[CHAPTER IV]
APPERCEPTION
There are cases of severe insanity in which the patients utter with great rapidity a number of words, joined together without sense and sometimes intermingled with absolutely meaningless sounds. This symptom is considered a component of the so-called "flight of ideas." A sane person can also produce this, if he, without any train of thought, simply repeats any words that may occur to him. For example, the following is such a series of words: "school house garden build stones ground hard soft long see harvest rain move pain." Compare with this a context like the following out of the seventh book of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister: "Spring had come in all its glory. A spring thunder-storm, that had been threatening the whole day long, passed angrily over the hills. The rain-clouds swept over the land, the sun came out again in his majesty, and the glorious rainbow appeared against the grey background." Wherein do these two word-combinations differ from each other? We are perhaps inclined to answer that the first series is lacking in any connection between the separate elements. It seems almost like a series of words taken at haphazard out of a dictionary and placed aimlessly one after the other. And yet one soon notices that the separate words are not quite so unconnected, as at the first glance they seem to be. As a rule it is obviously some memory-association that combines the succeeding word with the preceding one, as "house" with "school," and "garden" with "house," and so on. Sometimes the association may join a word with one preceding it at a greater distance back, or it may join two different words to the same one, e.g. "stones" with "build" and "house," "ground" with "garden." Sometimes also it may not be the ideational content itself, but the mere rhyme, that brings about the combination, as with "rain" and "pain." In other cases we may not be able to find a definite association at all. And yet, considering the many-sided and darkly perceived ideas often caused by mere affective influences, which we have considered above, we cannot help taking for granted latent associations in such cases as well, and especially since these cases happen very seldom. A "free, unconnected chain of ideas," as is sometimes presupposed, we shall place at once in the same category with "chance" in the region of physical phenomena. Just as in the latter case, it simply means for us that the cause cannot be found in the case in question. From this point of view the first series of words is in some way or other psychologically conditioned in each of its elements by association, and still the series does not form a whole. It resembles in a way a heap of stones, out of which a house or several houses could possibly be built, but to make them into a whole the building plan, the unifying thought, is wanting. Now if we look at the second series of words, we see at once that in this case also the different parts are joined together by association. The general ideas of spring, thunderstorm, hills, rain, sun, and rainbow are all links in an association-chain. But these elements are so arranged as to make a unified image. The impression of this image places us at once in the situation and mood that the author wishes to awaken in the reader. In this picture none of the chief component parts are superfluous; each is in close connection with the whole, which as a total idea binds all these associated elements together.
Now if we wished to distinguish the second from the first of the above ideational series by the objective characteristic of the sensible arrangement of its separate components, it would not be possible in consequence of the subjective nature of the process. Let us suppose that a child learns by heart the sentences from Wilhelm Meister without in the least paying attention to the meaning of the words, as it occasionally may happen, then the reproduction of these sentences has for the child no sense. The difference between this and the first series as to its psychological character is only apparent and not real. The separate words in both cases are joined to each other by mere association. In the consciousness of the child they do not form a unified whole. Wherein lies the difference between this mere apparent unity of sentences learned senselessly by heart and the real unity in the mind of the author, who wrote them, or of the intelligent reader, who reproduces the picture in his mind? Let us try to answer this question in detail The author who first formed the picture, and the reader who reproduces it, do not behave psychologically in exactly the same manner. The whole, even although in indistinct outlines, must be present in the consciousness of the author, before he writes down his sentences. He behaves, to take an example from our metronome experiments, in the same way as we do in listening to a certain rhythm, which we are hearing into the uniform beats of the metronome, or again, as we do when we beat with our finger a certain predetermined rhythm. The whole was in his consciousness, but the separate parts entered successively into the fixation-point of apperception and then ultimately ended at the end of the paragraph with the total feeling joined to the whole, which even at the beginning prepared for and influenced the coming paragraph. The state of the reader, who reproduces the author's thoughts, is a little different. From the beginning his attention is directed towards one total idea made up of many components, but this total idea is only produced from the impression of the words read. With the author the whole is there at the beginning and at the end of the production of the thought, which is itself developed in the successive apperceptions of the separate parts. With the reader there is at first only an expectation directed towards a whole. This expectation is shown in feelings of strain which are mostly regulated into definite qualitative directions, and these feelings are sufficient to guide the conception of the developing parts of the image into clear consciousness in the way in which the author himself raised his total idea, which was at first indistinct. Thus in both cases the activity of apperception is the essential factor, which makes a difference in the formation of such a combination from that of a mere association row. The thought-context changes into a mere association, if the separate parts of the same are joined together by memory alone and if they are reproduced without the inner unity of thought. Now such a reproduction becomes a passively experienced process, which lacks the consciousness of activity peculiar to the self-production of a thought and also, with the above-mentioned modifications, to its reproduction in the mind of the hearer or reader. In both these cases it is that feeling of activity, that we have mentioned above as the characteristic of active apperception, made up of alternating feelings of excitation, strain, and relaxation—it is this feeling of activity which gives the process the character whereby it differs essentially from mere association.
