Instinct and the unconscious : a contribution to a biological theory of the psycho-neuroses

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INSTINCT
AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

A CONTRIBUTION TO A BIOLOGICAL
THEORY OF THE PSYCHO-NEUROSES

BY

W. H. R. RIVERS, M.D., D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S.

SECOND EDITION

CAMBRIDGE

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1924

First Edition 1920

Second Edition 1922

Reprinted 1924

PBINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE

This book has two parts. The first gives the substance of
lectures delivered in the Psychological Laboratory at Cambridge
in the summer of 1919, and repeated in the spring of the
present year at the Phipps Clinic of the Johns Hopkins
Medical School, Baltimore, under the direction of Professor
Adolf Meyer. The second part consists of appendices in which
are republished occasional papers written as the result of clinical
experience gained during the war. A few alterations have been
made in these, chiefly in order to bring the terminology into
line with that adopted in the body of the book, and in the
second Appendix the original paper has been amplified. A
few of the opinions expressed in these appendices differ in
some respects from those of the lectures, but have been left as
originally stated because they present alternative points of view
which may possibly be nearer the truth than those adopted as
the result of later deliberation.

The general aim of the book is to put into a biological
setting the system of psycho-therapy which came to be
generally adopted in Great Britain in the treatment of the
psycho-neuroses of war. This system was developed in the
main at the Maghull Military Hospital under the direction of
Dr. R. G. Rows, to whom I owe my introduction to this
branch of medicine and my thanks for much help and guidance
when serving under him as medical officer.

My thanks are also due in especial measure to Dr. W. H.
Bryce, who was in charge of Craiglockhart War Hospital while
I was working there. That hospital gave an unrivalled
opportunity for gaining experience of the psycho-neuroses of
war, and any use that I was able to make of that opportunity,

vi PREFACE

in spite of serious difficulties, is due to the never-failing help
and encouragement of Dr. Bryce.

I am greatly indebted to the Medical Research Committee
(now the Medical Research Council) for the assistance which
made it possible for me to work at Maghull and with the
Royal Air Force. I am glad also to express my thanks to the
Medical Department of the R.A.F. for the opportunity of
acquiring experience in the varied psychological problems
presented by Aviation in time of war, and to my colleagues in
that Force for their help in making use of this experience.

I am indebted for permission to publish the appendices to
the editors of the Lancet and Psychoanalytic Review, to the
Royal Society of Medicine, the National Committee of Mental
Hygiene of the United States, the Medical Research Council,
and the Medical Department of the Royal Air Force.

W. H. R. Rivers.

St. John's College, Cambridge,
July 15, 1920.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Few changes have been made in this edition, the most
important being connected with the topic of dissociation, the
result of criticism by Dr T. W. Mitchell. The book remains as
before an expression of the views of one whose medical experience
has been confined to the psycho-neuroses of war so that he has
had no opportunity of testing his conclusions by the study of
the corresponding disorders of the individual in peace. It is
written in the hope that his views will be tested by those to
whom this opportunity is open.

Two appendices have been added. For permission to publish
them I am indebted to the editors of Scribner's Magazine and
Psyche.

W. H. R. RivEEs.

October, 1921.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

PREFACE . . . . .

I. INTRODUCTION ....

II. THE UNCONSCIOUS

III, SUPPRESSION ....

IV. SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION .
V. THE CONTENT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

VI. THE NATURE OF INSTINCT .

VII. THE DANGER-INSTINCTS

VIII. SUPPRESSION AND THE ALL-OR-NONE

IX. INSTINCT AND SUPPRESSION

X. DISSOCIATION .

XI. THE "complex"

XII. SUGGESTION

XIII. HYPNOTISM

XIV. SLEEP

XV. THE PSYCHO-NEUROSES

XVI. HYSTERIA OR SUBSTITUTION-NEUROSIS

XVII. OTHER MODES OF SOLUTION

XVIII. REGRESSION

XIX. SUBLIMATION .

vii

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PRINCIPLE

61

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71

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85

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90

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101

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127

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139

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148

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156

viii CONTENTS

M'PENDtl

I. freud's psychology of the unconscious

II. A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA

III. THE REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE

IV. WAR-NEUROSIS AND MILITARY TRAINING

V. freud's CONCEPTION OF THE "CENSORSHIP'

VI. "wind-up " ......

VII, PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR
VIII. THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION .

