We have now reviewed in general the different modes in which feeling may be determined by unconscious ideas, and perhaps on this occasion already the importance of unconscious ideas for the whole emotional life may have also become visible. This importance cannot be rated too highly. Let any one take for test whatever feeling he pleases, and seek to grasp it with perfectly clear consciousness in its whole extent. It is in vain; for unless satisfied with the most superficial explanation, he will constantly stumble on an irresolvable remainder, which mocks at every endeavour to illuminate it with the burning-glass of consciousness. But now, if one asks, what then has been done with the part that has become clear whilst it has been embraced with full consciousness, we shall be obliged to say that it has been translated into thoughts, i.e., conscious ideas, and only so far as feeling has been translated into thoughts has it become clearly conscious. But that feeling, even if only partially, has been recast into conscious ideas, sufficiently proves indeed that it already unconsciously contains these ideas, for otherwise the thoughts would, in fact, not be the same as the feeling. If the previously unconscious part of feeling, on being passed through consciousness, shows itself as material of thought, we may suppose the same also of the part of the feeling not yet interpenetrated by consciousness; for both in the individual and in humanity as a whole, the boundary between the not-understood and the understood part of feeling is always shifting.

Only so far as the feelings can be already translated into thoughts, only so far are they communicable, if we disregard the always extremely scanty instinctive language of gesture; for only so far as feelings are capable of being translated into thoughts are they to be rendered. into words. One knows, however, what difficulty there is in the communication of feelings; how often they are unrecognised and misunderstood; nay, even how often they are declared to be impossible. In general, feelings

can only be understood by him who has had them; only a hypochondriac understands the hypochondriac, only he who has loved, the lover. How often, however, do we fail to understand ourselves; how enigmatical often are our own feelings, especially when they occur for the first time; how liable are we to the greatest self-delusions with regard to them! We are often mastered by a feeling which has already struck firm roots in our inmost being without our suspecting it, and suddenly, on some occasion or other, there fall, as it were, scales from our eyes. One has only to remember how often the souls of pure girls are completely possessed by a first love, which they would with a good conscience stoutly deny; but should the unconsciously loved one incur a danger from which they can save him, then all at once the hitherto bashful maiden stands forth in the full heroism and sacrificing spirit of love, shunning neither ridicule nor slander. Then, however, she also knows at that same moment that she loves and how she loves. But as in this instance love, so at least once in a lifetime every spiritual feeling, has existed in us, and the process in virtue of which we become self-conscious once. for all, is the translation of the unconscious ideas which determined feeling into conscious ideas, i.e., thoughts and words.

IV.

THE UNCONSCIOUS IN CHARACTER AND MORALITY.

THERE is no manifestation of will without an exciting cause or motive. The will of the individual is primarily potential, a latent force, and its passage into the manifestation of energy, into definite volition, requires as sufficient reason a motive which always possesses the form of a mental representation. These psychological premisses I assume. Volition as such only differs in intensity. All other apparent attributes of the volition belong to its contents, i.e., to the mental pictures of the objects of volition, and this content again is connected with the motives. According to the kinds of objects most eagerly desired (as sensual enjoyment, goods and gold, praise, honour and renown, successful love, enjoyment of art and artistic productions, knowledge, &c.), is volition itself distinguished into different main tendencies (impulses), as, e.g., inordinate longing after enjoyments of sense, covetousness and avarice, vanity, ambition, and lust of fame, ardour of love, artistic impulse, thirst for knowledge, and the spirit of inquiry, &c.

If, now, this content of volition were solely dependent on motives, psychology would be very simple and the mechanism definite for all individuals. Experience shows, however, that one and the same motive, quite apart from accidental differences of disposition, acts differently on different individuals. Public opinion fails to affect one, is all in all to another. To this man the laurel crown of the poet or a beautiful woman seems contemptible, whilst another sacrifices his life-happiness for their possession.

One offers his property to save his honour, another sells it for a bribe. Good doctrines and fine examples spur this man to emulation, and that man they leave unaffected. Rational reflection is here the determiner of all action, there it has no motive power, and the certain prospect of destruction is not able to restrain a third from his folly, &c. For the most part, consciousness can assign no reason why this motive (say, the expected announcement of a new scientific discovery) possesses an attraction for me, why that one (say, the announcement that at the entertainment to which I am invited a gaming-table will be opened) acts as a feeble inducement. The most that can appear in consciousness in the shape of an intermediary is the expectation of a greater or smaller pleasure; but what is enigmatical and unfathomable in my nature is, why I promise myself a great pleasure from hearing of a new discovery, but from the game of hazard a small or no pleasure at all, whilst the converse is the case with my neighbour.

How a particular individual will be affected by this or that motive no one can say prior to experience; but if we know how a man reacts on all possible motives, we know all his idiosyncrasies become acquainted with his character. Character is then the mode of reaction on every special class of motives, or, what is the same thing, a condensed expression for the stimulating power of every particular class of desires. As there is no motive which belongs exclusively to one of these classes, always or commonly a greater number of impulses are affected; and the resultant of the desires hereby simultaneously excited is the active will, which unceasingly and immediately involves the act if this is not prevented by physical causes. If we now ask what sort of a process, then, this reaction of the will on motive and this opposition of the desires to the single resultant is, we must confess that we certainly perceive its existence through undoubted inferences from the facts falling within the domain of con

sciousness, but that we can say nothing with regard to its particular nature, because our consciousness affords no knowledge thereof. In any case, we only know the first term, the motive, and the last term, the particular volition or result; but what that is which reacts on motive we can never experience, no more than we can take a look into the nature of this reaction, which altogether wears the character of reflex action or reflectorial instinct, as we have seen in the special case of Compassion and some other impulses in Sect. B. Chap. i. We have, doubtless, in part, a consciousness of the conflict of various desires, but only so far as we have, in former simpler cases, experienced the various desires apart as resultants, and apply our former experience to the present case. How incomplete these experiences are, however, and how imperfectly they are used for the understanding of a present psychical process, every one doubtless will have experienced in his own person.

How often do we fancy that we have weighed with the utmost care the strength of all operative desires, and disregarded none; and yet, when it comes to action, see, to our extreme surprise, that our subtle calculation does not. fit the case, for, lo and behold, another and altogether different resultant appears as sovereign will. (The remarks on an unconscious will contained in the last chapter, pp. 252, 253, will recur to the reader. Compare also Chap. iii. C.) It appears, then, that there is, in fact, only one sure token of the proper, true, and final will, that is, the deed (no matter whether it succeeds, or is at the first attempt checked by external circumstances), but that every other supposition of consciousness with regard to what one properly wills remains uncertain, frequently deceptive, conjecture, which by no means depends on an immediate conscious cognition of the will, but on analogies of experience and their artificial combination. Often the firmest resolve, the strictest intention is dispersed by action like. spray before the wind, when the true will emerges from the night of the Unconscious, whilst the intentional