THE
ANALYSIS OF SENSATIONS
AND THE RELATION OF THE
PHYSICAL TO THE PSYCHICAL
BY
DR. ERNST MACH
EMERITUS PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA
TRANSLATED FROM THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION
by
M. WILLIAMS
REVISED AND SUPPLEMENTED FROM THE
FIFTH GERMAN EDITION
by
SYDNEY WATERLOW, M.A.
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION
by
THOMAS S. SZASZ, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
State University of New York
Dover Publications, Inc.
New York, New York
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS:
ANTIMETAPHYSICAL.
1.
THE great results achieved by physical science in modem
times-results not restricted to its own sphere but embracing that of other
sciences which employ its help-have brought it about that physical ways of
thinking and physical modes of procedure enjoy on all hands unwonted
prominence, and that the greatest expectations are associated with their
application. In keeping with this drift
of modern inquiry, the physiology of the senses, gradually abandoning the
method of investigating sensations in themselves followed by men like Goethe,
Schopenhauer, and others, but with greatest success by Johannes Müller, has
also assumed an almost exclusively physical character. This tendency must
appear to us as not altogether appropriate, when we reflect that physics, despite
its considerable development, nevertheless constitutes but a portion of a larger
collective body of knowledge, and that it is unable, with its limited
intellectual implements1 created for limited and special purposes,
to exhaust all the subject-matter in question.
Without renouncing the support of physics, it is possible for the
physiology of the senses, not only to pursue its own course of development, but
also to afford to physical science itself powerful assistance. The following
simple considerations will serve to illustrate this relation between the two.
2.
Colors, sounds, temperatures, pressures, spaces, times,
and so forth, are connected with one another in manifold ways; and with them
are associated dispositions of mind, feelings, and volitions. Out of this
fabric, that which is relatively more fixed and permanent stands prominently
forth, engraves itself on the memory, and expresses itself in language. Relatively greater permanency is exhibited,
first, by certain complexes of colors, sounds, pressures, and so forth,
functionally connected in time and space, which therefore receive special
names, and are called bodies. Absolutely permanent such complexes are not.
My table is now brightly, now
dimly lighted. Its temperature
varies. It may receive an ink
stain. One of its legs may be
broken. It may be repaired, polished,
and replaced part by part. But, for me, it remains the table at which I daily
write.
My friend may put on a
different coat. His countenance may
assume a serious or a cheerful expression.
His complexion, under the effects of light or emotion, may change. His shape may be altered by motion, or be
definitely changed. Yet the number of the permanent features presented,
compared with the number of the gradual alterations, is always so great, that
the latter may be overlooked. It is the
same friend with whom I take my daily walk.
My coat may receive a stain, a tear. My very manner of
expressing this shows that we are concerned here with a sum total of
permanency, to which the new element is added and from which that which is
lacking is subsequently taken away.
Our greater intimacy with
this sum4otal of permanency, and the preponderance of its importance for me as
contrasted with the changeable element, impel us to the partly instinctive,
partly voluntary and conscious economy of mental presentation and designation,
as expressed in ordinary thought and speech. That which is presented in a
single image receives a single designation, a single name.
Further,
that complex of memories, moods, and feelings, joined to a particular body (the
human body), which is called the "I" or "Ego," manifests
itself as relatively permanent. I may
be engaged upon this or that subject, I may be quiet and cheerful, excited and
ill-humored. Yet, pathological cases apart, enough durable features remain to
identify the ego. Of course, the ego also is only of relative permanency.
The
apparent permanency of the ego consists chiefly in the single fact of its
continuity, in the slowness of its changes. The many thoughts and plans of
yesterday that are continued today, and of which our environment in waking
hours incessantly reminds us (whence in dreams the ego can be very indistinct,
doubled, or entirely wanting), and the little habits that are unconsciously and
involuntarily kept up for long periods of time, constitute the groundwork of
the ego. There can hardly be greater differences in the egos of different
people, than occur in the course of years in one person. When I recall to-day
my early youth, I should take the boy that I then was, with the exception of a
few individual features, for a different person, were it not for the existence
of the chain of memories.} Many an article that I myself penned twenty years
ago impresses me now as something quite foreign to myself. The very gradual
character of the changes of the body also contributes to the stability of the
ego, but in a much less degree than people imagine. Such things are much less analyzed and noticed than the
intellectual and the moral ego. Personally,
people know themselves very poorly.[1] When I wrote these lines in 1886, Ribot's
admirable little book, The Diseases of Personality (second edition,
Paris, i888, Chicago, 1895), was unknown to me. Ribot ascribes the principal
role in preserving the continuity of the ego to the general sensibility.
Generally, I am in perfect accord with his views.[2]
The ego is as little absolutely permanent as are bodies.
That which we so much dread in death, the annihilation of our permanency,
actually occurs in life in abundant measure. That which is most valued by us,
remains preserved in countless copies, or, in cases of exceptional excellence,
is even preserved of itself. In the best human being, however, there are
individual traits, the loss of which neither he himself nor others need
regret. Indeed, at times, death, viewed
as a liberation from individuality, may even become a pleasant thought. Such
reflections of course do not make physiological death any the easier to bear.
After
a first survey has been obtained, by the formation of the substance-concepts
"body" and "ego" (matter and soul), the will is impelled to
a more exact examination of the changes that take place in these relatively
permanent existences. The element of change in bodies and the ego is
in fact, exactly what moves the will[3] to
this examination. Here the component parts of the complex are first exhibited
as its properties. A fruit is sweet; but it can also be bitter. Also, other
fruits may be sweet. The red color we
are seeking is found in many bodies.
The neighborhood of some bodies is pleasant; that of others,
unpleasant. Thus, gradually, different
complexes are found to be made up of common elements. The visible, the audible,
the tangible, are separated from bodies. The visible is analyzed into colors
and into form. In the manifoldness of the colors, again, though here fewer in
number, other component parts are discerned-such as the primary colors, and so
forth. The complexes are disintegrated into elements[4] that
is to say, into their ultimate component parts, which hitherto we have been
unable to subdivide any further. The
nature of these elements need not be discussed at present; it is possible that
future investigations may throw light on it.
We need not here be disturbed by the fact that it is easier for the
scientist to study relations of relations of these elements than the direct
relations between them.
3.
