XI.
That out of this complex of elements which at bottom is simply one, the limits of bodies and the ego do not admit of being fixed in a manner certain and sufficient for all cases, has already been said. The composition of the elements, intimately connected with pleasure and pain, into an ideal mental-economical unity, the ego, is a work of the highest significance for the intellectual functions that act in the service of the pain-avoiding, pleasure-seeking will. The formation of the ego by this process of circumscription and delimitation is therefore instinctively effected, it grows familiar and natural, and fixes itself perhaps through heredity. By their high practical value, not only for the individual, but also for the entire race, the composites "ego" and "body" instinctively assert their existence, and operate with the power of original elements. In special circumstances, however, in which practical ends are not concerned, but knowledge becomes an object in itself, this delimitation often turns out to be insufficient, obstructive, and untenable.
Professional esprit de corps, and even professional bias, the sentiment of nationality, the most narrow-minded local patriotism may also have a high value, for certain purposes. But such conceptions will not characterise the far-sighted investigator, at least not in the moment of research. All these egoistic conceptions are adequate for practical purposes only. Of course, even the investigator can succumb to custom. Trifling scholastic fiddle-faddle, the cunning appropriation of others' labor and perfidious silence with regard to it, the numerous objections and complaints when unavoidably compelled to give recognition, and the scanty illumination of others' performances on such occasions, abundantly show that the scientist and scholar have also to fight the battle of existence, that the ways of science yet lead to the mouth, and that the pure quest of knowledge amid our present social relations is still an ideal.
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The primary fact is not the I, the ego, but the elements (sensations). The elements constitute the I. I perceive the sensation green, means, that the element green occurs in a given complex of other elements (sensations, memories). When I cease to perceive the sensation green, when I die, then the elements no longer occur in their customary, common way of association. That is all. Only an ideal mental-economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased to exist.
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The ego is not an unchangeable, definite, sharply-defined unity. The important factor is not unchangeability, not determinate distinguishability from other things, and not accurate limitation, for all these factors even vary within the sphere of individual life itself, and their alteration is even sought by the individual. Continuity alone is important. This view admirably accords with that to which Weismann recently attained by biological investigations ("Regarding the Immortality of Unicellular Beings," Biolog. Centralbl., Vol. IV, Nos. 21, 22; compare especially pp. 654 and 655, where the division of the individual into two equal halves is spoken of). But this continuity is only a means to dispose and to assure the content of the ego. This content and not the ego is the principal thing. But this content is not confined to the individual. With the exception of insignificant, valueless, personal memories or reminiscences, it remains preserved in others even after the death of the individual. The ego is unsavable. It is partly the discernment of this fact, partly the fear of the same, that leads to the most extravagant pessimistic and optimistic, religious and philosophical absurdities. We shall not be able in the long run to close our eyes to this simple truth, the immediate result of psychological analysis. We shall then no longer place so high a value upon the ego which even during individual life greatly changes, and which, indeed, in sleep or during absorption in some conception or in some thought, just in our happiest moments, may be partially or wholly absent. We shall then gladly renounce individual immortality, and shall not place more value upon the accessory elements than upon the principal. We shall in this way arrive at a freer and a more enlightened conception of life, which will exclude the neglect of other egos and the over-estimation of our own.
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If, now, the knowledge of the connection of the elements (sensations) does not suffice us, and we must ask Who, What, possesses this connection of sensations, Who, What, perceives sensations? we have succumbed, we may be sure, to our old habit of arranging every element (every sensation) within some unanalysed complex, and we are falling back imperceptibly to an older, lower, and more limited point of view.
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The habit of treating the unanalysed ego-complex as an indivisible unity is often scientifically presented in peculiar ways. First, the nervous system is separated from the body as the seat of sensations. In the nervous system again the brain is selected as fitted for the performance of this function, and finally, to save the pretended psychical unity, a further point is sought in the brain as the seat of the soul. But rough conceptions like these are hardly adapted to trace out even in the crudest lines the ways that future research will follow in investigating the connection of the physical and the psychical. The fact that the different organs of sensation and memory are physically connected with one another, and can be easily excited by one another is probably the foundation of the "psychical unity."
I once heard the question seriously discussed of "How the percept of a very large tree found room in the little head of a man?" Now though this "problem" does not exist, yet we perceive by the question the absurdity that is so easily committed in conceiving sensations to exist spacially in the brain. When I speak of the sensations of another person, these sensations of course present no activity in my optical space or my physical space generally; they are mentally added, and I conceive them to be causally annexed, not spacially, to the brain observed or represented. When I speak of my sensations, these sensations do not exist spacially in my head, but rather my "head" shares with them the same spacial field, as was explained above (compare what was said regarding the cut).
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Let there be no mention of the so-called unity of consciousness. Since the apparent opposition of the real and the perceived world exists only in the mode according to which it is viewed, and no real chasm exists, a multiplex interconnected content of consciousness is in no respect more difficult to understand than the multiplex interconnection of the world.
If we are determined to regard the ego as an actual unity, we cannot extricate ourselves from the following dilemma: either to set over against it—viz., the ego—the world of incognisable substances (which would be wholly idle and purposeless), or to regard the whole world, the egos of other people included, as only contained in our own ego (to which, seriously, we could hardly make up our minds).
But if we take the ego merely as a practical unity, composed for purposes of provisional survey; in fact, take it as a more strongly coherent group of elements, which is less strongly connected with other groups of this kind; questions like these will not arise and research will have a free outlook.
In his philosophical notes Lichtenberg says: "We become conscious of certain ideas that are not dependent upon us; and there are other ideas that, at least as we think, are dependent upon us. Where is the border-line? We know only the existence of our sensations, percepts, and thoughts. We should say, It thinks, just as we say, It lightens. It is going too far to say cogito, when we translate it by I think. Assuming the I, postulating it, is merely practical necessity." Though the method by which Lichtenberg arrives at this result is somewhat different from our own, we must nevertheless give our assent to the conclusion itself.