Psychology: an elementary text-book

by Hermann Ebbinghaus

An infant has no consciousness of either reality or unreality. He has simply conscious states, without any such distinction. But he cannot fail to learn the distinction. He is hungry. He cries. He becomes conscious of reproduced former experiences of food and of the mother bringing the food. And, indeed, the door opens, the mother enters with the food, very similar to the imagined mother, and yet differing in vividness, in permanence, in number of details. At a later time the child imagines strange compositions: animals with legs both below and on their backs, so that they can turn over and continue running when one set of legs is tired; princes and princesses with golden crowns on their heads; fairies carrying marvelous gifts in their hands. But nothing of this kind appears with the vividness, permanence, and distinctness characteristic of the mother entering the door. Human beings who appear with a similar vividness, permanence, and distinctness, either are bareheaded or wear plain-looking hats; and their gifts amount to but little. When the child imagines the experience with his mother, he recalls the substitution of the vivid and stable consciousness for the feeble and fleeting image of the mother and the food. When he imagines his dreams of princes and fairies, he recalls the substitution of those vivid but homely mental states for less vivid but more beautiful ones. When such experiences have been repeated hundreds of times, the child begins to realize that there is a distinction of the greatest importance between the two classes. He forms the abstract concepts of sensory perception and of fancy—of consciousness of various sensory qualities and characterized by indescribable vividness, permanence, and distinctness; and on the other hand, of consciousness of various sensory qualities and characterized by feebleness, fleetingness, and vagueness, and in this respect flatly contradicted by the mental states of the other kind. In these abstract conceptions consists the consciousness of reality and unreality. Reality and unreality are not logical opposites, but merely relative concepts.

As soon as the ideas of reality and unreality are once formed, ample opportunity is found for their application. They are applied also to cases which do not belong to either of the extremes of vividness, permanence, and distinctness, or feebleness, fleetingness, and vagueness. Finally, they are applied by mere analogy to cases which do not directly call for their application—as in a discussion of historical truths. At this point another distinction is made. Trees with leaves of silver are never presented to our sense organs. But the elements which make up even the most contradictory compounds of fancy have been known through the sense organs and become known again as sensory impressions. Trees with a foliage of silver are not seen in everyday life; but trees are seen, and leaf-like things of silver, too. Even if all our ideational thought were fancy, its elements would tend to make us conscious of the concept of reality rather than of unreality because separately the elements have often been experienced with a high degree of vividness, permanence, and distinctness. The opportunities for thinking of reality are incomparably more numerous in human life than those for thinking of unreality. We develop the habit of conceiving our thoughts as real, unless there is a positive force compelling us to accept the opposite concept. Thus we understand why the child, as soon as he has formed these two concepts, is immensely credulous.

Tell the child that the moon is going to drop from heaven, and he will look up, expecting to see it fall. The child’s experience is limited. There is but rarely a positive force tending to reproduce in his consciousness the concept of unreality. Where there is no such force, the child does not remain neutral, skeptical, but conceives his thought as including objective reality. Language assists in this tendency, for the first words acquired by the child mean objective realities, persons, clothes, furniture, and so on. The frequent use of these words strengthens the habit of thinking of things as realities. Of much influence is also the use of the verb to be as a mere copula and also in the sense of to exist. The child is thus induced to regard a thing as existing because it is thought to be yellow, round, etc. That to be is used in this ambiguous manner in all languages seems to be additional proof of what is historically certain, that the human race, like the human child, has passed through a period of extreme credulity. This racial credulity through the traditional usage of language contributes now to the credulity of the individual.

Gradually the child’s experience becomes more extensive and begins to exert upon the multitude of original beliefs an influence which sometimes continues all through life, although ultimately the progress becomes very slow. Experience steadily encroaches upon the realm of belief, driving it from ground which it previously occupied. It also gives additional authority to belief, enabling it to hold more firmly that to which previously it possessed but a doubtful title.

Much that contradicts frequent experiences is taken out of the realm of belief and called a fairy tale or a story. Trees with golden apples? There is no such thing, the real apples assert—we are all mellow and meaty, not hard as gold. A Santa Claus who distributes gifts to all the children everywhere at the same time? Impossible, says everyday experience. He who is here cannot also be yonder and in a thousand other places.

On the other hand, experience gives strength to the child’s belief. Single matters of belief are connected mutually and with the absolute basis of all knowledge, the sensory perceptions of the present. When I am obliged to think, however briefly and vaguely, that as really as I now see this paper and perceive the words printed on it, I was at that particular time, previous to those and those events of the meantime, at a certain place witnessing a certain act, my belief in the reality of this event is unshakable. Whatever can be connected in this manner with this fixed point, is itself fixed, placed beyond doubt.

Why can I believe my dreams while I am dreaming them, but not after waking up? Because consciousness is limited during sleep. There are no perceptions with their normal vividness, permanence, and distinctness, with which the dream may be compared as to its reality. There are but few other ideas accompanied by a vivid idea of reality, with which the dream may be compared. The dream has therefore the maximum of reality of all mental states present at that time in the mind. This is meant when we believe our dreams while we dream them. In a dream it may seem real to be shot toward the moon in an immense shell in company with other people, as in Jules Verne’s story. But in waking life this thought is altogether devoid of reality. In comparison with the reality of my present experience and of my ideas of the limits of engineering, of the low temperature of interstellar space, and so on, that thought of a journey in a shell immediately makes me conscious of the vivid idea of unreality. I cannot believe that story.

We call a verbal statement proved as soon as the connection between it and our present experience has been established in such a manner that the idea of reality is aroused in our mind. The believing of that which has been proved is called knowing. Belief is often used in a narrower sense, excluding that which is known and including only that which does not arouse either an idea of reality or an idea of unreality. Both usages are justifiable, the narrower one and also the wider one. Knowledge and belief are opposed as well as related. It is of much practical importance to distinguish that which has been proved from that which has not been proved. But it is also of practical importance to distinguish that which is surely unreal from that which is merely unproved. It is quite impossible in human life to prove every statement before we permit it to affect our thought and our action.

The chief thing which a man must have learned when he arrives at maturity is this: that the number of facts to be believed is very much smaller than he thought originally. The belief of childhood and youth is subject to continuous losses. Something is, indeed, confirmed and strengthened by growing experience; but it was believed before it was known, and cannot properly be called an additional belief. Much that has been believed for some time is recognized as unreal. That apparent errors have to be recognized as truths happens much more rarely. Experience makes a man more and more skeptical, cautious. This is of great advantage to him in his adaptation to the world, and higher institutions of learning to a large extent have their purpose in aiding the young to develop cautious, critical habits of thinking. A student goes to college not merely in order to cram himself with bare facts, but to be trained in the habit of seeing men and things in the abundance of their relations, of asking for their passports before granting them free passage.

Thus the original tendency to believe is gradually limited, more in one individual, less in another. But it is never perfectly eradicated. This, indeed, would not be advantageous. A limited tendency to believe is indispensable. Two conditions contribute chiefly toward the retention of a belief which can be neither proved nor disproved: authority and personal needs.