The useful habit of designating such relatively permanent
compounds by single names, and of apprehending them by single thoughts, without
going to the trouble each time of an analysis of their component parts, is apt
to come into strange conflict with the tendency to isolate the component
parts. The vague image which we have of
a given permanent complex, being an image which does not perceptibly change
when one or another of the component parts is taken away, seems to be something
which exists in itself. Inasmuch as it
is possible to take away singly every constituent part without destroying the
capacity of the image to stand for the totality and to be recognized again, it
is imagined that it is possible to subtract all the parts and to have
something still remaining. Thus
naturally arises the philosophical notion, at first impressive, but
subsequently re cognized as monstrous, of a "thing-in-itself,"
different from its "appearance," and unknowable.[5]
Thing, body, matter, are nothing apart from the
combinations of the elements,-the colors, sounds, and so forth - nothing apart
from their so-called attributes. That
protean pseudo-philosophical problem of the single thing with its many
attributes, arises wholly from a misinterpretation of the fact, that summary
comprehension and precise analysis, although both are provisionally justifiable
and for many purposes profitable, cannot be carried on simultaneously. A body is one and unchangeable only so long
as it is unnecessary to consider its details.
Thus both. the earth and a billiard-ball are spheres, if we are willing
to neglect all deviations from the spherical form, and if greater precision is
not necessary. But when we are obliged
to carry on investigations in orography or microscopy, both bodies cease to be
spheres.
4.
Man is pre-eminently endowed with the power of
voluntarily and consciously determining his own point of view. He can at one
time disregard the most salient features of an object, and immediately
thereafter give attention to its smallest details; now consider a stationary
current, without a thought of its contents (whether heat, electricity or
fluidity), and then measure the width of a Fraunhofer line in the spectrum; he
can rise at will to the most general abstractions or bury himself in the
minutest particulars. Animals possess
this capacity in a far less degree.
They do not assume a point of view, but are usually forced to it by
their sense-impressions. The baby that
does not know its father with his hat on, the dog that is perplexed at the new
coat of its master, have both succumbed in this conflict of points of
view. Who has not been worsted in similar
plights? Even the man of philosophy at
times succumbs, as the grotesque problem, above referred to, shows.
In this last case, the circumstances appear to furnish a
real ground of justification. Colors,
sounds, and the odors of bodies are evanescent. But their tangibility, a sort of constant nucleus, not readily
susceptible of annihilation, remains behind; appearing as the vehicle of the
more fugitive properties attached to it.
Habit thus, keeps our thought firmly attached to this central nucleus,
even when we have begun to recognize that seem hearing, smelling, and touching
are intimately akin ii character. A
further consideration is; that owing to the (singularly extensive development
of mechanical physics kind of higher reality is ascribed to the spatial and to
the temporal than to colors, sounds, and odors; agreeably t which, the temporal
and spatial links of colors, sound and odors appear to be more real than the
colors, sound and odors themselves. The
physiology of the senses however, demonstrates, that spaces and times may just'
appropriately be called sensations as colors and sound:
But of this later.
5.
Not
only the relation of bodies to the ego, but the ego itself also, gives rise to
similar pseudo - problems, t~ character of which may be briefly indicated as
follows: Let us denote the above-mentioned elements by the letters ABC. . .,KLM.
. ., abg... Let those complexes of colors, sounds, and so forth, commonly
called bodies, be denoted, for the sake of clearness, by A B C. . .; the
complex, known as our own body, which is a part of the former complexes
distinguished by certain peculiarities, may be called KLM . . .; the
complex composed of volitions, memory-images, and the rest, we shall represent
by abg. .
. Usually, now, the complex abg... KLM
. . ., as making up the ego, is opposed to the complex A B C . . .,
as making up the world of physical objects; sometimes also, abg. . . is viewed as ego, and KL M. . . ABC. .
. as world of physical objects. Now, at
first blush, A B C . . . appears independent of the ego, and opposed to
it as a separate existence. But this
independence is only relative, and gives way upon closer inspection. Much, it is true, may change in the
complex abg... without
much perceptible change being induced in A B C . . .; and vice
versa. But many changes in abg... do pass, by way of changes in KLM.. ., to ABC...;
and vice versa. (As, for
example, when powerful ideas burst forth into acts, or when our environment
induces noticeable changes in our body.) At the same time the group KLM
. . . appears to be more intimately connected with a abg... and with A B C. . than the latter with one
another; and their relations find their expression in common thought and
speech.
Precisely viewed, however, it appears that the group A
B C . . . is always codetermined by KL M. A cube when seen close at hand, looks large; when seen at a
distance, small; its appearance to the right eye differs from its appearance to
the left; sometimes it appears double; with closed eyes it is invisible. The
properties of one and the same body, therefore, appear modified by our own
body; they appear conditioned by it.
But where, now, is that same body, which appears so different?
All that can be said is, that with different KL M different A B
C…are associated.
A
common and popular way of thinking and speaking is to contrast
"appearance" with "reality." A pencil held in front of us in the air is seen by us as straight
dip it into the water, and we see it crooked.
In the latte case we say that the pencil appears crooked, but is
in reality straight. But what
justifies us in declaring on fact rather than another to be the reality, and degrading
the other to the level of appearance?
In both cases w have to do with facts which present us with different
combinations of the elements, combinations which in the two cases are
differently conditioned. Precisely
because C its environment the pencil dipped in water is optically crooked; but
it is tactually and metrically straight.
An image in a concave or flat mirror is only visible, whereas
under other and ordinary circumstances[6] a tangible
body as well corresponds to the visible image.
A bright surface is brighter beside a dark surface than beside one
brighter than itself. To be sure, our
expectation is deceived when, not paying sufficient attention to the
conditions, and substituting for one another different cases of the
combination, we fall into the natural error of expecting what we are accustomed
to, although the case may be an unusual one. The facts are not to blame for
that. In these cases, to speak of
"appearance" may have a practical meaning, but cannot have a
scientific meaning. Similarly, the
question which is often asked, whether the world is real or whether we merely
dream it, is devoid of all scientific meaning.
Even the wildest dream is a fact as much as any other. If our dreams were more regular, more connected,
more stable, they would also have more practical importance for us. In our waking hours the relations of the
elements to one another are immensely amplified in comparison with what they
were in our dreams. We recognize the
dream for what it is. When the process
is reversed, the field of psychic vision is narrowed; the contrast is almost
entirely lacking. Where there is no
contrast, the distinction between dream and waking, between appearance and
reality, is quite otiose and worthless.