While all apperceptions agree in the objective characteristics of the combination of a complex into a unity and in the subjective one of voluntary activity, yet in a further comparison of our thought processes we meet with a very evident difference in the content of the combined ideas. Think, for example, of a sentence such as the following one from Kant: "Whether the treatment of knowledge, that belongs to a critique of reason, is proceeding along the sure way of science or not, can easily be judged by the result." If we compare this sentence out of the Critique of Pure Reason with the above description, out of Wilhelm Meister, may we not be inclined to say that each belongs to quite a different world of thought? In our first example everything is graphic, each word represents a sensuous idea, the whole is a picture in words. In Kant not one single word is the expression of a concrete object, they are all abstract concepts, which only obtain some living content by means of further processes of thought, which they stimulate. And yet the abstract thought-compound corresponds with the concrete description in so far as it can be reduced ultimately to concrete concepts. It has to make use of words, which as impressions of the senses of hearing and seeing are themselves sensuous ideas. Certainly such concepts as "knowledge," "reason," "science," and even "treatment," "way," "result," which make up the sentence out of Kant, are not in the least of a concrete character in the way they are used. But if we go back to the original meanings of all these words, we find every time that it is a sensuous one, i.e. relates to the senses. "Treatment" at an earlier stage of language means something that we can treat in a material sense, "knowledge" refers to sensuous knowledge —something that we know by means of our senses, "reason" is nothing but the understanding of words or similar sensible impressions. As regards "way" it clearly bears the stamp of a concrete concept, it can be used as synonymous with "road." And yet in all these cases, the words in the thought, which they here help to express, are far removed from their origins. Thus the most abstract thought can ultimately be reduced in all its components to concrete concepts. And these words, the means of expression, which we cannot dispense with, at the same time bear witness to the fact that abstract thinking has developed itself step by step from concrete. The history of knowledge teaches us that this happened in the following manner. The original sensuous ideas entered into the most manifest relations with each other, and then just as at the primitive stage of thought the concrete ideas themselves were joined together as separate elements of one thought, so at a higher stage these relations between ideas were then treated as elements. So the word "knowledge" represents an almost unlimited number of processes of objective knowing, and thereby it becomes an abstract concept, which can no longer be directly considered concrete. In this way there is brought about, by an unceasing concatenation of apperceptions, a continuous concentration of the thought process, which at the same time represents a great saving and concentration in the work of thinking. A concept, such as "knowledge," is like a bank-note that represents an inexhaustible value of current coin. Very appropriate in this connection is what Mephistopheles says to the student in Faust, "One throw of the shuttle stirs up a thousand combinations." And even although with the help of this development in meaning of word-ideas the process of thinking may have very greatly diverged from its original sensuous basis, it nevertheless remains in the actual process always sensuous and concrete. For, to continue with Mephistopheles, "just where concepts are lacking, a word comes in at the right moment." Only in our sense the "word" has quite a serious meaning. The word is the real ideational equivalent for the concept, that cannot be formed into an idea. It changes abstract thoughts into concrete ideational processes that can be heard and seen.
By the side of these concentrations caused by continuous apperceptions, the primitive concrete thinking, along with all the intermediate steps between the concrete object and the abstract concept, always preserves its own value peculiar to each of these steps. And among this row of values it is the most primitive one, the one that is directed solely to the apprehension of reality, that receives a favoured place in our life and thought—in our life, since we belong to the immediate reality and intervene in it in our activity; in our thought, since we always must think the abstract thought-complexes made real in their separate applications, if we do not wish to lose ourselves altogether. The special value of primitive apprehension, unweakened by any kind of abstraction, finds expression in the fact that the two divisions of human mental activity, which as complements to each other make up the chief value of human life, i.e. science and art, make real the two forms of thinking. Hence the creations of art are no less thought-compounds than those of science. They follow in the general laws of their construction exactly the same laws of apperception, which we observed in the productions of thought contained in speech. The thought is as a whole in our consciousness, and at first only works upon the apperception by means of the resulting total feeling, and then develops into its separate component parts by successive acts of apperception. In exactly the same way the artist, the poet, or the composer is accustomed to grasp the whole of the work of art in its outlines, sometimes very indistinct, before he begins to carry out any of the parts, and while carrying them out a total idea is formed, which in its turn has a reciprocal influence upon the original idea. In both cases, especially through the influence of intervening associations, the thought-process or the composition of the work of art may undergo deviations or additions in its separate parts. The regularity of the process as a whole remains undisturbed by this. A work of art is just as little a mere product of association as is a thought arranged in sentences.
Various phenomena of everyday experience find their explanation in these psychological observations. First of all must be mentioned the seldom-noted fact, that we are able in our speech to bring to an end a fairly complicated thought without difficulty, although at the beginning of the sentences we are not at all clear as to the separate words and ideas or their combinations. Some people, when they are obliged to speak in public, fail simply because their confidence in this self-regulation of the train of thoughts is lacking at such moments. And this again is due to the fact that they think they must first of all find the suitable transition from one word to the next. In free conversation they can carry to an end without a break the most complicated sentences, while in public their speech is hesitating and embarrassed, and they are every moment in danger of breaking down. In such a case absolute confidence in the possibility of expressing freely and involuntarily the thought in one's mind is the surest help to overcome these difficulties. Of course a sensible training will also help.
Let us call to mind the processes by means of which the beginning and end of an expression of thought are held together into one sentence or into several sentences joined together by the same thought. We note at once that the general content in its whole feeling-quality is already present as soon as the first word is spoken, while the ideas and the corresponding words are not clearly in consciousness beyond that first beginning. If the process continues without associative distractions and additions, by which, occasionally, parts that lie far from the original thought are added to it, then we notice at the same time that that beginning feeling corresponds perfectly with the terminal feeling that accompanies the termination of the spoken thought. This terminal feeling is generally at first much stronger than the initial feeling, but then it gradually goes over into the feeling-quality that is preparing the next thought. Now it is obvious at once that all these phenomena correspond in essentials with those we observed in our metronome experiments. In these experiments the conditions were much more simple and exact, so that they strengthen the more uncertain observations in ordinary reading and thinking.