Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

or smaller part, from spiritual causes, which had M and Z for their ends. In organic nature this is even the normal state of the case. The result of this reasoning in any case is a certain probability that M, is also aimed at, and although it may not be in itself great, still it is always a strengthening of the directly obtained degree of probability which is not to be despised, since all later links in the chain have the benefit of this probability by its repetition at every stage.

From these considerations it is evident that the ways, in which ends are perceived in Nature, are multifariously combined. No claim is set up for the application of such calculations in practice, but they serve to clear up the principles which more or less unconsciously regulate the logical procedure of every one who correctly reflects on this subject, and who does not dogmatise thereon from the lofty heights of some à priori system. The examples adduced in this chapter are not intended to serve as a proof of the truth of Teleology, but only for the elucidation and illustration of the abstract expositions, which likewise will assuredly convert no opponent to the hypothesis of ends in Nature, for only examples en masse can do that; but perhaps they will lead some, who thought themselves to have outgrown the belief in Purpose as manifested in Nature, to weigh alleged instances thereof more carefully and impartially; and no other than this, viz., as a preparation for Section A. of our inquiry, was the design of the present chapter.

A.

THE MANIFESTATION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

IN BODILY LIFE.

"The Materialists endeavour to show that all, even mental phenomena, are physical: and rightly; only they do not see that, on the other hand, everything physical is at the same time metaphysical.”— SCHOPENHAUER.

I.

THE UNCONSCIOUS WILL IN THE INDEPENDENT FUNCTIONS OF THE SPINAL CORD AND GANGLIA.

THE time has gone by when the animals were contrasted with the free man as locomotive machines, as soulless automata. Deeper insight into the life of animals, strenuous effort to understand their language and the motives of their actions, has shown that with respect to mental capacity man differs from the brutes in degree and not in kind, just as the brutes differ among themselves; that in virtue of this higher capacity he has created a more perfect form of speech, and thereby has gained in the course of generations that perfectibility which is wanting to the brutes, owing to their imperfect means of communication. We accordingly know now, that we cannot compare the educated man of to-day with the animals, without being unjust to the latter, but only the peoples which are but little removed from the state in which they were fashioned by the hand of Nature; for we know that even our own race, privileged as it now is by higher aptitudes, was once what these still are, and that our present higher qualities of brain and mind have been only gradually attained through the law of hereditary transmission of acquired power. Thus the animal kingdom is presented to us as a finished scale of being, with pervading analogies. The fundamental spiritual faculties must be essentially the same in all, and what in the higher members appear to be new faculties are only secondary powers, which have been developed

in certain directions by the higher culture of common. elementary capacities. In all beings these fundamental or primitive activities of the mind are willing and thinking; for feeling (as I shall show in Chap. iii. B) may, with the help of the Unconscious, be developed from these two.

We shall speak in this chapter only of the Will. It is scarcely to be doubted, that what we regard as immediate cause of our action and call Will is to be found in the consciousness of animals as causal moment of their action, and must also be called Will, if we cease to give ourselves airs of superiority by employing different names for the very same things (as devouring, swilling, littering, for eating, drinking, child-bearing). The dog will not separate from its master; it wills to save the child which has fallen into the water from the well-known death; the bird will not let its young be injured; the cock will not share his hen with another, &c. I know there are many people who think they elevate man, when they ascribe as much as possible in the life of animals, especially the lower ones, to "reflex action." If these persons have in their minds the ordinary physiological sense of the term reflex action, involuntary reaction on an external stimulus, it may safely be said that either they have never observed animals, or that they have eyes but they see not. If however they extend the meaning of reflex action beyond its usual physiological acceptation, they are assuredly right, but then they forget: firstly, that man, too, lives and moves in pure reflex actions-that every act of will is a reflex action; and secondly, that every reflex action is an act of will, as we shall show in Chap. V.

Let us then retain provisionally the usual narrower acceptation of reflex action, and speak only of such acts. of will as are not reflexes in this sense, i.e., are not involuntary reactions of the organism on external stimuli. There are two marks in particular whereby volition may be distinguished from reflex actions: firstly, emotion, and

« ПредишнаНапред »