The Analysis of Mind, Bertrand Russell [best desktop ebook reader .txt] 📗

be desperately wicked if

only we let ourselves go. For this reason, the Freudian

“unconscious” has been a consolation to many quiet and

well-behaved persons.

 

I do not think the truth is quite so picturesque as this. I

believe an “unconscious” desire is merely a causal law of our

behaviour,* namely, that we remain restlessly active until a

certain state of affairs is realized, when we achieve temporary

equilibrium If we know beforehand what this state of affairs is,

our desire is conscious; if not, unconscious. The unconscious

desire is not something actually existing, but merely a tendency

to a certain behaviour; it has exactly the same status as a force

in dynamics. The unconscious desire is in no way mysterious; it

is the natural primitive form of desire, from which the other has

developed through our habit of observing and theorizing (often

wrongly). It is not necessary to suppose, as Freud seems to do,

that every unconscious wish was once conscious, and was then, in

his terminology, “repressed” because we disapproved of it. On the

contrary, we shall suppose that, although Freudian “repression”

undoubtedly occurs and is important, it is not the usual reason

for unconsciousness of our wishes. The usual reason is merely

that wishes are all, to begin with, unconscious, and only become

known when they are actively noticed. Usually, from laziness,

people do not notice, but accept the theory of human nature which

they find current, and attribute to themselves whatever wishes

this theory would lead them to expect. We used to be full of

virtuous wishes, but since Freud our wishes have become, in the

words of the Prophet Jeremiah, “deceitful above all things and

desperately wicked.” Both these views, in most of those who have

held them, are the product of theory rather than observation, for

observation requires effort, whereas repeating phrases does not.

 

* Cf. Hart, “The Psychology of Insanity,” p. 19.

 

The interpretation of unconscious wishes which I have been

advocating has been set forth briefly by Professor John B. Watson

in an article called “The Psychology of Wish Fulfilment,” which

appeared in “The Scientific Monthly” in November, 1916. Two

quotations will serve to show his point of view:

 

“The Freudians (he says) have made more or less of a

‘metaphysical entity’ out of the censor. They suppose that when

wishes are repressed they are repressed into the ‘unconscious,’

and that this mysterious censor stands at the trapdoor lying

between the conscious and the unconscious. Many of us do not

believe in a world of the unconscious (a few of us even have

grave doubts about the usefulness of the term consciousness),

hence we try to explain censorship along ordinary biological

lines. We believe that one group of habits can ‘down’ another

group of habits—or instincts. In this case our ordinary system

of habits—those which we call expressive of our ‘real selves’—

inhibit or quench (keep inactive or partially inactive) those

habits and instinctive tendencies which belong largely in the

past”(p. 483).

 

Again, after speaking of the frustration of some impulses which

is involved in acquiring the habits of a civilized adult, he

continues:

 

“It is among these frustrated impulses that I would find the

biological basis of the unfulfilled wish. Such ‘wishes’ need

never have been ‘conscious,’ and NEED NEVER HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED

INTO FREUD’S REALM OF THE UNCONSCIOUS. It may be inferred from

this that there is no particular reason for applying the term

‘wish’ to such tendencies”(p. 485).

 

One of the merits of the general analysis of mind which we shall

be concerned with in the following lectures is that it removes

the atmosphere of mystery from the phenomena brought to light by

the psycho-analysts. Mystery is delightful, but unscientific,

since it depends upon ignorance. Man has developed out of the

animals, and there is no serious gap between him and the amoeba.

Something closely analogous to knowledge and desire, as regards

its effects on behaviour, exists among animals, even where what

we call “consciousness” is hard to believe in; something equally

analogous exists in ourselves in cases where no trace of

“consciousness” can be found. It is therefore natural to suppose

that, what ever may be the correct definition of “consciousness,”

“consciousness” is not the essence of life or mind. In the

following lectures, accordingly, this term will disappear until

we have dealt with words, when it will re-emerge as mainly a

trivial and unimportant outcome of linguistic habits.

 

LECTURE II. INSTINCT AND HABIT

 

In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental

phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to

remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very

wide gap either in structure or in behaviour. From this fact it

is a highly probable inference that there is also nowhere a very

wide mental gap. It is, of course, POSSIBLE that there may be, at

certain stages in evolution, elements which are entirely new from

the standpoint of analysis, though in their nascent form they

have little influence on behaviour and no very marked

correlatives in structure. But the hypothesis of continuity in

mental development is clearly preferable if no psychological

facts make it impossible. We shall find, if I am not mistaken,

that there are no facts which refute the hypothesis of mental

continuity, and that, on the other hand, this hypothesis affords

a useful test of suggested theories as to the nature of mind.