The popular notion of an antithesis between appearance
has exercised a very powerful influence on and philosophical thought. We see this, for example, in Plato's
pregnant and poetical fiction of the Cave, in which, with our backs turned
towards the fire, e we observe merely the shadows of what passes (Republic, vii
1). But this conception was not thought
out to its final consequences, with the result that it has had an unfortunate
influence on our ideas about the universe., The universe, of which nevertheless
we are a part, became completely separated from us, and was removed an infinite
distance away. Similarly, many a young
man, hearing for the first time of the refraction of stellar light, has thought
that doubt was cast on the whole of astronomy, whereas nothing is required but an
easily effected and unimportant correction to put everything right again.
6.
We see an object having a point S. If we touch S, that is, bring it into
connection with our body, we receive a prick. We can see S, without feeling the
prick. But as soon as we feel the prick
we find S on the skin. The visible
point, therefore, is a permanent nucleus, to which the prick is annexed,
according to circumstances, as something accidental. From the frequency of analogous occurrences we ultimately
accustom ourselves to regard all properties of bodies as “effects” proceeding
from permanent nuclei and conveyed to the ego through the medium of the body;
which effects we call sensations. By this operation, however, these nuclei are
deprived of their entire sensory content, and converted into mere mental
symbols. The assertion, then, is
correct that the world consists only of our sensations. In which case we have knowledge only or
sensations, and the assumption. of the nuclei referred to, or of a reciprocal
action between them, from which sensations proceed, turns out to be quite' idle
and superfluous. Such a view can only suit with a half-hearted realism or a
half-hearted philosophical criticism.
7.
Ordinarily the complex abg... KLM…is
contrasted as ego with the complex ABC…At first only those elements of ABC…
that more strongly alter abg…, as a
prick, a pain, are wont to be thought of as comprised in the ego. Afterwards
however, through observations of the kind just referred to, it appears that the
right to annex A B C . . . to the ego nowhere ceases. In conformity with this view the ego can be
so extended as ultimately to embrace the entire world.' The ego is not sharply marked off, its
limits are very indefinite and arbitrarily replaceable. Only by failing to
observe this fact, and by unconsciously narrowing those limits, while at the
same time we enlarge them, arise, in the conflict of points of view, the
metaphysical difficulties met with in this connection.
As soon as we have perceived that the supposed unities
occurrences we ultimately accustom ourselves to regard "body" and
"ego"[7]
are only makeshifts, designed for provisional orientation and for definite
practical ends (so that we that we may take hold of bodies, protect ourselves
against pain, and so forth), we find ourselves obliged, in many more advanced
scientific investigations, to abandon them as insufficient and
inappropriate. The antithesis between
ego and world, between sensation (appearance) and thing, then vanishes, and we
have simply to deal with the connexion of the elements abg…A BC. . . KL M. . ., of which this
antithesis was only a partially appropriate and imperfect expression. This connexion is nothing more or less than
the combination of the above-mentioned elements with other similar elements
(time and space). Science has simply to
accept this connexion, and to get its bearings in it, without at once wanting
to explain its existence.
On a superficial examination the complex abg…appears to be made up of much more evanescent elements
than A B C . . . and KLM
. . ., in which last the elements seem to be connected with greater stability
and in a more permanent manner (being joined to solid nuclei as it were). Although on closer inspection the elements
of all complexes prove to be homogeneous, yet even when this has been
recognized, the earlier notion of an antithesis of body and spirit easily slips
in again. The philosophical
spiritualist is often sensible of the difficulty of imparting the needed
solidity to his mind-created world of bodies; the materialist is at a loss when
required to endow the world of matter with sensation. The monistic point of view, which reflexion has evolved, is
easily clouded by our older and more powerful instinctive notions.
8.
The
difficulty referred to is particularly felt when we consider the following
case. In the complex A B C. .which
we have called the world of matter, we find as parts, not only our own body K
L M. . ., but also the bodies of other persons (or animals) K' L' M'
. . . ,K" L" M"…to which, by analogy, we imagine other a’b’g’…,a’’b’’g’’…., annexed, similar to abg…So long as we deal with K' L' M'. . ., we find
ourselves in a thoroughly familiar province which is at every point accessible
to our senses. When, however, we
inquire after the sensations or feelings belonging to the body K' L' M'
. . ., we no longer find these in the province of sense: we add them in
thought. Not only is the domain which
we now enter far less familiar to us, but the transition into it is also
relatively unsafe. We have the feeling
as if we were plunging into an abyss.[8] Persons who adopt this way of thinking
only, will never thoroughly rid themselves of that sense of insecurity, which
is a very fertile source of illusory problems.
But
we are not restricted to this course.
Let us consider, first, the reciprocal relations of the elements of the
complex ABC..., without regarding K L M. . (our body). All physical investigations are
of this sort. A white ball falls upon a
bell; a sound is heard. The ball turns
yellow before a sodium lamp, red before a lithium lamp. Here the elements (A B C . . ) appear to be connected only with one
another and to be independent of our body (K L M. . . ). But if we take santonine, the ball again
turns yellow. If we press one eye to
the side, we see two balls. If we close
our eyes entirely, there is no ball there at all. If we sever the auditory nerve, no sound is heard. The elements A
B C . . ., therefore, are not only connected with one another, but also
with K L M. To this extent, and
to this extent only, do we call A B C sensations, and regard A
B C as belonging to the ego. In
what follows, wherever the reader finds the terms "Sensation,"
"Sensation-complex," used alongside of or instead of the expressions
"element," "complex of elements," it must be borne in mind
that it is only in the connexion and relation in question, only in
their functional dependence, that the elements are sensations. In another functional relation they are at
the same time physical objects. We only
use the additional term "sensations" to describe the elements,
because most people are much more familiar with the elements in question as sensations
(colors, sounds, pressures, spaces, times, etc.), while according to the popular
conception it is particles of mass that are considered as physical elements,
to which the elements, in the sense here used, are attached as
"properties" or "effects."1
In
this way, accordingly, we do not find the gap between bodies and sensations
above described, between what is without and what is within, between the
material world and the spiritual world.1
All elements A B C. . ., KL M constitute a single coherent
mass only, in which, when any one element is disturbed, all is put in
motion; except that a disturbance in K L M . . . has a more extensive
and profound action than one in A B C . . . A magnet in our neighborhood
disturbs the particles of iron near it; a falling boulder shakes the earth; but
the severing of a nerve sets in motion the whole system of
elements. Quite involuntarily does this
relation of things suggest the picture of a viscous mass, at certain places (as
in the ego) more firmly coherent than in others. I have often made use of this image in lectures.
9.
