The analytic reductive method has the advantage of being much simpler than the constructive method. The former reduces to well-known universal elements of an extremely simple nature. The latter has, with extremely complicated material, to construct the further path to some often unknown end. This obliges the psychologist to take full account of all those forces which are at work in the human mind. The reductive method strives to replace the religious and philosophical needs of man, by their more elementary components, following the principle of the "nothing but," as James so aptly calls it. But to construct aright, we must accept the developed aspirations as indispensable components, essential elements, of spiritual growth. Such work extends far beyond empirical concepts but that is in accordance with the nature of the human soul which has never hitherto rested content with experience alone. Everything new in the human mind proceeds from speculation. Mental development proceeds by way of speculation, never by way of limitation to mere experience. I realise that my views are parallel with those of Bergson, and that in my book the concept of the libido which I have given, is a concept parallel to that of "élan vital"; my constructive method corresponds to Bergson's "intuitive method." I, however, confine myself to the psychological side and to practical work. When I first read Bergson a year and a half ago I discovered to my great pleasure everything which I had worked out practically, but expressed by him in consummate language and in a wonderfully clear philosophic style.
Working speculatively with psychological material there is a risk of being sacrificed to the general misunderstanding which bestows the value of an objective theory upon the line of psychological evolution thus elaborated. So many people feel themselves in this way at pains to find grounds whether such a theory is correct or not. Those who are particularly brilliant even discover that the fundamental concepts can be traced back to Heraclitus or some one even earlier. Let me confide to these knowing folk that the fundamental ideas employed in the constructive method stretch back even beyond any historical philosophy, viz. to the dynamic "views" of primitive peoples. If the result of the constructive method were scientific theory, it would go very ill with it, for then it would be a falling back to the deepest superstition. But since the constructive method results in something far removed from scientific theory the great antiquity of the basic concepts therein must speak in favour of its extreme correctness. Not until the constructive method has presented us with much practical experience can we come to the construction of a scientific theory, a theory of the psychological lines of development. But we must first of all content ourselves with confirming these lines individually.
FOREWORD TO CHAPTER XIV
This essay was originally written in 1913, when I limited myself entirely to presenting an essential part of the psychological point of view inaugurated by Freud. A few months ago my Swiss publisher asked for a second and revised edition. The many and great changes which the last few years have brought about in our understanding of the psychology of the unconscious necessitated a substantial enlargement of my essay. In this new edition some expositions about Freud's theories are shortened, whilst Adler's psychological views are more fully considered, and—so far as the scope of this paper permits—a general outline of my own views are given. I must at the outset draw the reader's attention to the fact that this is no longer an easy "popular" scientific paper, but a presentation making great demands upon the patience and attention of the reader. The material is extremely complicated and difficult. I do not for a moment deceive myself into thinking this contribution is in any way conclusive or adequately convincing. Only detailed scientific treatises about the various problems touched upon in these pages could really do justice to the subject. Any one who wishes to go deeply into the questions that are raised here must be referred to the special literature of the subject. My attention is solely to give the orientation in regard to the newest concepts of the inner nature of unconscious psychology. I consider the subject of the unconscious to be specially important and opportune at this moment. In my opinion, it would be a great loss if this problem, concerning every one so closely as it does, were to disappear from the horizon of the educated lay public, by being interned in some inaccessible specialised scientific journal. The psychological events that accompany the present war—the incredible brutalisation of public opinion, the epidemic of mutual calumnies, the unsuspected mania for destruction, the unexampled flood of mendacity, and man's incapacity to arrest the bloody demon—are they not, one and all, better adapted than anything else, to force obtrusively the problem of the chaotic unconscious—which slumbers uneasily beneath the ordered world of consciousness,—before the eyes of every thinking individual? This war has inexorably shown to the man of culture that he is still a barbarian. It testifies also what an iron scourge awaits him, if ever again it should occur to him to make his neighbour responsible for his own bad qualities. The psychology of the individual corresponds to the psychology of nations. What nations do, each individual does also, and as long as the individual does it, the nation will do it too. A metamorphosis in the attitude of the individual is the only possible beginning of a transformation in the psychology of the nation. The great problems of humanity have never been solved by universal laws, but always and only by a remodelling of the attitude of the individual. If ever there was a time when self-examination was the absolutely indispensable and the only right thing, it is now, in the present catastrophic epoch. But he who bethinks himself about his own being strikes against the confines of the unconscious, which indeed contains precisely that which it is most needful for him to know.
C. G. Jung.
Küsnacht-Zürich,
March, 1917.