INDEX

PAGE

159
170
185
205
228
241
248
260
274

INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In the secondary title of this book I have indicated that one
of its main aims is to give a biological view of the psycho-
neuroses. My purpose is to bring functional disorders of the
mind and nervous system into relation with the concepts con-
cerning their normal mode of working, which are held by the
biologist and the physiologist. It will, I hope, help my readers
to understand this purpose if I sketch briefly the conditions out
of which this aim arose, and the general lines of the process by
which the study of a certain group of the psycho-neuroses has
led me to the views here set forth.

One of the most striking features of the war from which we
have recently emerged — perhaps its most important feature from
the medical point of view — has been the enormous scale on which
it produced those disturbances of nervous and mental function
which are grouped together by the physician under the heading
of psycho-neurosis. The striking success in coping with the
infectious diseases, which in all other recent wars have been far
more deadly than the weapons of the enemy, shows that modern
medicine was prepared for this aspect of the war, and had ready
for use the main lines of treatment which would take the sting
from these scourges of warfare. Surgery also was forewarned
and forearmed for its task of dealing with the wounds inflicted
by modern weapons. Any increase in the deadly power of these
weapons is due to the greater number they can reach rather than
to the greater deadliness of the injuries they inflict upon the
individual. Though surgery has made great advances during

B

2 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

the war, these are only developments for which the surgeon was
prepared and involved no radical alteration in his outlook.

The case is very different when we turn to the field presented
by psycho-neurosis. Though the Russo-Japanese war might
have led physicians to expect psycho-neurosis on an extensive
scale, the medical administration of our own and other armies
was wholly unprepared for the vast extent and varied forms in
which modern warfare is able to upset the higher functions of
the nervous system and the mental activity of those called upon
to take part in it. Moreover, before the war, the psycho-
neuroses had interested few practitioners of medicine. Common
as these disorders are in civil life, they are left almost without
notice in medical education, while those who had paid special
attention to the subject were torn asunder by fierce differences
of opinion, not only concerning the nature of these disturbances
of nervous and mental function, but also in regard to the
practical measures by which they might be treated or prevented.
The outbreak of the war found the medical profession with no
such common body of principles and measures as those which
enabled Medicine and Surgery to deal so successfully with the
more material effects of warfare upon the human organism.

In accordance with the general materialistic tendency of medi-
cine the first stage of this branch of the medical history of the war
was to ascribe the psycho-neuroses of warfare to the concussions
of shell-explosion, an attitude crystallised in the unfortunate
and misleading term "shell-shock" which the general public
have now come to use for the nervous disturbances of warfare.
It soon became clear, however, that the great majority of the
functional nervous disorders of warfare are not traumatic in
the strict sense, but occur in pronounced forms either in the
complete absence of any physical shock, or after exposure to
shell-explosions of a kind very unlikely to have caused physical
injury. It became evident that the shell-explosion or other
event which forms the immediate antecedent of the illness is
only the spark which sets into activity a morbid process for
which the mental stresses and strains of warfare have long pre-
pared the ground. Once it is recognised that the essential

INTRODUCTION 3

causes of the psycho-neuroses of warfare are mental, and not
physical, it becomes the teisk of the physician to discover the
exact nature of the mental processes involved, and the
mechanisms by which these processes are so disordered as to
produce the vast diversity of forms in which the morbid state
appears.

In civilian practice cases of psycho-neurosis fall into two chief
groups set up by very different conditions. One of these groups,
usually called traumatic neurasthenia, is especially known as the
sequel of railway accidents, and since this form of neurosis
closely resembles that due to warfare, our knowledge of war-
neurosis might have advanced more rapidly if this had been
taken as a guide. Owing, however, to its comparative rarity,
the traumatic form of psycho-neurosis was less known than that
arising out of the stresses and strains of ordinary life. Progress
in oiir knowledge of this second group was hindered by wide
diffei'ences of opinion concerning the nature of the factors to
which its various forms are due. Many failed to recognise that,
though the essential pathology of war- neurosis must be the same
as that of civil practice, the factors concerned in this pathology
might be very different.