Thus
the great gulf between physical and psychological research persists only when
we acquiesce in our habitual stereotyped conceptions. A color is a physical object as soon as we consider its
dependence, for instance, upon its luminous source, upon other colors, upon
temperatures, upon spaces, and so forth.
When we consider, however, its dependence upon the retina (the elements K
LM) it is a psychological object, a sensation. Not the subject-matter, but the direction of our investigation,
is different in the two domains. (Cp.
also Chapter II., pp.43, 44.)
Both
in reasoning from the observation of the bodies of other men or animals to
the sensations which they possess, as well as in investigating the influence of
our own body upon our own sensations, we have to complete observed facts by
analogy. This is accomplished with much
greater ease and certainty, when it relates, say, only to nervous processes,
which cannot be fully observed in our own bodies-that is, when it is carried
out in the more familiar physical domain-than when it is extended to the
psychical domain) to the sensations and thoughts of other people. Otherwise there is no essential difference.
10.
The
considerations just advanced, expressed as they have been in an abstract form,
will gain in strength and vividness if we consider the concrete facts from
which they flow. Thus, I lie upon my sofa.
If I close my right eye, the picture represented in the accompanying cut
is presented to my left eye. In a frame
formed by the ridge of my eyebrow, by my nose, and by my moustache, appears a
part of my body, so far as visible, with its environment.[9] My body
differs from other human bodies-beyond the fact that every intense motor idea
is immediately expressed by a movement of it, and that, if it is touched, more
striking changes are determined than if other bodies are touched-by the
circumstance, that it is only seen piecemeal, and, especially, is
seen without a head.
If I observe an element A within
my field of vision, and investigate its connexion with another element B within
the same field, I step out of the domain of physics into that of physiology or
psychology, provided B, to use the
[incomplete]
It was about 1870 that the idea of this
drawing was suggested to me by an amusing chance. A certain Mr L., now long dead, whose many eccentricities were
redeemed lay his truly amiable character, compelled me to read one of C. F.
Krause's writings, in which the following occurs :-
Problem: To carry out the self inspection of
the Ego.
Solution: It is carried out immediately.”
In
order to illustrate in a humorous manner this philosophical ~' much ado about
nothing," and at the same time to show how the self-inspection of the Ego
could be really carried out," I embarked on the above drawing. Mr L 's society was most instructive and
stimulating to me, owing to the naivety with which he gave utterance to
philosophical notions that are apt to he carefully passed over in silence or
involved in obscurity.
11.
Reference
has already been made to the different character of the groups of elements
denoted by A B C. and abg…. As a
matter of fact, when we see a green tree before us, or remember a green tree,
that is, represent a green tree to ourselves, we are perfectly aware of the
difference of the two cases. The
represented tree has a much less determinate, a much more changeable form; its
green is much paler and more evanescent; and, what is of especial note, it
plainly appears in a different domain. A movement that we will to execute is
never more than a represented movement, and appears in a different domain from
that of the executed movement, which always takes place when the image is vivid
enough. Now the statement that the
elements A and a appear in different domains, means, if we go to the
bottom of it, simply this, that these elements are united with different other
elements. Thus far, therefore, the
fundamental constituents of A B C…abg…would
seem to be the same (colors, sounds, spaces, times, motor sensations . .
.), and only the character of their
connexion different.
Ordinarily
pleasure and pain are regarded as different from sections. Yet not only tactual sensations, but all
other kinds of sensations, may pass gradually into pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain also may be justly termed
sensations. Only they are not so well analyzed
and so familiar, nor, perhaps, limited to so few organs as the common
sensations. In fact, sensations of
pleasure and pain, however faint they may be, really constitute an essential
part of the content of all so-called emotions. Any additional element that
emerges into consciousness when we are under the influence of emotions may be
described as more or less diffused and not sharply localized sensations. William James,[10] and
after him Theodule Ribot,[11]
have investigated the physiological mechanism of the emotions: they hold
that what is essential is purposive tendencies of the body to action-tendencies
which correspond to circumstances and are expressed in the organism. Only a
part of these emerges into consciousness.
We are sad because we shed tears, and not vice versa, says
James. And Ribot justly observes that a
cause of the backward state of our knowledge of the emotions is that we have
always confined our observation to so much of these physiological processes as
emerges into consciousness. At the
same time he goes too far when he maintains that everything psychical is
merely "surajoute" to the physical, and that it is only the
physical that produces effects. For us
this distinction is non-existent.
Thus,
perceptions, presentations, volitions, and emotions, in short the whole inner
and outer world, are put together, in combinations of varying evanescence and
permanence, out of a small number of homogeneous elements. Usually, these
elements are called sensations. But as
vestiges of a one-sided theory inhere in that term, we prefer to speak simply
of elements, as we have already done.
The aim of all research is to ascertain the mode of connexion of these
elements.1 If it proves impossible to solve the problem by assuming one
set of such elements, then more than one will have to be assumed. But for
the questions under discussion it would be improper to begin by making
complicated assumptions in advance.
12.
That
in this complex of elements, which fundamentally is only one, the boundaries of
bodies and of the ego do not admit of being established in a manner definite
and sufficient for all cases, has already been remarked. To bring together elements that are most intimately
connected with pleasure and pain into one ideal mental-economical unity, the
ego; this is a task of the highest importance for the intellect working in the
service of the pain-avoiding, pleasure-seeking will. The delimitation of the ego, therefore, is instinctively
effected, is rendered familiar, and possibly becomes fixed through
heredity. Owing to their high practical
importance, not only for the individual, but for the entire species, the
composites "ego" and "body" instinctively make good their
claims, and assert themselves with elementary force. In special cases, however, in which practical ends are not
concerned, but where knowledge is an end in itself, the delimitation in
question may prove to be insufficient, obstructive, and untenable.[12]
The
primary fact is not the ego, but the elements (sensations). What was said on p. 21 as to the term
"sensation " must be borne in mind.
The elements constitute the I. I
have the sensation green, signifies that the element green occurs in a given complex
of other elements (sensations, memories).
When I cease to have the sensation green, when I die, then the elements
no longer occur in the ordinary, familiar association. That is all. Only an ideal mental-economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased
to exist. The ego is not a definite,
unalterable, sharply - bounded unity.
None of these attributes are important; for all vary even within the
sphere of individual life; in fact their alteration is even sought after by the
individual. Continuity alone is
important. This view accords admirably
with the position which Weismann has reached by biological investigations.
("Zur Frage der Unsterblichkeit der Einzelligen," Biolog.
