereby supports itself upon animal-vital processes, but that it also takes cognisance of the carrying-out of the perception-acts. We have already emphasised in a previous lecture that no mental act takes cognisance of itself — that is, no act can be its own referred and referring act — whence it follows that the carrying-out of perception-acts by no means yet has the significance that one must also be conscious of this carrying-out. An infant of four to five months already unfolds a considerable perception-activity, without having the slightest inkling that it perceives: a mental state into which we are, to be sure, unable to live ourselves, because we are at once driven on from perception-acts to further mental activity, through which it comes to consciousness for us that we are occupied with a perception-activity. It always lasts, however, a short time, which is represented by a very small fraction of a second, until we penetrate from the mere perceiving to the knowledge about this activity.

The bridge that leads over from the perception-acts to the knowledge about them could, in the time of childish immaturity, become passable only in the course of many months;

the mature consciousness, on the contrary, sets across it with a, so to speak, lightning-like rapidity. Nevertheless there is a very small time-interval, during which we can still know nothing about the perception-act, although the same is already carried out. During this very small time-interval we find ourselves, accordingly, as it were in the state of innocence, and are no better than infants, who, although they see and hear, yet know nothing of it. We must, then, distinguish the perception-act from that higher mental act through which it also becomes known to us that we perceive. In every reaction-process there follows upon the perception-act a mental pulse announcing it, through which the perception becomes a self-conscious one. There arises, accordingly, the exceedingly significant question, which vital process it is, with whose help we attain to the becoming-conscious of our perceiving activity. In that this question was never clearly raised, and could still less be answered, there came about no developmental history, and therefore also no proper theory of self-consciousness [Selbstbewußtsein]Selbstbewußtsein — self-consciousness: consciousness of one’s own mental acts. Palágyi argues it requires symbolic acts referring back to prior acts, mediated by inner speech; it is contrasted below with Sachbewußtsein, object-consciousness..

It is at first glance wholly incomprehensible how it is possible to gain tidings of one’s own perception-act, since this act is a mental one, and as such remains unperceivable — that is, sensibly ungraspable. No one is able to inspect his own seeing-act, to hearken to his own hearing-act, and yet we have a knowledge of this seeing-act, hearing-act, and so forth. In general there is little more mysterious than our knowledge about any arbitrary mental act that we carry out, because this act remains in itself inaccessible to sense-perception. Nevertheless it is rather easy to ascertain which vital processes they are that lead us from any arbitrary mental act to the cognisance of the same.

We need, namely, only raise the parallel question, how it becomes possible to take cognisance of the mental acts of a foreign person? For we gain through similar processes a knowledge of our own mental doing as those which bring us tidings of the mental activity of foreign persons. We refer ourselves through similar vital processes to our own as to the foreign mental acts. If, then, it is permitted to speak of a “self-commerce” of our own consciousness, then we may say that a human consciousness has commerce with itself in a similar manner as with the consciousness of foreign persons. Whoever wishes to learn to understand the self-commerce of a mind must investigate the foreign-commerce of the same, and vice versa. A consciousness, however, has commerce with another through symbolic — that is, meaning-laden — movements. These movements can be mere gestures, a play of features, and form a kind of mimic language (as with deaf-mutes), and at a pinch suffice to set one consciousness in con-