The situation was especially complicated by the existence of
a definite theory of psycho-neurosis which, though it succeeded
in bringing into a co-ordinated scheme the vast diversity of
form in which functional nervous and mental disorders become
manifest, had yet not merely failed to meet with general
acceptance, but was the subject of hostility exceptional even in
the history of medicine. This hostility was almost entirely due
to the fact that the author of the theory, Sigmund Freud of
Vienna, found the essential cause of every psycho-neurosis in
some disturbance of sexual function. Further, the process of
psycho-analysis, which formed Freud's chief ingtrument of
inquiry, led him to the view that these disturbances of sexual
function often went back to the first few years of life and im-
plied a sexuality of the infant which became an especial ground
for the hostility and ridicule of his opponents. At the beginning
of the war the medical profession of this and other countries

4 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

was divided into two sharply opposed groups ; one, small in size,
which accepted the general principles of Freud, either in their
original form or as modified by Jung and other disciples ; the
other, comprising the vast majority of the profession, who not
merely rejected the stress laid upon the sexual, but in setting
this aside refused to attend to many features of Freud's scheme
which could hardly have failed to appeal to them if they had
been able dispassionately to face the situation.

Among the laity Freud's views met with a greater interest and
a wider acceptance. In some cases this acceptance was founded
on observations furnished by the study of dreams or of such
occurrences of everyday life, as had been so ably used by Freud
to support his scheme, but inability to study the main line of
evidence upon which the Freudian system was based prevented
the interest of these students from being more than that of the
amateur.

The frequency of the psycho-neuroses of war brought the
subject within the reach of many who had hitherto taken no
special interest in this branch of medicine, while in other cases,
those whose interest had hitherto been of an amateur kind were
now brought into contact with clinical material by which they
were enabled to test in detail the Freudian doctrine of psycho-
neurosis. The opportunity thus afforded to independent and
unbiassed workers had certain definite results. Freud's work,
in so far as it deals with psycho-neurosis, has two main aspects.
As in every scheme of a pathological kind we can distinguish
between the conditions or causes of the morbid process and the
mechanisms by which these conditions produce the mani-
festations or symptoms of disease. In the heat engendered by
differences of opinion concerning the conditions of psycho-
neurosis, the pathological mechanisms had been neglected and
had aroused little interest, a neglect which is readily intelligible,
for few will find it worth while to study the details of a
structure resting on foundations they reject.

The first result of the dispassionate study of the psycho-
neuroses of warfare, in relation to Freud's scheme, was to show
that in the vast majority of cases there is no reason to suppose

INTRODUCTION 5

that factors derived from the sexual life played any essential part
in causation, but that these disorders became explicable as the
result of disturbance of another instinct, one even more funda-
mental than that of sex — the instinct of self-preservation,
especially those forms of it which are adapted to protect the
animal from danger. Warfare makes fierce onslaughts on an
instinct or group of instincts which is rarely touched by the
ordinary life of the member of a modern civilised community.
War calls into activity processes and tendencies which in its
absence would have lain wholly dormant.

The danger-instincts, as they may be called, are not only
fundamental, but they are far simpler both in their nature and
their effects than the instincts which are concerned in continuing
the species or maintaining the harmony of society. The
awakening of the danger-instincts by M-arfare produces forms of
psycho-neurosis far simpler than those of civil life, which depend
in the main on disturbance of the other two great groups of
instinct. The simplicity of the conditions upon which the
psycho-neuroses of war depend makes it easier to discern the
mechanisms by which these conditions produce their effects.
Those who were able to approach the subject without prejudice
could not fail to see how admirably adapted are many of the
mechanisms put forward by Freud to explain how the conditions
underlying a morbid state produce the symptoms through which
the state becomes manifest. It seemed as if Freud's mechanisms
might have been obvious to all, or at least might have met with
far earlier acceptance, if war-neurosis had been of habitual
occurrence and civil neurosis had occurred only as the result of
occasional catastrophes. The aim of this book is to consider
these mechanisms in their relation to the more normal processes
of the animal organism, and especially to the mechanism by
which certain parts of experience become so separated from the
rest that they are no longer capable of recall to consciousness by
the ordinary processes of memory. Psycho-neurosis depends
essentially upon the abnormal activity of processes which do not
ordinarily enter into consciousness, and the special aim of this
book is to consider the general biological function of the process

6 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

by which experience passes into the region of the unconscious.
I shall attempt to show that the main function of psycho-
neurosis is the solution of a conflict between opposed and in-
compatible principles of mental activity. Instinctive processes
and experience associated therewith, pass into the unconscious
whenever the incompatibility passes certain limits. As indicated
in the title, the special aim of the book is to study the relation
between instinct and that body of experience we are accustomed
to speak of collectively as "the unconscious.'" In this study the
first task is to make as clear as possible the senses in which these
terms will be used and this will be the aim of the following
chapters.