Centralbi., Vol. IV., Nos. 2t, 22 ; compare especially pages 654 and 655, where
the scission of the individual into two equal halves is spoken of.) But continuity is only a means of preparing
and conserving what is - contained in the ego. This content, and not the ego, is the principal thing. This content, however, is not confined to
the individual. With the exception of some insignificant and valueless personal
memories, it remains preserved in others even after the death of the
individual. The elements that make up
the consciousness of a given individual are firmly connected with one another,
but with those of another individual they are only feebly connected, and the
connexion is only casually apparent.
Contents of consciousness, however, that are of universal significance,
break through these limits of the individual, and, attached of course to
individuals again, can enjoy a continued existence of an impersonal,
superpersonal kind, independently of the personality by means of which they
were developed. To contribute to this is the greatest happiness of the artist,
the scientist, the inventor, the social reformer, etc.
The
ego must be given up. It is partly the
perception of this fact, partly the fear of it, that has given rise to the many
extravagances of pessimism and optimism, and to numerous religious, ascetic,
and philosophical absurdities. In the long run we shall not be able to close
our eyes to this simple truth, which is the immediate outcome of psychological
analysis. We shall then no longer place
so high a value upon the ego, which even during the individual life greatly
changes, and which, in sleep or during absorption in some idea, just in our
very happiest moments, may be partially or wholly absent. We shall then be willing to renounce
individual immortality,[13]
and not place more value upon the subsidiary elements than upon the
principal ones. In this way we shall
arrive at a freer and more enlightened view of life, which will preclude the
disregard of other egos and the overestimation of our own. The ethical ideal
founded on this view of life will be equally far removed from the ideal of the
ascetic, which is not biologically tenable for whoever practices it, and
vanishes at once with his disappearance, and
from the ideal of an overweening Nietzschean "superman," who
cannot, and I hope will not be tolerated by his fellow-men.[14]
If a
knowledge of the connexion of the elements (sensations) does not suffice us,
and we ask, Who possesses this connexion of sensations, Who
experiences it? then we have succumbed to the old habit of subsuming every
element (every sensation) under some unanalyzed complex, and we are falling
back imperceptibly upon an older, lower, and more limited point of view. It is often pointed out, that a psychical
experience which is not the experience of a determinate subject is unthinkable,
and it is held that in this way the essential part played by the unity of conscious
ness has been demonstrated. But the
Eg0-consciousness can be of many different degrees and composed of a
multiplicity of chance memories. One
might just as well say that a physical process which does not take place in
some environment or other, or at least somewhere in the universe, is
unthinkable. In both cases, in order to
make a beginning with our investigation, we must be allowed to abstract from
the environment, which, as regards its influence, may be very different in
different cases, and in special cases may shrink to a minimum. Consider the sensations of the lower
animals, to which a subject with definite features can hardly be ascribed. It is out of sensations that the subject is
built up, and, once built up, no doubt the subject reacts in turn on the
sensations.
The
habit of treating the unanalyzed ego complex as an indiscerptible unity
frequently assumes in science remarkable forms. First, the nervous system is separated from the body as the seat
of the sensations. In the nervous
system again, the brain is selected as the organ best fitted for this end, and
finally, to save the supposed psychical unity, a point is sought in the
brain as the seat of the soul. But such crude conceptions are hardly fit even
to foreshadow the roughest outlines of what future research will do for the
connexion of the physical and the psychical. The fact that the different organs
and parts of the nervous system are physically connected with, and can be
readily excited by, one another, is probably at the bottom of the notion of
"psychical unity."
I
once heard the question seriously discussed, "How the perception of a
large tree could find room in the little head of a man?" Now, although this "problem" is no
problem, yet it renders us vividly sensible of the absurdity that can be
committed by thinking sensations spatially into the brain. When I speak of the sensations of another person,
those sensations are, of course, not exhibited in my optical or physical space;
they are mentally added, and I conceive them causally, not spatially, attached
to the brain observed, or rather, functionally presented. When I speak of my
own sensations, these sensations do not exist spatially in my head, but rather
my "head" shares with them the same spatial field, as was explained
above. (Compare the remarks on Fig. I On pp.17-19 above.)[15]
The unity of consciousness is
not an argument in point. Since the
apparent antithesis between the real world and the world given through the
senses lies entirely in our mode of view, and no actual gulf exists between
them, a complicated and variously interconnected content of consciousness is
no more difficult to understand than is the complicated interconnexion of the
world.
If
we regard the ego as a real unity, we become involved in the following dilemma:
either we must set over against the ego a world of unknowable entities (which
would be quite idle and purposeless), or we must regard the whole world, the
egos of other people included, as comprised in our own ego (a proposition to
which it is difficult to yield serious assent).
But if we take the ego simply
as a practical unity, put together for purposes of provisional survey, or as a
more strongly cohering group of elements, less strongly connected with other
groups of this kind, questions like those above discussed will not arise, and
research will have an unobstructed future.
In
his philosophical notes Lichtenberg says:
"We become conscious of certain presentations that are not
dependent upon us; of others that we at least think are dependent upon us. Where is the border-line? We know only the
existence of our sensations, presentations, and thoughts. We should say, It thinks, just as we
say, It lightens. It is going
too far to say cogito, if we translate cogito by I think. The assumption, or postulation, of the ego
is a mere practical necessity."
Though the method by which Lichtenberg arrived at this result is
somewhat different from ours, we must nevertheless give our full assent to his
conclusion.
13.
Bodies
do not produce sensations, but complexes of elements (complexes of sensations)
make up bodies. If, to the physicist, bodies appear the real, abiding
existences, whilst the "elements" are regarded merely as their
evanescent, transitory appearance, the physicist forgets, in the assumption of
such a view, that all bodies are but thought-symbols for complexes of elements
(complexes of sensations). Here, too,
the elements in question form the real, immediate, and ultimate foundation,
which it is the task of physiological-physical research to investigate. By the
recognition of this fact, many points of physiology and physics assume more
distinct and more economical forms, and many spurious problems are disposed of.
For
us, therefore, the world does not consist of mysterious entities, which by
their interaction with another, equally mysterious entity, the ego, produce
sensations, which alone are accessible.