nexion with the other. The proper vehicle of such a connexion is, however, that wonderful system of symbolic movements that we designate as spoken language. As we now can take cognisance of the thoughts of another person only by means of the symbols through which she communicates her thoughts to us, so we can also win tidings of our own mental acts only thereby, when we refer ourselves to the same by means of symbolic movements (of spoken language). To be sure, we need not for this purpose carry out the symbolic movements in reality, but it fully suffices if we produce them in imagination. We have seen what a significant role the imagined movements play in the coming-about of mere perception: here, however, they win a still far heightened significance, because it shows itself that the commerce of consciousness with itself — that is, the reference of one mental act to the other — is accomplished by means of “inner discourse [innere Rede]”innere Rede — inner discourse: the internalised, silently performed symbolic (verbal) movement by which consciousness refers one mental act to another; synonymous with innere Sprache, inner speech. or in general by means of the imagined symbolic movements. This inner discourse, to be sure, very easily escapes our attention, but nevertheless every reflective person will surely have caught himself already at inwardly and inaudibly pronounced words, indeed at formal inner monologues. With poets, thinkers, orators this inner monologue often takes on quite extraordinary dimensions, because they work out whole poems, treatises and speeches in their head. But in general, in everyday life, the production of imagined symbolic movements will be essentially confined: whole words and sentences are marked inwardly in a very abbreviated manner, and often an inner (that is, a merely in-imagination carried-out) gesture replaces the fully worked-out sentence. We are in general very little exact in inner discourse, permit ourselves extraordinary abbreviations, and at times replace what is to be thought in words with schematic images. That this production of imagined symbolic movements very easily escapes attention need not astonish us, since we have already several times pointed to that modest nature of the animal-vital processes, by virtue of which they do not obtrude themselves, but serve as a means for the pointing to something else.

When, then, we have carried out a perception-act, and we are also to take cognisance of this carrying-out, then we must say it to ourselves inwardly — that is, we must execute an imagined symbolic movement, by means of which we refer ourselves to the perception-act. Whoever does not, through an inner gesture, an inner call, an inwardly pronounced word, refer himself to his perception-act, or is unable to refer himself, he has also no consciousness at all that he just now carried out a perception-act. In this peculiar

situation every infant finds itself that has not yet learned to speak. It perceives something, but it is unable to call this inwardly to itself, and so its own perception-deed does not come to consciousness for it. Just as, at an earlier stage of development, it indeed had sensations, but could attain to no perception, because there still lacked to it the imagined movements by means of which it should point to the perceived: so there lack to it, in a further stage of development, where it is already able to produce perception-acts, those imagined symbolic movements by means of which it could call to itself inwardly the taking-place of the perception.

One will perhaps opine that such an inner calling is something wholly superfluous, because one either has, already at the carrying-out of the perception-act, also tidings of the same, whereby the inner calling becomes something superfluous, or else, at the carrying-out of the perception-act, still possesses no tidings of the same, whereby then this call too would be made impossible. However devastating this dialectical remark may seem to be, just as false is it at bottom. For that inner call, through which one at first refers oneself to the perception-act, is an involuntary one. The carried-out perception-act is accompanied by some, even if ever so slight, change in the mood, in the emotional state, and this change at first presses towards quite involuntary movements, gestures, sounds, which for their part lead to new consciousness-acts. One thus calls to oneself the taking-place of a perception at the beginning involuntarily, and only with time are these movements employed as symbols for the consciousness of the perception. In other words: the vital process itself presses, after the carried-out perception-act, towards some further living movements, and these movements are, in the course of the vital and mental development, used by consciousness as symbols, in order to refer itself to the carried-out perception-activity.

Once again, then, the eminent significance of the voluntary movements and of their carrying-out in mere imagination for the whole developmental course of the human intelligence confronts us in the most insistent manner. It avails nothing to have sense-impressions, for these still help to no sense-perception, if the voluntary capacity of movement — and what is necessarily connected with this, the capacity to carry out imagined movements — does not come to their aid. But once a living being has brought it so far as to be able to carry out perception-acts, then all its perceiving avails it nothing, if it does not have the capacity to refer itself, with real or in-mere-imagination executed symbolic movements, to its perception. For if there be lacking

to it these symbolic movements, then it can indeed lead a purely animal life, but a knowledge of what it does it will, despite all perception-activity, not be able to attain. The developmental history of the understanding is bound to the development of voluntary unsymbolic and symbolic movements, or rather to the carrying-out of the same in mere imagination. Whoever, then, wishes to research the developmental history of the understanding has to do, on the one hand, with mental acts, on the other hand with outwardly and inwardly carried-out symbolic movements, which make the acts of the understanding possible.