CHAPTER II

THE UNCONSCIOUS

The concept of " the unconscious " in psychology is one which
has aroused the liveliest differences of opinion and has been met
by bitter opposition. Even those who are ready to accept the
vast influence of unconscious factors in psychology may well be
appalled by the difficulties of treating the unconscious in a
scientific manner and fitting so necessarily hypothetical a factor
into the explanation of behaviour. One line of opposition has
come from advocates of the older introspective school of psy-
chologists who have found it difficult to fit an unconscious region
of the mind into their schemes of description and explanation.
The aim of the older psychology was to furnish a rational
explanation of human behaviour and endeavour. As the material
for such explanation they used almost exclusively the happenings
in their own minds, which could be directly, though really only
retrospectively, observed, and made this material the basis of
constructions whereby they fitted into coherent schemes the
infinitely varied experience of the human mind. When their
introspective method failed them, and they were driven to
assume the existence of factors lying outside those accessible to
introspection, they were accustomed to assume subconscious
processes, or to speak of psychological dispositions and ten-
dencies, or they would even throw psychology wholly aside,
bringing into their schemes of explanation factors belonging to
the wholly different order of the material world, and used
physiological processes as links in the chain whereby they con-
nected one psychological happening with another.

Those who adopted subconscious processes as elements of their
constructions, viz., processes which only differed from other

7

8 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

mental processes in the lesser degree of distinctness and clearness
with which they could be observed, paid in this way lip-service
to the supposed essential character of consciousness in psychology,
but failed to recognise that they were only evading a difficulty
by clinging to a simulacrum of the conscious, the existence of
which was just as hypothetical as any of the constructions of the
thoroughgoing advocates of the unconscious.

Those who spoke of psychological dispositions, or going still
further, adopted physiological dispositions in their place, were
also positing purely hypothetical factors where those open to
direct observation failed them. These measures were only means
by which these psychologists and psycho-physiologists escaped
from the necessity of facing the difficulties presented by many
aspects of animal and human behaviour, and especially those
presented in Man by the phenomena of disease.

It is noteworthy that the due recognition of the importance
of the unconscious and the first comprehensive attempt to
formulate a scheme of its organisation and of the mechanisms
by which it is brought into relation with the conscious should
have come from those whose business it is to deal with the
morbid aspect of the human mind. The necessity for the use of
unconscious factors continually arises when dealing with the
experience of health, but the opportunities afforded by such
experience are usually so fleeting, and the experience itself often
so apparently trivial, that they failed to force the psychologist
of the normal to face the situation. It was only when uncon-
scious experience had contributed to wreck a life or produce a
state with which the physician had to struggle, and then often
ineffectually, for months or years that it became impossible to
push such experience aside or take any other line than that
involved in the full recognition of its existence. It is only the
urgent and inevitable needs of the sick that have driven the
physician into the full recognition of the unconscious, while it
has needed the vast scale on which nervous and mental disorders
have been produced in the war to force this recognition upon
more than the few specialists to whom it had been previously
confined.

THE UNCONSCIOUS 9

In entering upon an attempt to make clear the sense in which
the term " unconscious " will be used in this book, I will begin
by pointing out one sense in which it will not be used. At any
given moment we are only clearly conscious of the experience
which is in the focus of attention. This forms only an infinite-
simal proportion of the experience which is capable, by being
brought into the focus of attention, of becoming conscious with
an equal degree of clearness. Again, at any one moment a much
larger amount of experience is within the region of the conscious
though less clearly, but even the largest amount which can thus
be brought within the outermost fringe of consciousness at any
instant or even within any brief space of time, forms but a very
small proportion of that which, with other directions of the
attention, could come into the field of consciousness. At any
given instant there is a vast body of experience which is not in
consciousness because at that instant it is neither the object
of attention nor so connected therewith as to occupy conscious-
ness with more or less clearness at the same time. Experience
of this kind will not be included within "the unconscious" as
the term is used in this book. In so far as the term "the
unconscious " applies to experience, it will be limited to such as
is not capable of being brought into the field of consciousness by
any of the ordinary processes of memory or association, but can
only be recalled under certain special conditions, such as sleep,
hypnotism, the method of free association, and certain patho-
logical states.

The kind of experience which will form the main subject-
matter of this book may best be illustrated by some examples.