 

The hypothesis of mental continuity throughout organic evolution

may be used in two different ways. On the one hand, it may be

held that we have more knowledge of our own minds than those of

animals, and that we should use this knowledge to infer the

existence of something similar to our own mental processes in

animals and even in plants. On the other hand, it may be held

that animals and plants present simpler phenomena, more easily

analysed than those of human minds; on this ground it may be

urged that explanations which are adequate in the case of animals

ought not to be lightly rejected in the case of man. The

practical effects of these two views are diametrically opposite:

the first leads us to level up animal intelligence with what we

believe ourselves to know about our own intelligence, while the

second leads us to attempt a levelling down of our own

intelligence to something not too remote from what we can observe

in animals. It is therefore important to consider the relative

justification of the two ways of applying the principle of

continuity.

 

It is clear that the question turns upon another, namely, which

can we know best, the psychology of animals or that of human

beings? If we can know most about animals, we shall use this

knowledge as a basis for inference about human beings; if we can

know most about human beings, we shall adopt the opposite

procedure. And the question whether we can know most about the

psychology of human beings or about that of animals turns upon

yet another, namely: Is introspection or external observation the

surer method in psychology? This is a question which I propose to

discuss at length in Lecture VI; I shall therefore content myself

now with a statement of the conclusions to be arrived at.

 

We know a great many things concerning ourselves which we cannot

know nearly so directly concerning animals or even other people.

We know when we have a toothache, what we are thinking of, what

dreams we have when we are asleep, and a host of other

occurrences which we only know about others when they tell us of

them, or otherwise make them inferable by their behaviour. Thus,

so far as knowledge of detached facts is concerned, the advantage

is on the side of self-knowledge as against external observation.

 

But when we come to the analysis and scientific understanding of

the facts, the advantages on the side of self-knowledge become

far less clear. We know, for example, that we have desires and

beliefs, but we do not know what constitutes a desire or a

belief. The phenomena are so familiar that it is difficult to

realize how little we really know about them. We see in animals,

and to a lesser extent in plants, behaviour more or less similar

to that which, in us, is prompted by desires and beliefs, and we

find that, as we descend in the scale of evolution, behaviour

becomes simpler, more easily reducible to rule, more

scientifically analysable and predictable. And just because we

are not misled by familiarity we find it easier to be cautious in

interpreting behaviour when we are dealing with phenomena remote

from those of our own minds: Moreover, introspection, as

psychoanalysis has demonstrated, is extraordinarily fallible even

in cases where we feel a high degree of certainty. The net result

seems to be that, though self-knowledge has a definite and

important contribution to make to psychology, it is exceedingly

misleading unless it is constantly checked and controlled by the

test of external observation, and by the theories which such

observation suggests when applied to animal behaviour. On the

whole, therefore, there is probably more to be learnt about human

psychology from animals than about animal psychology from human

beings; but this conclusion is one of degree, and must not be

pressed beyond a point.

 

It is only bodily phenomena that can be directly observed in

animals, or even, strictly speaking, in other human beings. We

can observe such things as their movements, their physiological

processes, and the sounds they emit. Such things as desires and

beliefs, which seem obvious to introspection, are not visible

directly to external observation. Accordingly, if we begin our

study of psychology by external observation, we must not begin by

assuming such things as desires and beliefs, but only such things

as external observation can reveal, which will be characteristics

of the movements and physiological processes of animals. Some

animals, for example, always run away from light and hide

themselves in dark places. If you pick up a mossy stone which is

lightly embedded in the earth, you will see a number of small

animals scuttling away from the unwonted daylight and seeking

again the darkness of which you have deprived them. Such animals

are sensitive to light, in the sense that their movements are

affected by it; but it would be rash to infer that they have

sensations in any way analogous to our sensations of sight. Such

inferences, which go beyond the observable facts, are to be

avoided with the utmost care.

 

It is customary to divide human movements into three classes,

voluntary, reflex and mechanical. We may illustrate the

distinction by a quotation from William James (“Psychology,” i,

12):

 

“If I hear the conductor calling ‘all aboard’ as I enter the

depot, my heart first stops, then palpitates, and my legs respond

to the air-waves falling on my tympanum by quickening their

movements. If I stumble as I run, the sensation of falling

provokes a movement of the hands towards the direction of the

fall, the effect of which is to shield the body from too sudden a

shock. If a cinder enter my eye, its lids close forcibly and a

copious flow of tears tends to wash it out.

 

“These three responses to a sensational stimulus differ, however,

in many respects. The closure of the eye and the lachrymation are

quite involuntary, and so is the disturbance of the heart. Such

involuntary responses we know as ‘reflex’ acts. The motion of the

arms to break the shock of falling may also be called reflex,

since it occurs too quickly to be deliberately intended. Whether

it be instinctive or whether it result from the pedestrian

education of childhood may be doubtful; it is, at any rate, less

automatic than the previous acts, for a man might by conscious

effort learn to