But since the conventional psychologism is, according to its innermost nature, shy of movement, it is just as little able to give an account of the vital processes of understanding-activity as of the vital processes that lie at the foundation of perception. To the question, how the human being comes to the consciousness of his perception-activity and of his mental activity in general, there is lacking to it every answer, or, more correctly, it gives to this question a sham-answer by means of meaningless metaphors, which are suited not only to make philosophical thinking into a contentless trifling, but also to decompose it wholly.

Seldom indeed has a theory wrought such devastation in minds as the Lockean doctrine of the “inner sense” (Internal sense), through which we are supposed to receive cognisance of our own mental activity just as we receive, through the outer senses, tidings of the processes of the external world. One recognises here at first glance that Locke merely devised a kind of poetic simile in order to help himself over the question, how we attain to the cognisance of our own mental activity. Just as there is an outer eye to see the things of the external world, so there is supposed to be also an inner eye, in order to perceive one’s own mental activity. If a poet speaks of an inner eye or an inner sense, then we have nothing to object thereto; but what science thereby gains is not hard to guess: a mere word, which is to be sure very well suited to disguise the lack of a concept, and which gave the impulse to erect upon this lack-of-concept the edifice of a whole science. For Locke’s “inner sense” forms the proper starting-point of modern psychologism in all its conventional formations. Of a psychology in the modern sense of the word there is talk only since the invention of the “inner sense.” For since we have become the happy possessors of an “inner sense,” we have also an “inner perception,” indeed still more, an “inner observation,” and finally an “inner experience.” The poor Greeks and Romans had all this not yet, and so they also did not yet notice that our mental activity con-

sists properly of a world of inner appearances, which runs parallel to the world of outer appearances, and that there are accordingly two kinds of natural science: an outer natural science, which describes the physical appearances, and an inner natural science, which teaches us to describe the mental activities — pardon, the mental appearances. The mental act, which is something indescribable, was in such a manner made into a describable appearance. And how was this miracle accomplished? Most simply, with the help of a poetic metaphor. In fact, poetic metaphors have, among other things, the function of somehow replacing the non-sensible by a fitting sensible image. One needs, then, only to stamp the similes used by poets into scientific technical expressions, in order to be able to transform the non-sensible into a sensible. Thereby one creates a world of appearances that formerly did not exist at all. The wisest of the Greeks, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, had no inkling of this world of appearances. They did not know that their mental acts are no mental acts, but appearances, which can be observed by means of the inner sense just as well as the rising of the sun, the procession of the clouds, the evening-red, and so forth, by means of the outer sense. These unfortunate teachers of the human race were still caught in the delusion that mental activity is nothing sensible, nothing intuitable, and that whoever wishes to learn to know the nature of his own thinking must reflect upon the same. We moderns, however, have learned the great art of learning to understand the nature of our thinking even without reflection. We are, of course, psychologists. That is, we can investigate the nature of our thinking even without any reflection whatsoever, because we are endowed with an “inner sense” and an “inner perception,” which conjures the non-sensible into a sensible, accessible to observation, and makes reflection superfluous.

Only the sham-concept of “inner perception” shows us in what disconsolate situation the modern psychologism found itself from the very first beginning of its development. The distinction of an outer and an inner perception could have had a good sense, had one designated with it the distinction of mechanical and vital processes. In fact we perceive mechanical processes in such a manner that the same can also be perceived in just such a manner by other persons; in fact we also have an immediate consciousness of our own life-processes, in which another person cannot take immediate part. Had, then, Locke taught that there are vital and mechanical processes, and that the consciousness of mechanical processes may not be confused with the consciousness of our own animal-vital processes, which we designate