A good instance of the unconscious is afforded by the con-
ditions luiderlying the claustrophobia of a sufferer from war-
neurosis, whose case is described in full in Appendix II. For
as long as he could remember, this patient had been subject to a
dread of confined spaces so severe, and producing states so painful
and unendurable, that he was debarred from taking part in many
of the ordinary occupations of life, or could do so only at the
risk of suffering and discomfort. When his profession as a
doctor took him at the age of thirty to the front his specific

10 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

dread was brought into pronounced activity by the necessity of
working in dug-outs, and the strain so produced formed a most
important factor in producing a state of anxiety-neurosis. Dur-
ing a course of treatment to discover the origin of his claustro-
phobia, there came to the patienfs consciousness an experience
at the age of four in which he had been confined in a narrow
passage with no means of escape from a dog by which he was
terrified. In spite of attempts, continued over several years, to
discover some experience of childhood which could explain his
symptoms, this memory of the dog in a passage had wholly failed
to appear in consciousness, and was only brought to memory by a
special procedure. We have no direct evidence that the incident
had been wholly unconscious during childhood, but owing to his
prolonged search for such experience at a later period of life, and
its total failure to appear in consciousness, we have the most
decisive evidence that an arresting experience, one accompanied
by an emotional state of the most poignant kind, can lie dormant
and evade the most searching attempts to bring it into the field
of consciousness. When it was at last recalled, this did not
happen through any association of waking life but came in the
semi-waking state following a dream. Its coming to conscious-
ness occurred in definite connection with an experience of sleep
which we know to furnish conditions especially favourable to
emergence from the unconscious.

This patient not only affords conclusive evidence for the
existence of experience shut off" from consciousness under
ordinary conditions, but his case shows that this experience,
though inaccessible to consciousness directly, may yet be
capable of affecting it indirectly. His dread of confined spaces
had so definite a relation to the early experience that the two
were undoubtedly connected, while the complete disappearance
of his claustrophobia, after bringing the long dormant experience
to the surface, affords further, though standing alone, not
necessarily conclusive, evidence in the same direction.

Psychological literature contains many similar histories. I
take this case of claustrophobia as an example, partly because,
having come under my own notice, I am able to estimate its

THE UNCONSCIOUS 11

trustworthiness. Still more important is the fact that it was
possible to obtain conclusive evidence that the infantile
experience had really occurred, and was neither the fancy of
the patient nor the result of suggestion on the part of the
physician, the latter possibility being especially present when
a supposed experience of childhood is discovered by means of
hypnotism.

The records of others can never, however, carry the conviction
which comes from one's own experience, even though such
experience can rarely have the dramatic and conclusive character
of my case of claustrophobia. One who wishes to satisfy himself
whether or no unconscious experience exists should subject his
own life-history to the severest scrutiny, either aided by another
in a course of psycho-analysis or, though less satisfactory and
less likely to convince, by a process of self-analysis. It will
perhaps be instructive if I give a result of my own self-analysis,
which though at present incomplete, has done much to convince
me of the reality of the unconscious.

I am one of those persons whose normal waking life is almost
wholly free from sensory imagery, either visual, auditory, tactile
or of any other kind. Through the experience of dreams, of the
half- waking, half-sleeping state, and of slight delirium in fever,
I am quite familiar with imagery, especially of a visual kind,
which, so far as I can tell, corresponds with that of the normal
experience of others. I am able to recognise also that in the
fully waking state I have imagery of the same order, but in
general it is so faint and fragmentary that the closest scrutiny
is required for its detection. It is clear to me that if it were
not for my special knowledge and interest I should be wholly
ignorant of its existence. On looking back in my life I am
aware that my mental imagery was more definite in youth, and
I can remember the presence at that period of fairly vivid visual
imagery in connection with certain kinds of experience, especially
of an emotional kind.

Some years ago, as part of an examination into my memories
of childhood, I discovered that I had a more definite knowledge
of the topography of the house I left at the age of five than of

12 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

any of the many houses I have lived in since. I can make a
plan of that house far more detailed, based on memories clearer
to myself, than I can make of houses in which I have lived far
longer and at times of life when one might expect more
permanent and vivid memories. Moreover, I can even now
obtain visual images of the early house more clear and definite
than any I usually experience, while other memories of my first
five 3'ears bring with them imagery more definite than accompany
the memories of later life. I have concluded, and I think I am
justified in doing so, that before the age of five my visual
imagery was far more definite than it became later and was
perhaps as good as that of the average child.

