第80章 CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION(1)

1. Every psychical compound is composed of a number of psychical elements which do not usually all begin or end at exactly the same moment. As a result, the interconnection which unites the elements to a single whole always reaches beyond the individual compounds, so that different simultaneous and successive compounds are united, though indeed somewhat more loosely. We call this interconnection of psychical compounds conscious.

Consciousness, accordingly, does not mean anything that exists apart from psychical processes, nor does it refer merely to the sum of these processes without reference to how they are related to one another. It expresses the general synthesis of psychical processes, in which the single compounds are marked off as more intimate combinations. A state in which this interconnection is interrupted, as deep sleep or a faint, is called an unconscious state; and we speak of "disturbances of consciousness" when abnormal changes in the combination of psychical compounds arise, even though these compounds themselves show no changes whatever.

Consciousness in this sense, as a comprehensive interconnection of simultaneous and successive psychical processes, shows itself in experience first of all in the psychical life of [p. 204] the individual as individual consciousness. But we have analogous interconnection in the combination of individuals, although it is limited to certain sides of mental life, so that we may further include under the more general concept consciousness the concepts of collective consciousness, of social consciousness, etc. For all these broader forms, however, the foundation is the individual consciousness, and it is to this that we will first turn our attention.

(For collective consciousness see § 21, 14.)

Individual consciousness stands under the same external conditions as psychical phenomena in general, for which it is, indeed, merely another expression, referring more particularly to the mutual relations of the components of these phenomena to one another. As the substratum for the manifestations of an individual consciousness we have in every case an individual animal organism. In the case of men and similar higher animals the cerebral cortex, in the cells and fibres of which all the organs that stand in relation to psychical processes are represented, appears as the immediate organ of this consciousness. The complete interconnection of the cortical elements may be looked upon as the physiological correlate of the interconnection of psychical processes in consciousness, and the differentiation in the functions of different cortical regions as the physiological correlate of the great variety of single conscious processes. The differentiation of functions in the central organ is, indeed, always merely relative; every psychical compound requires the cooperation of numerous elements and many central regions. When the destruction of certain cortical regions produces definite disturbances in voluntary movements, or in sensations, or when it interferes which the formation of certain classes of ideas, it is perfectly justifiable to conclude that this region furnishes certain links in the chain of psychical [p.

205] elements that are indispensable for the processes in question. The assumptions often made on the basis of these phenomena, that there is in the brain a special organ for the faculties of speech and writing, or that visual, tonal, and verbal ideas are stored in special cortical cells, are not only the results of the grossest physiological misconceptions, but they are absolutely irreconcilable with the psychological analysis of these functions. Psychologically regarded, these assumptions are nothing but modern revivals of that most unfortunate form of faculty-psychology known as phrenology.