with sensation, feeling and imagination, then he would, over against the great mechanistic thinker DescartesRené Descartes (1596–1650), French philosopher and mathematician; here taken as the representative of the mechanistic direction, over against whom Locke might have become the founder of a vitalistic direction., whom he everywhere combats, have become the philosophical founder of the vitalistic direction in modern philosophy. But now he had a very insufficient concept both of the vital process and of the mental activity of the human being, so that the two concepts melted together for him into a hybrid concept. This comes to flagrant expression in this, that he gives to inner perception (internal sense) yet a second name too, that of reflection (reflection). The taking-cognisance of one’s own perception-activity and of one’s own mental activity in general appears to him now in the light of an inner sensibility or inner perception, now, however, in the light of an understanding-activity, namely of a reflecting, by means of a mental doing, upon another mental doing. He wavers to a certain degree between sensualism and rationalism; his predominant tendency remains, however, at least in the first part of his chief work, directed towards the resolution of self-consciousness and of the understanding into an inner sensibility. Only with his successors Berkeley and Hume does his sensualism come to a consequent and pure development.

The less sharply determined a philosophical concept is, the more it approaches a mere sham-concept, the more lovingly is it wont to be seized upon by philosophical epigones, and the richer, the more glorious is the history that falls to its lot. For sham-concepts have the advantage that everyone can take up an original standpoint over against them, in that he reads his own opinion into the sham-concept that has become famous. Thus we see, for example, that the concept of the inner eye or inner sense, or rather of inner perception, penetrates into the philosophy even of a Kant and HerbartJohann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841), German philosopher, psychologist and pedagogue; with his theory of representations (Vorstellungen) he carried the inner-sense tradition into German psychology., gradually infects the whole of German philosophy, in order to become, with Fries and BenekeJakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843) and Friedrich Eduard Beneke (1798–1854), German philosophers who founded their psychology upon inner observation, making it a leading concept of their thinking., leading concepts of their thinking. But the metaphor of the inner eye dominates also today’s thinking, and even puts forth quite novel blossoms, as does the Wundtian concept of apperception, which is a peculiar offshoot of the Lockean internal sense. The contents of our consciousness, so opines Wundt, have various degrees of consciousness; some contents are more conscious than the others. “This property can be made clear through the comparison with the field of vision of the eye, in that one thereby makes use of that figurative mode of expression which calls consciousness an inner seeing. If we say of the representations present in a given moment that they find themselves in the field of vision of consciousness, then one can designate that part of the latter to which the attention is turned as the inner point of vision. The entrance of a representation into the inner field of vision we will call

perception, its entrance into the point of vision apperception.“ (Phys. Psych.⁵, vol. III, p. 333.)

But if the “inner seeing” and the “inner point of vision” are to be understood only in a figurative sense, how may they form the foundation of the scientific definition of such important concepts as “perception” and “apperception”? It is gratifying to see that Wundt treats the “inner seeing” as something metaphorical; but he ought also to draw the next consequences of this manner of treatment. For if the “inner seeing” may be taken in a merely figurative sense, then the “inner or psychical appearances,” upon which that “inner seeing” is directed, are also appearances only in the figurative sense. Whoever regards the “inner seeing” as a merely metaphorical expression, for him the “inner or psychical appearance” too must be a merely metaphorical expression. He must, then, admit that there are no psychical appearances in the proper sense of the word at all, because psychical activities are something absolutely non-intuitable. Over against this, however, Wundt declares that precisely the psychological consideration is, in all its constituents, concrete and intuitable. “But since it (namely the psychological consideration) refers everywhere to the immediate consciousness-contents, it is at the same time, in all its constituents, concrete and intuitable.” (Phys. Psych.⁵, vol. III, p. 754.) Thus psychological reflection becomes a mere intuition, and thus the psychologist comes into the happy situation of being able to dispense with all reflection.

The expressions “inner sense,” “inner perception,” “inner observation,” “inner seeing,” “inner point of vision,” “inner experience,” and so forth, form the foundation of that modern Babylonian tower which is known under the name psychologism. The first Babylonian tower was a real tower, which was erected out of real building-stones; the second Babylonian tower, on the contrary, has a quite modern character, for it consists of nothing but metaphorical building-stones. The first Babylonian tower confused merely human beings who were occupied with physical labour; the second, on the contrary, confuses the men of mental labour. How long is this confusion still to last? I believe its days are numbered. Wundt too is on the way to giving up “inner perception”; for it appears to him, in the newest edition of his chief work, in the light of a wholly unreliable (metaphorical) person, who must everywhere be supported through the experiment in order to be capable of any positive achievement. The next step must lead to the insight that an inner perception that could intuit psychical activity does not exist and cannot exist, because psychical activity is non-intuitable. If Wundt holds it for intuitable and concrete, then this comes about because he confuses the vital facts with the psychical.