For some time I explained the loss of imagery of which I am
the subject as part of a process by which I had become especially
interested in the abstract. I supposed that my imagery had
faded for lack of the attention and interest which would have
kept it active, even if they had not promoted its development into
the instrument which imagery has become in the mental life of
the majority of human beings. It is only during the last year
or two that I have discovered an aspect of my early experience
which has led me to revise this earlier opinion. This discovery
is that my knowledge of the house I left when five years old is
strictly limited to certain parts of it, and that the rest of the
building is even more inaccessible to memory than any of the
houses in which I have lived since. So far as I remember the
house had three floors. I can remember, and even now image
fairly vividly, every room, passage and doorway of the ground-
floor. I can in imagination go downstairs into a kitchen in a
basement and I can go upstairs towards the upper floor, but
when I reach the top of the stairs I come to the absolutely
unknown, an unknown far more complete than is the case with
any house occupied more recently, where I have some idea of the
topography, though this is inexact and vague. For more than
two years I have been attempting, by means which have
succeeded in evoking other early experience, to penetrate into
the mysterious unknown of the upper storey. Though I have
recalled many incidents of my early life which took place on the

THE UNCONSCIOUS 13

ground-floor, in the basement, in the regions before and behind
the house, no event of any kind which happened in the upper
storey has ever come to my consciousness. Now and then, when
in the half-waking, half-sleeping state, peculiarly favourable in
my experience to the recovery of long-forgotten events, I have
had the sense that something is there, lying very near emergence
into consciousness. But I have not yet suceeeded in penetrating
the veil which separates me from all knowledge of my life in that
upper storey.

The evidence for the existence of unconscious experience
which is provided by these memories of my infancy is, of course,
incomplete, in that I have not yet discovered the nature of the
unconscious experience and have even no certain guarantee that
it exists. The feature of the experience which impresses me —
I cannot expect it to have an equal influence on others — is the
completeness of the blank in my mind in connection with that
upper storey. I fail to explain that blank by any mechanism
provided by differences in the effect of interest on memory. A
psychologist of the old school would probably say that we tend
especially to remember the striking and unusual, and that it is
therefore natural that my memories of the upper storey, where
I probably passed most of my life at that time, should be less
vivid than those of the lower parts of the house, which I visited
less often. This might well explain a different degree of
distinctness of memory, but it cannot explain the completeness
of the blank left by the memories of the upper storey. Another
line Avhich might be taken is that, at any rate during the year
before I left the house, I lived on the ground-floor during the
day and only visited the upper floor at night when tired. But
even if such a reason were valid, it cannot explain the complete-
ness of the blank. Moreover, such explanations seem to be put
out of court by the fact that when I recall memories of houses
lived in later, I find no such difference between upper and lower
storeys. Though my memories of later houses are more vague
than the early memory, they are quite as definite for the upper
as for the lower parts of the buildings.

The two cases I have given are examples of the experience of

14 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

early life which has become inaccessible to consciousness. This
period of life is especially apt to afford occasions for experiences
to become unconscious, but the passing of experience into the
unconscious may happen at any age, and its occurrence has been
brought to notice very widely by the experience of war. One of
the most frequent features of the nervous disturbances of war has
been the complete blotting out of the memories of certain events,
the obliteration usually extending considerably beyond the
event which furnished its special occasion. In some cases, where
the loss of memory for a period of the soldier's life has been
produced by physical shock accompanied by complete uncon-
sciousness, as in cerebral concussion, the obliteration has been
complete, and the case does not come within the scope of this
book, for there is no evidence that any experience exists capable
of being again brought to consciousness. In many cases, how-
ever, in which the obliteration is due to mental shock or other
physical factors, the experience which is inaccessible to the
consciousness of the subject under the usual conditions of memory
has been recovered in the hypnotic state or by the method of
free association or has expressed itself, usually in a distorted
form, in dreams. In such cases soldiers have lost the entire
memory of their lives from some moment preceding a shock or
severe strain until they have found themselves in hospital,
perhaps weeks later, although during at least part of the inter-
vening time they may have been to all appearance fully conscious
and may even have distinguished themselves by actions on the
field of which they have no recollection. Although these
memories may remain for months or years quite inaccessible to
memory when approached by the ordinary channels, they may
be brought to the surface by means of hypnotism or by the
method of free association.

In a case of a somewhat different kind under my care a soldier
had lost all memory of his life from a day in July when he was
training in England until the following January when he found
himself in hospital in Egypt, having no recollection whatever of
his service in various parts of England, of the voyage to Egypt,
or of his life in Egypt before going to hospital. The memory

THE UNCONSCIOUS 15

of this period was not recovered until more than a year later
following the disclosure of a painful experience in his life which
had a definite connection with his amnesia.