For us, colors, sounds, spaces, times, . . . are provisionally the
ultimate elements, whose given connexion it is our business to investigate.[16]
It is precisely in this that the exploration of reality consists. In this investigation we must not allow
ourselves to. be impeded by such abridgments and delimitations as body, ego,
matter, spirit, etc., which have been formed for special, practical purposes
and with wholly provisional and limited ends in view. On the contrary, the fittest forms of thought must be created in
and by that research itself, just as is done in every special science. In place
of the traditional, instinctive ways of thought, a freer, fresher view,
conforming to developed experience, and reaching out beyond the requirements of
practical life, must be substituted throughout.
14.
Science
always has its origin in the adaptation of thought to some definite field of
experience. The results of the adaptation
are thought-elements, which are able to represent the whole field. The outcome,
of course, is different, according to the character and extent of the
field. If the field of experience is
enlarged, or if several fields heretofore disconnected are united, the
traditional, familiar thought-elements no longer suffice for the extended
field. In the struggle of acquired
habit with the effort after adaptation, problems arise, which disappear when
the adaptation is perfected, to make room for others which have arisen
meanwhile.
To
the physicist, qua physicist, the idea of "body" is productive
of a real facilitation of view, and is not the cause of disturbance. So, also, the person with purely practical
aims, is materially supported by the idea of the I or ego. For, unquestionably, every form of thought
that has been designedly or undesignedly constructed for a given purpose,
possesses for that purpose a permanent value. When, however, physics and psychology meet, the ideas held in the
one domain prove to be untenable in the other.
From the attempt at mutual adaptation arise the various atomic and
monadistic theories-which, however, never attain their end. If we regard sensations, in the sense above
defined (p.13), as the elements of the world, the problems referred to appear
to be disposed of in all essentials, and the first and most important adaptation
to be consequently effected. This
fundamental view (without any pretension to being a philosophy for all
eternity) can at present be adhered to in all fields of experience; it is
consequently the one that accommodates itself with the least expenditure of
energy, that is, more economically than any other, to the present temporary
collective state of knowledge.
Furthermore, in the consciousness of its purely economical function,
this fundamental view is eminently tolerant.
It does not obtrude itself into fields in which the current conceptions
are still adequate. It is also ever
ready, upon subsequent extensions of the field of experience, to give way
before a better conception.
The
presentations and conceptions of the average man of the world are formed and
dominated, not by the full and pure desire for knowledge as an end in itself,
but by the struggle to adapt himself favorably to the conditions of life. Consequently they are less exact, but at the
same time also they are preserved from the monstrosities which easily result
from a one-sided and impassioned pursuit of a scientific or philosophical point
of view. The unprejudiced man of
normal psychological development takes the elements which we have called A B
C . . . to be spatially contiguous and external to the elements K L M…and
he holds this view immediately, and not by any process of psychological
projection or logical inference or construction; even were such a process to
exist, he would certainly not be conscious of it. He sees, then, an "external world" A B C . . .
different from his body K L M…and existing outside it. As he does not observe at first the
dependence of the A B C's... on the K L M's... (which are always
repeating themselves in the same way and consequently receive little
attention), but is always dwelling upon the fixed connexion of the A B
C's... with one another, there appears to him a world of things independent
of his Ego. This Ego is formed by the
observation of the special properties of the particular thing K L M . .
. with which pain, pleasure, feeling, will, etc., are intimately
connected. Further, he notices things K'
L' M', K" L" M", which behave in a manner perfectly
analogous to K L M, and whose behavior he thoroughly understands as soon
as he has thought of analogous feelings, sensations, etc., as attached to them
in the same way as he observed these feelings, sensations, etc., to be attached
to himself. The analogy impelling him
to this result is the same as determines him, when he has observed that a wire
possesses all the properties of a conductor charged with an electric
current, except one which has not yet been directly demonstrated, to
conclude that the wire possesses this one property as well. Thus, since he does not perceive the
sensations of his fellow-men or of animals but only supplies them by analogy,
while he infers from the behavior of his fellow-men that they are in the same
position over against himself; he is led to ascribe to the sensations,
memories, etc., a particular A B C . … K L m… of a different nature,
always differently conceived according to the degree of civilization he has
reached; but this process, as was shown above, is unnecessary, and in science
leads into a maze of error, although the falsification is of small significance
for practical life.
These
factors, determining as they do the intellectual outlook of the plain man, make
their appearance alternately in him according to the requirements of practical
life for the time being, and persist in a state of nearly stable
equilibrium. The scientific conception
of the world, however, puts the emphasis now upon one, now upon the other
factor, makes sometimes one and sometimes the other its starting-point, and, in
its struggle for greater precision, unity and consistency, tries, so far as
seems possible, to thrust into the background all but the most indispensable
conceptions. In this way dualistic and monistic systems arise.
The plain man is familiar
with blindness and deafness, and knows from his everyday experience that the
look of things is influenced by his senses; but it never occurs to him to
regard the whole world as the creation of his senses. He would find an
idealistic system, or such a monstrosity as solipsism, intolerable in practice.
It
may easily become a disturbing element in unprejudiced scientific theorizing
when a conception which is adapted to a particular and strictly limited purpose
is promoted in advance to be the foundation of all investigation. This happens, for example, when all
experiences are regarded as "effects" of an external world extending
into consciousness. This conception
gives us a tangle of metaphysical difficulties which it seems impossible to
unravel. But the spectre vanishes at once when we look at the matter as it were
in a mathematical light, and make it clear to ourselves that all that is
valuable to us is the discovery of functional relations, and that what
we want to know is merely the dependence of experiences on one another. It then becomes obvious that the reference
to unknown fundamental variables which are not given (things-in -themselves)
is purely fictitious and superfluous.
But even when we allow this fiction, uneconomical though it be, to stand
at first, we can still easily distinguish different classes of the mutual
dependence of the elements of "the facts of consciousness"; and this
alone is important for us.
ABC KLM abg
K’L'M' a’b’g
K" L" M’’ a’’b’’g’’
The system of the elements is
indicated in the above scheme. Within
the space surrounded by a single line lie the elements which belong to the
sensible world,-the elements whose regular connexion and peculiar dependence on
one another represent both physical (lifeless) bodies and the bodies of men,
animals and plants. All these elements,
again, stand in a relation of quite peculiar dependence to certain of the
elements K L M-the nerves of our body, namely - by which the facts of
sense-physiology are expressed. The
space surrounded by a double line contains the elements belonging to the
higher psychic life, memory-images and presentations, including those which we
form of the psychic life of our fellow-men.
These may be distinguished by accents.