Vital facts that have an animal character (such as sensations, feelings, phantasms) are, as said, perceivable, but can always have only one witness, and they were confused with the psychical activity, because this too can always have only one immediate witness.

The taking-cognisance of vital facts takes place always in connexion with a taking-cognisance of mechanical facts; it is not to be confused with the taking-cognisance of one’s own mental activity. One attains to the consciousness of one’s own mental acts in that there proceed from these symbolic movements, by means of which one refers oneself to the mental acts. Psychologism, however, is, in all its conventional formations, never able to do justice to the significance of our symbolic movements, and in particular of language. It opines that language is nothing further than a means for the commerce of one consciousness with the other: thus a kind of natural technical contrivance, which makes it possible that our thinking does not remain isolated, but can come into connexion with a foreign thinking. That is the most childish conception that one can form of the significance of language. To be sure, the in-reality executed symbolic movements, and especially the aloud-pronounced linguistic symbols, are there for the purpose of striking a bridge from one consciousness to the other; but the merely in-imagination carried-out symbolic movements, and especially the merely in-imagination spoken words, form the vital foundation of our own self-consciousness. If a living being is to come to self-consciousness, then there must take place in the same those vital processes that we designate as imagined symbolic movements; for only by means of the same can it refer itself to its own mental activity — at first to its own perception-acts — and thereby become a self-conscious being. To be sure, the speaking is in itself, in so far as it takes place in imagination, a merely vital process, and in so far as it breaks forth in real sounds, which become perceivable also for other persons, nothing further than a purely mechanical process: but without this vital process, or rather mechanical process, there would also not come about those mental acts which bind themselves with the linguistic symbols, and by means of which we refer ourselves to our perception-acts — that is, think.

We recognise in such a manner that the human understanding is, according to its whole nature, a social understanding, whereby I do not, of course, mean that a human being who truly uses his understanding could not under certain circumstances feel himself very much isolated among his fellow human beings. It is only to be said that the vital processes, through which we come to self-consciousness, are nec-

essarily connected with mechanical processes, which serve to set us in connexion with the consciousness of our fellow human beings. Without the mechanically executed symbolic movements there would also be no in-imagination executed symbolic movements — that is, without a language that serves as a means of commerce, there would also be no language that drives towards self-consciousness; or, in other words: no individual understanding could form itself, did it never come into commerce with another individual understanding. For the means through which we come to self-consciousness are inseparably connected with the means through which our individual consciousness is set in connexion with another individual consciousness. The vital vehicle of self-consciousness is inseparably connected with the mechanical vehicle of the consciousness-commerce of two persons.

We can now win a classifying survey of all the mental acts that make up our cognitive activity. They are first to be divided into two classes: into immediate or direct acts, which are stimulated by life-processes, without their having other mental acts as their presupposition; and into mediate or symbolic acts, which are indeed likewise borne by life-processes (by symbolic movements), but can subsist only through the reference to other mental acts temporally preceding them. The immediate or direct acts of our cognising consciousness are in turn to be divided into two classes, namely into acts of sense-perception and into acts of intuition. The mechanical processes outside the body can, namely, awaken in us sensations and thereby call forth that vital process which leads to perception-acts, and which we investigated more closely in the preceding lectures. But we have at the same time also emphasised that the life of the organism stimulates our consciousness to activity from out of the interior of the body. The changes of the vegetative life-process awaken in us feelings, and feelings drive towards mental acts just as also sensations press towards mental acts. The sensations lead to mental acts by means of the direct phantasms, the feelings, on the contrary, by means of the inverse phantasms. These inverse phantasms are referred partly to the past and serve the memory, partly transferred into the future and are the bearers of our hopes and wishes. The feeling drives, however, also towards creative inverse phantasms, which are the vehicles of our inspiration: the practical, the artistic, as well as also the theoretical inspiration. There interest us in this connexion merely the latter, namely the acts of intuitive knowledge, which have for our cognitive activity just such a significance as the perception-

acts. They have also quite the rank of perception-acts, for they are mental acts which are distinguished through the character of immediacy, and without which a cognitive activity is just as little possible as without perception-acts.