In cases such as these the loss of memory forms part of the
complex group of changes which make up the state we call
psycho-neurosis. There is reason to believe that many of the
manifestations or symptoms of this state are due to the activity
of the experience which has become unconscious, jiist as the
dread of my claustrophobic patient has been ascribed to the
unconscious experience of which he was the subject at the age
of four. The effects which can be thus ascribed, at any rate in
part, to the unconscious experience of war, fall into two main
groups. There are, on the one hand, general changes in per-
sonality, and changes in tastes, in likes and dislikes, in prefer-
ences and prejudices, while on the other hand, there are specific
dreads or other morbid experiences of waking or sleeping life,
such as nightmares, hallucinations or morbid impulses, which
can be more or less directly ascribed to the activity of the
unconscious experience. In such cases we have definite evidence,
not merely for the existence of unconscious experience, but for
its activity, or capacity for activity, in this unconscious state.

I will conclude this chapter by considering a way in which
the term " unconscious " is often used which I shall endeavour
to avoid. If an idea springs spontaneously into the mind
without obvious antecedents in consciousness we are accustomed
to speak of this mode of appearance as unconscious. Again
when a person behaves in a manner which corresponds to some-
thing taking place in the mind of another person, but is not
wholly, or perhaps not at all, determined by anything in the
mind of the behaver, we regard the behaviour as due to the
suggestion of the second person and we are accustomed to speak
of this process of suggestion as unconscious. In these instances
the antecedent of the thought or behaviour may, and probably
does, come from the unconscious, in the sense already proposed,
either of the person who experiences the thought or of the
person by whom the behaviour is suggested, but it is a question
whether it is convenient to use the term " unconscious " for the

16 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

process by which the thought or the behaviour is promoted. It
is only necessary to point out that in such a case we are
speaking of a change being set up in consciousness unconsciously
to see how unsatisfactory is this usage and how little relation
there is between the use of the word "unconscious"" in this
sense and that in which I propose that it shall be used. I shall
not, therefore, call such processes as I have mentioned uncon-
scious, but shall make use of a special term to denote them and
shall speak of them as " unwitting." When a thought or
feeling comes into the mind without antecedents in conscious-
ness so that we suppose it to have come from the unconscious, I
shall not speak of the thought as having arisen unconsciously
but unwittingly. Similarly, I shall speak of the process of
suggestion as taking place unwittingly and not unconsciously,
leaving open how far the source of the suggested thought or
behaviour is in the " unconscious " as the term will be used in
this book.

CHAPTER III

SUPPRESSION

In the last chapter I have attempted to make clear the sense
in which I shall speak of " the unconscious " in this book. I
have illustrated its nature by three kinds of example ; one
taken from a definitely pathological state dependent on an
experience of early life ; the second derived from my own history,
also derived from the unconscious experience of early life, but
one which may be regarded as coming within the limits of
normal psychology ; while the others are taken from cases
of psycho-neurosis in which the experience which has become
unconscious is made up of the events and memories of warfare.
I have now to consider how such experience becomes and
remains unconscious.

The first process to be considered is that by which experience
becomes unconscious. I shall speak of this process as suppres-
sion. Writers on the unconscious often use " repression "" for
the process in question, but I propose to reserve this term for
the process by which we wittingly endeavour to banish experience
from consciousness. It seems that this process of witting
repression may be one means of producing suppression, that
experience wittingly repressed may, at any rate under certain
conditions, succeed in becoming suppressed and inaccessible to
the general body of consciousness. But there is little doubt
that this is only one of the ways in which suppression occurs,
and that more often it takes place wholly without the inter-
vention of volition, especially when it occurs as the result of
some physical or mental shock. We are still in much uncer-
tainty concerning the exact mechanism by which suppression
occurs, but there is reason to believe that in the majority of
c 17

18 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

cases it takes place without conscious effort, or according to the
terminology I propose to use, unwittingly. There is even some
reason to believe that suppression only follows witting repres-
sion, when conditions of some other kind favourable to suppression
are present. One of the chief aims of this book is to discover
the nature and biological significance of the mechanism of
suppression.