These presentations, again, are connected with one another in a
different way (association, fancy) from the sensational elements A B C…K L
M; but it cannot be doubted that they are very closely allied to the
latter, and that in the last resort their behavior is determined by A B C …K
L M (the totality of the physical world), and especially by our body and
nervous system. The presentations a’b’g’ of the contents of the consciousness of our
fellow-men play for us the part of intermediate substitutions, by means
of which the behavior of our fellow-men,-the functional relation of K' L' M'
to A B C-becomes intelligible, in so far as in and for itself
(physically) it would remain unexplained.
It
is therefore important for us to recognize that in all questions in this
connexion, which can be intelligibly asked and which can interest us,
everything turns on taking into consideration different ultimate variables and
different relations of dependence. That
is the main point. Nothing will be
changed in the actual facts or in the functional relations, whether we regard
all the data as contents of consciousness, or as partially so, or as completely
physical.[17]
The
biological task of science is to provide the fully developed human individual
with as perfect a means of orientating himself as possible. No other scientific ideal can be realized,
and any other must be meaningless.
The
philosophical point of view of the average man-if that term may be applied to
his naive realism-has a claim to the highest consideration. It has arisen in the process of immeasurable
time without the intentional assistance of man. It is a product of nature, and
is preserved by nature. Everything that philosophy has accomplished-though we
may admit the biological justification of every advance, nay, of every
error-is, as compared with it, but an insignificant and ephemeral product of
art. The fact is, every thinker, every
philosopher, the moment he is forced to abandon his one-sided intellectual
occupation by practical necessity, immediately returns to the general point of
view of mankind. Professor X., who
theoretically believes himself to be a solipsist, is certainly not one in
practice when he has to thank a Minister of State for a decoration conferred
upon him, or when he lectures to an audience. The Pyrrhonist who is cudgeled in
Moliere's Le Mariage Force, does not go on saying "Il me semble que
vous me battez," but takes his beating as really received.
Nor
is it the purpose of these "introductory remarks " to discredit the
standpoint of the plain man. The task
which we have set ourselves is simply to show why and for what purpose we hold
that standpoint during most of our lives, and why and for what purpose we are
provisionally obliged to abandon it. No
point of view has absolute, permanent validity. Each has importance only for some given end.
[1]
Once, when a young man, I noticed in
the street the profile of a face that was very displeasing and repulsive to
me. I was not a little taken aback when
a moment afterwards I found that it was my own face which, in passing by a shop
where mirrors were sold, I had perceived reflected from two mirrors that were
inclined at the proper angle to each other.
Not long ago,
after a trying railway journey by night, when I was very tired, I got into an
omnibus, just as another man appeared at the other end. "What a shabby pedagogue that is, that
has just entered," thought I. It
was myself: opposite me hung a large mirror. The physiognomy of my class,
accordingly, was better known to me than my own.
[2]
Cp. Hume, Treatise on Human Nature, Vol.
I. part iv. p. 6; Gruithuisen, Berträge zur Physiognosie und Eautognosie, Munich,1812,
pp.37-58
[3] Not to be taken in the metaphysical sense.
[4] If this process be regarded as an abstraction, the elements, as we
shall see, do not thereby lose anything of their importance. Cp. the subsequent
discussion of concepts in Chapter XIV.
[5]
Cp. W Schuppe's polemic against
Ueberweg, printed in Brasch's Welt-und Lebensanschauung Ueberwegs, Leipzig,
1889; F. J. Schmidt, Das Aergernis der Philosophie: eine Kantstudie, Berlin,
1897.
[6]
A long time ago (in the Vierteljahrsschrift
für Psychiatrie, Leipzig and Neuwied, i868, art. "Ueber die
Abhängigkeit der Netzhautstellen von einander") I enunciated this thought
as follows The expression "sense-illusion" proves that we are not yet
fully conscious, or at less have not yet deemed it necessary to incorporate the
fact into our ordinary language, that the senses represent things neither
wrongly no correctly. All that can
be truly said of the sense organs is, that, under different circumstances
they produce different sensations and perceptions. As these
"circumstances," now, are extremely various in character being partly
external (inherent in the objects), partly internal (inheres in the sensory
organs), and partly interior (having their activity in the central organs), it
can sometimes appear, when we only notice the external circumstances, as if the
organ acted differently under the same conditions. And it is customary to call the unusual effect, deceptions or
illusions.
[7]
When I say that the table, the tree,
and so forth, are my sensations, the statement, as contrasted with the mode of
representation of the ordinary man, involves a real extension of my ego. On the emotional side also such extensions
occur, as in the case of the virtuoso, who possesses as perfect a mastery of
his instrument as he does of his own body; or in the case of the skilful
orator, on whom the eyes of the audience are all converged, and who is
controlling the thoughts of all or in that of the able politician who is deftly
guiding his party; and so on. In conditions of depression, on the other hand,
such as nervous people often endure, the ego contracts and shrinks. A wall seems to separate it from the world.
[8]
When I first came to Vienna from the
country, as a boy of four or five years, and was taken by my father upon the walls
of the city's fortifications, I was very much surprised to see people below in
the moat, and could not understand how, from my point of view, they could have
got there; for the thought of another way of descent never occurred to me. I remarked the same astonishment, once
afterwards, in the case of a three-year-old boy of my own, while walking on the
walls of Prague. I recall this feeling
every time I occupy myself with the reflexion of the text, and I frankly
confess that this accidental experience of mine helped to confirm my opinion
upon this point, which I have now long held.
Our habit of always following the same path, whether materially or
psychically, tends greatly to confuse our field of survey. A child, on the piercing of the wall of a
house in which he has long dwelt, may experience a veritable enlargement of his
worldview, and in the same manner a slight scientific hint may often afford
great enlightenment.
A treatment of
this fundamental point, identical in essentials, but cast in a form which will
be perhaps more acceptable to scientists, will be found in my Erkenntnis und
Irrtum, Leipzig, 1905(2nd edition, Leipzig, 1906.)
Compare my Grundlinien
der Lehre von den Bewegungsempfindungen", Leipzig, Engelmann, 1875, p.
54. I there, for the first time, stated
my view shortly, but definitely, in these words: "Appearance may be
subdivided into elements, which, in so far as they are connected with certain
processes of our bodies, and can be regarded as conditioned by these processes,
we call sensations."
[9]
A discussion of the binocular field of
vision, with Its peculiar stereoscopic features, is omitted here, for although
familiar to all, it is not as easy to describe, and cannot be represented by a
single plane drawing apposite expression of a friend1 of mine made
upon seeing this drawing, passes through my skin. Reflexions like that for the field of vision may be made with
regard to the province of touch and the perceptual domains of the other senses.