These acts of intuition play in modern theory of knowledge, under the name of “a priori knowledge independent of experience,” a wholly misunderstood role. Modern theory of knowledge has, namely, developed under the spell of the English philosophy of sensation, which wholly mistakes our animal life-process, in that it thinks it determined only through the extra-bodily and not also through the processes taking place in the interior of the body. It does not notice that there is not only a perception which is stimulated through the sensation, but also a perception which is stimulated through the feeling, which latter we designate precisely as intuition. We cannot develop the detailed theory of the same here, because this would at once also make necessary the working-out of a system of the theory of knowledge.

But both the acts of sense-perception and those of intuition would be as good as lost — that is, would lead to no knowledge — if they did not press towards symbolic acts through which they are raised into self-consciousness. Everyone surely knows the peculiar state where an insight “dawns” upon him and he wrestles for the words that are to bring the same to expression. One finds oneself, as it were, in the birth-pangs of a piece of knowledge, because the acts of intuition have not yet bound themselves with the symbolic acts of self-consciousness.

Only in that we refer ourselves by means of symbolic acts to the acts of perception or of intuition do we attain to a proper knowledge, and our consciousness splits into an object-consciousness [Sachbewußtsein]Sachbewußtsein — object-consciousness: consciousness directed upon the thing (Sache) cognised, as distinct from self-consciousness, which is directed upon one’s own mental activity. The two arise together only through symbolic acts. and a self-consciousness. Without the carrying-out of real or imagined symbolic movements our consciousness remains an undifferentiated one; the thing and one’s own self do not step apart in consciousness. But in that we refer ourselves, with symbolic acts, to the immediate mental acts, we distinguish that which is grasped through the perception or through the intuition, namely the thing, from that through which we attain to the cognisance of the thing, namely our own mental activity. For this purpose, however, it does not suffice that we refer ourselves by means of the symbolic acts to the immediate acts, but we must also attain yet to higher symbolic acts, which are referred to the symbolic acts of a lower stage. In short, there are stages of object- and of self-consciousness, there is a development of human knowledge, a progression in the cognisance of things and in self-cognisance. Only a being that, by means of

symbolic acts, is able to refer itself to the acts of its sense-perception and of its intuition (thus only a language-endowed being), is able to progress in the cognisance of things, as well as of itself.

In that we thus recognise the infinite significance of language for the formation of a human object- and self-consciousness, as well as for its mental progress, we have at the same time won a new proof for the intermittent character of every human consciousness-activity. Our symbolic movements, namely, have, like our movements in general, an intermittent character; they are not such flowing movements as the falling of a stone or the flowing of water, or the streaming of a quantity of gas. They are articulated movements which, consisting of separate sections, show a more or less pronounced rhythmic articulation. Whoever, then, still harbours any doubt concerning the intermittent character of our thinking, let him consider the structure and articulation of any arbitrary human language, and he will not be able to close himself off from the truth of the fundamental proposition of our doctrine of consciousness.

Were there anywhere a language that was not articulated, not articulate, in which thus every word continuously overflowed into the other word, every sentence continuously into the other sentence, in which thus properly no distinct words and sentences existed at all, then such a language would be the intuitive refutation of our theory of consciousness. Now it is, however, an evident absurdity to demand such a language, for this would be equivalent to saying that our thinking should lack the distinct concepts and distinct judgements. We have a logical thinking only because our concepts do not, in each next moment, become other concepts, and our convictions or insights, which we bring to expression in judgements, do not, in each next moment, change their content. If there is to be an understanding, then mental contents must be able to be fixated. Were, for example, the number One in the next moment no longer to mean One, but Two, then it would be all over with the human understanding. A fluid consciousness-activity or a fluid understanding would be precisely the absolute lack of an understanding. The processes may flow, but it would be very sorry indeed for our mental activity if it were to flow along with them.

