Self-Consciousness : Part 2

The Nature of Goodness
by George Herbert Palmer

(Page 4 of 12)

In unconsciousness our lives began, and from it they have not altogether emerged. Yet unconsciousness is a matter of degree. We may be very much aware, aware but slightly, vanishingly, not at all. Even though we never existed unconsciously, we may fairly assume such a blank terminus in order the better to figure the present condition of our minds. They show sinking degrees moving off in that direction; when we think out the series, we come logically to a point where there is no consciousness at all.

Such a point analogy also inclines us to concede. In our body we come upon unconscious sections. This body seems to have some connection with myself; yet of its large results only, and not of its minuter operations, can I be distinctly aware. In like manner it is held that within the mind processes cumulate and rise to a certain height before they cross the threshold of consciousness. Below that threshold, though actual processes, they are unknown to us. The teaching of modern psychology is that all mental action is at the start unconscious, requiring a certain bulk of stimulus in order to emerge into conditions where we become aware of it. The cumulated result we know; the minute factors which must be gathered together to form that result, we do not know. I do not pronounce judgment on this psychological question. I state the belief merely in order to show how probable it is that our conscious life is superposed upon unconscious conditions.

In conduct itself I believe every one will acknowledge that his moments of consciousness are like vivid peaks, while the great mass of his acts - even those with which he is most familiar - occur unconsciously. When we read a word on the printed page, how much of it do we consciously observe? Modern teachers of reading often declare that detailed consciousness is here unnecessary or even injurious. Better, they say, take the word, not the letter, as the unit of consciousness. But taking merely the letter, how minutely are we conscious of its curvatures? Somewhere consciousness must stop, resting on the support of unconscious experiences. Matthew Arnold has declared conduct to be three fourths of life. If we mean by conduct consciously directed action, it is not one fourth. Yet however fragmentary, it is that which renders all the rest significant.

III

Just above our unconscious mental modifications appear the reflex actions, or instincts. Here experience is translated into action before it reaches consciousness; that is, though the actions accomplish intelligent ends, there is no previous knowledge of the ends to be accomplished. A flash of light falls on my eye, and the lid closes. It seems a wise act. The brilliant light is too fierce. It might damage the delicate organ. Prudently, therefore, I draw the small curtain until the light has gone, then raise it and resume communication with the outer world.

My action seems planned for protection. In reality there was no plan. Probably enough I did not perceive the flash; the lid, at any rate, would close equally well if I did not. In falling from a height I do not decide to sacrifice my arms rather than my body, and accordingly stretch them out. They stretch themselves, without intention on my part. How anything so blind yet so sagacious can occur will become clearer if we take an illustration from a widely different field.

To-day we are all a good deal dependent on the telephone; though, not being a patient man, I can seldom bring myself to use it. It has one irritating feature, the central office, or perhaps I might more accurately say, the central office girl. Whenever I try to communicate with my friend, I must first call up the central office, as it is briefly called and longly executed. Not until attention there has been with difficulty obtained can I come into connection with my friend; for through a human consciousness at that mediating point every message must pass. In that central office are accordingly three necessary things; viz., an incoming wire, a consciousness, and an outgoing wire; and I am helpless till all these three have been brought into cooperation. Really I have often thought life too short for the performance of such tasks. And apparently our Creator thought so at the beginning, when in contriving machinery for us he dispensed with the hindering factor of a central office operator.

For applied to our previous example of a flash of light, the incoming message corresponds to the sensuous report of the flash, the outgoing message to the closure of the eye, and the unfortunate central office girl has disappeared. The afferent nerve reports directly to the efferent, without passing the message through consciousness. A fortune awaits him who will contrive a similar improvement for the telephone. A special sound sent into the switch-box must automatically, and without human intervention, oblige an indicated wire to take up the uttered words. The continuous arc thus established, without employment of the at present necessary girl, will exactly represent the exquisite machinery of reflex action which each of us bears about in his own brain. Here, as in our improved telephone, the announcement itself establishes the connections needful for farther transmission, without employing the judgment of any operating official.

By such means power is economized and action becomes extremely swift and sure. Promptness, too, being of the utmost importance for protective purposes, creatures which are rich in such instincts have a large practical advantage over those who lack them. It is often assumed that brutes alone are instinctive, and that man must deliberate over each occasion. But this is far from the fact. Probably at birth man has as many instincts as any other animal. And though as consciousness awakes and takes control, some of these become unnecessary and fall away, new ones - as will hereafter be shown - are continually established, and by them the heavy work of life is for the most part performed. Personal goodness cannot be rightly understood till we perceive how it is superposed on a broad reflex mechanism.

About the Author

George Herbert Palmer (1842-1933) was an American scholar and author, born in Boston. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover, and in 1864 he graduated at Harvard, to which he returned, after study at Tübingen, Germany, and at Andover Theological Seminary, to be tutor in Greek. He became Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy, and civil polity at Harvard.