[10] W. James, Psychology, New York, 1890,II., p.442.
[11] Th. Ribot, La psychologie des sentiments, 1896. (English translation, The Psychology of the Emotions, 1897.)
[12]
Compare the note at the conclusion of
my treatise, Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes der Erhaltung der
Arbeit, Prague, Calve, 1872. (History and Root of the Principle of the
Conservation of Energy. Translated and annotated by P. E. B. Jourdain,
Chicago, Open Court Publishing Co., 1911.)
Similarly,
class-consciousness, class-prejudice, the feeling of nationality, and even the
narrowest-minded local patriotism may have a high importance, for certain
purposes. But such attitudes will not
be shared by the broad-minded investigator, at least not in moments of
research. All such egoistic views are
adequate only for practical purposes. Of course, even the investigator may
succumb to habit. Trifling pedantries and nonsensical discussions; the cunning
appropriation of others' thoughts, with perfidious silence as to the sources
when the word of recognition must be given, the difficulty of swallowing one's
defeat, and the too common eagerness at the same time to set the opponent's
achievement in a false light: all this abundantly shows that the scientist and
scholar have also the battle of existence to fight, that the ways even of science
still lead to the mouth, and that the pure impulse towards knowledge is still
an ideal in our present social conditions.
[13]
In wishing to preserve our personal
memories beyond death, we are behaving like the astute Eskimo, who refused with
thanks the gift of immortality without his seals and walruses.
[14]
However far the distance is from
theoretical understanding to practical conduct, still the latter cannot in the
long run resist the former.
[15] As early as the writings of Johannes Muller, we can already find a tendency towards views of this kind, although his metaphysical bias prevents him from carrying them to their logical conclusion. But Hering (Herrmann's Handbuch der Phvsiologie, Vol. III., p.345) has the following characteristic passage: "The material of which visual objects consists is the visual sensations. The setting sun, as a visual object, is a flat, circular disk, which consists of yellowish-red color, that is to say of a visual sensation. We may therefore describe it directly as a circular, yellowish-red sensation. This sensation we have in the very place where the sun appears to us. " I must confess that, so far as the experiments go which I have had occasion to make in conversation, most people, who have not come to close quarters with these questions by serious thinking, will pronounce this way of looking at the matter to be mere hair-splitting. Of course, what is chiefly responsible for their indignation is the common confusion between sensible and conceptual space. But anyone who takes his stand as I do on the economic function of science, according to which nothing is important except what can be observed or is a datum for us, and everything hypothetical, metaphysical and superfluous, is to be eliminated, must reach the same conclusion. I think that a similar standpoint is to he ascribed to Avenarius, for in his Der menschliche Weitbegnif, p. 76, the following passages occur: "The brain is not the dwelling-place, seat or producer of thought; it is not the instrument or organ, it is not the vehicle or substratum, etc., of thought." "Thought is not an indweller or command-giver, it is not a second half or aspect, etc., nor is it a product; it is not even a physiological function of the brain, nor is it a state of the brain at all." I am not able or willing to subscribe to all that Avenarius says or to any interpretation of what he says, but still his conception seems to me to approximate very nearly to my own. The method which he terms, "The exclusion of introjection," is only a particular form of the elimination of the metaphysical.
[16]
I have always felt it as a stroke of
special good fortune, that early in life, at about the age of fifteen, I
lighted, in the library of my father, on a copy of Kant's Prolegomena to any
Future Metaphysics. The book made at the time a powerful and ineffaceable
impression upon me, the like of which I never afterwards experienced in any of
my philosophical reading. Some two or three years later the superfluity of the
r6le played by "the thing in itself" abruptly dawned upon me. On a
bright summer day in the open air, the world with my ego suddenly appeared to
me as one coherent mass of sensations, only more strongly coherent in
the ego. Although the actual working
out of this thought did not occur until a later period, yet this moment was
decisive for my whole view. I had still
to struggle long and hard before I was able to retain the new conception in my
special subject. With the valuable parts of physical theories we necessarily
absorb a good dose of false metaphysics, which it is very difficult to sift out
from what deserves to be preserved, especially when those theories have become
very familiar to us. At times, too, the traditional, instinctive views would
arise with great power and place impediments in my way. Only by alternate
studies in physics and in the physiology of the senses, and by historicophysical
investigations (since about 1863), and after having endeavored in vain to
settle the conflict by a physico~psychological monadology (in my lectures on
psycho-physics, in the Zeitschrift für praktische Heilkunde, Vienna,
1863, p. 364), have I attained to any considerable stability in my views. I make no pretensions to the title of
philosopher. I only seek to adopt in physics a point of view that need not be
changed the moment our glance is carried over into the domain of another
science; for, ultimately, all must form one whole. The molecular physics of
to-day certainly does not meet this requirement. What I say I have probably not been the first to say. I also do not wish to offer this exposition
of mine as a special achievement. It is rather my belief that every one will be
led to a similar view, who makes a careful survey of any extensive body of
knowledge. Avenarius, with whose works
I became acquainted in 1883, approaches my point of view (Philosophie als
Denken der Welt nach dem Prinzip des kleinsten Kraftmasses, 1876). Also
Hering, in his paper on Memory (Almanach der Wiener Akademie, 1870,
p.258; English translation, 0. C. Pub. Co., Chicago,4th edition, enlarged,
1913), and J. Popper in his beautiful book, Das Rechte zu leben und die
Pfticht zu sterben (Leipzig, 1878, p.62), have advanced allied
thoughts. Compare also my paper Über die ökonomische Natur der
pkysikalischen Forschung (Almanach der WienerAkademie, 1882, p.179, note;
English translation in my Popular Scientific Lectures, Chicago, 1894).
Finally let me also refer here to the introduction to W. Preyer's Reine
Empfindungslehre, to Riehl's Freiburger Antrittsrede, p. 40, and
to R. Wahle's Gehirn und Bewusstsein, 1884. My views were indicated briefly in 1872 and 1875, and not
expounded at length until 1882 and 1883.
I should probably have much additional matter to cite as more or less
allied to this line of thought, if my knowledge of the literature were more
extensive.
[17] Cf. J. Petzoldt's excellent paper “Solipsismus auf praktischem Gebiet" (Vierteljahrsschrift fiir wissentschaftliche Philosophie, XXXV., 3, p.339); Schuppe, "Der Solipsismus', (Zeitschr. fur immanente Philosophie, Vol.III., p.327).