Herewith is also the so-called theory of psycho-physical parallelism recognised in its complete untenability. For if the “psychical processes” are supposed to run parallel to any physical processes, then they would have to be flowing, like these latter, and it would never come to a concept- and judgement-formation, in general not to distinct mental acts. With flowing psychical processes it is just as little possible

to fixate mental contents and to bind them into a system of thoughts as it is possible to build palaces out of flowing water and streaming air. The theory of psycho-physical parallelism is, moreover, nothing further than the modern mode of expression of that fundamental going-astray which proceeded from the English confusion of concepts of vital and psychical facts, of outer and inner perception, and so forth.

At the same time we have, however, also set forth the untenability of that famous “principle of creative resultants” conceived by Wundt, which is to be regarded, as it were, as the summit-point of modern psychologistic thinking. In the sense of this principle, the union of certain elementary psychical processes is no mere summation of the same, but there proceeds from this union a new psychical formation, which, according to its most essential properties, is fundamentally different from the elementary psychical components composing the same. In that, for example, visual sensations flow together with one another, they win a wholly new property, namely the property of spatial order, so that every spatial representation would have to be apprehended as the creative product or the creative resultant of the union of visual sensations. In other words: there is a psychical alchemy, which is everywhere operative where, out of certain psychical elements, a novel product, a creative resultant, is supposed to proceed. Wundt appeals herein to the simile, used by Mill, of a “psychical chemistry”Palágyi renders Mill’s doctrine psychische Chemie (“psychical chemistry”); Mill’s own English term in the System of Logic is “mental chemistry.”, which creates out of elements something just as novel as, for example, chemistry creates out of hydrogen and oxygen a combination whose properties are similar neither to the one nor to the other element.

Quite evidently Wundt here confuses the vital processes with the psychical acts. Vital processes are in fact mixable; thus, for example, the sensation-processes of red and green can melt together with one another into a resultant in which both the red and the green appear extinguished, in order to make place for a whitish-grey. Psychical activities, however, can with good means never be mixed; for whoever mixes them is either a sophist or he deceives himself — that is, is caught in an error. The mixing of mental activities can mean nothing else than that one leads others or oneself by the nose. In other words: there is only a seeming mixing of mental acts, and where it takes place, there takes place that regrettable stumbling of the human mind that we call logical going-astray. If we say, for example, 2 + 1 = 3, then we do not at all thereby mean that the concept Two has mixed itself with the concept One, and that, in that they both went under in the mixture, they begot the

concept Three. Both the concept Two and the concept One remain preserved unchanged, while they lead over to the concept Three. Concepts and judgements, like the mental acts in general through which we produce them, are something in reality unmixable — that is, their mixture can yield only a nonsense or an absurdity. In the realm of psychical activity there is, to be sure, a binding of single acts (mental synthesis), through which we are led to new acts; but this binding is never a mixing or melting-together, for its precondition is precisely that every psychical act, in all the bindings into which it enters, remain preserved absolutely unmixed. There is, then, everywhere in the world a chemistry; only in the realm of psychical activity can there be no chemistry; and whoever nevertheless carries it into psychology too, he creates precisely a psychical alchemy — that is, he makes the confusion of concepts into the life-element of psychological thinking.

But error cannot become enduringly the life-element of a science. In the hot striving after new truths our mind, to be sure, easily falls into an impure mixing of concepts; but when the hideous hybrid character of the same is recognised, we turn ourselves away from them definitively. Unfortunately it seems to be our human heritage that we must fall into the abysses of error in order to be able to penetrate to new truths.

Glossary#

German terms as they appear in this translation, with established English renderings. References to existing English-language scholarship are noted where available.