One line of inquiry which may be used to this end is the
comparison of suppression with the ordinary process of forgetting.
Suppression is only one form of forgetting — a form in which
the forgetting is especially complete — and light should be
thrown upon the nature of suppression by a general study of
the process by which we forget. Formerly psychologists were
especially concerned with the process by which we remember,
but they have gradually been coming to recognise that the
more important problem is to discover how and why we forget.
It is one of the many merits of Freud ^ that he has thrown
much light on this problem and with a wealth of examples has
illustrated the complex nature of forgetting in the ordinary
course of daily life. According to him forgetting is not a
passive process, dependent on lack of interest and meaning, or
varying with the intensity of an impression, but is an active
process in which some part of the mental content is suppressed.
The content which is thus suppressed does not disappear because
it is uninteresting or unimportant ; on the contrary, it is usually
of very special interest and has a very definite meaning. It is
suppressed because the interest and meaning are of a kind which
arouse pain or discomfort and, if present in consciousness, would
set up activities which would be painful or uncomfortable.
Active forgetting is thus a protective process or mechanism,
one by which consciousness is protected from influences which
would interfere with the harmony essential to pleasure or
comfort. The examples of the unconscious which were recorded
in the last chapter are only pronounced examples of a similar
process. Just as we tend to forget an appointment which seems
likely to be the occasion of a quarrel or forget to write a letter
^ See Appeudix I.

SUPPRESSION 19

which involves the undertaking of an unpleasant responsibility,
so we may suppose that the painful experience of my claustro-
phobic patient was forgotten because the memories of the
passage and the dog were so painful as to interfere with his
happiness. The completeness of the suppression may have been
due to the fact that the interference with the comfort of the
child was so great as seriously to disturb his health. In the
case of my own experience it is not possible to say why
the memory of the upper floor has been forgotten, since I do
not yet know the nature of the suppressed experience, but we
can be fairly confident that it was of an unpleasant kind and was
forgotten because the memory of it interfered with my comfort
and happiness. The memories which disappear in war-neurosis
are always of happenings so distressing that the most painful
emotions arise when the happenings are recalled. The conclusion
to which we are led both by the experience of everyday life and
by the analysis of pathological and semi-pathological states is
that there is no difference in nature between the forgetting of
the unpleasant experience of ordinary life, often quite trivial in
character, and such examples of complete and life-long suppres-
sion as those which I have chosen to illustrate the nature of the
unconscious.

If these two kinds of forgetting are essentially alike, if they
furnish the two ends of a continuous series, a study of the
forgetting of everyday life should provide a means of under-
standing the suppression which occurs in pathological states. If
we attempt such a study the first point which may be noticed is
that the active forgetting of everyday life is not volimtary and
intentional, but is essentially a process which takes place unwit-
tingly. If we try to forget an appointment which we expect
to lead to a quarrel, or try to forget a letter undertaking an
unpleasant responsibility, we should not succeed. We should
probably only fix these duties the more firmly in our memories.
It is characteristic of the active forgetting of which Freud has
provided such a wealth of examples ^ that it occurs spontane-
ously. In such instances as I have given, we do not know that
^ The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

20 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

we have forgotten. It is only when we are reminded of the
missed appointment, or the overdue letter, that we become aware
of the lapse. In other cases, as when we forget the name or
address of a correspondent to whom we should write, we know
that we have forgotten, but the act of forgetting has still been
involuntary and unwitting.

The pathological suppression taking place in adult life seems
in most cases to be clearly involuntary and unwitting. The
most complete cases of suppression do not occur in people who
have tried consciously to repress painful experience, but have
come about without any conscious activity on the part of the
sufferer, especially as the result of shock or illness. Hypnotism
furnishes a striking example of the process by which experience
is suppressed. By means of suggestion given in the hypnotic
state any experience, pleasant or painful, which occurs dui'ing
this state may be banished from the memory. When this has
been done the hypnotised person is quite unable to recall the
experience, and it will remain unconscious until he is again
hypnotised or until the experience is recalled under some other
condition in which unconscious suppressed experience comes to
the surface. In this case the suppression takes place in-
dependently of the will of the hypnotised person, but there is
reason to believe that the suggestion to forget is more likely to
be successful, the more the forgetting is in consonance with the
conscious wishes of the subject. This probably gives the clue
to the fact that conscious repression seems often to lead to
suppression. The suppression itself is unwitting, but the wish
of the sufferer for suppression assists the process, or ab least
helps in its maintenance and completeness.

I have now to consider a characteristic of active forgetting
and suppression which is of great importance in understanding
its nature. The experience which tends to be forgotten or
repressed is the immediately painful. If we forget an appoint-
ment or a letter in connection with which we anticipate unpleasant
emotions, the ultimate consequences may be even more unpleasant
than the immediate experience from which we escape by the act
of forgetting. If we were able to consider rationall}'^ the conse-

SUPPRESSION 21

quences of the lapse, we should find that in most cases the
course which would give us least trouble and inconvenience in
the long run would be to keep the appointment or write the
letter. The process of active forgetting, however, taices no
account of these ultimate consequences, but is directed exclusively
towards the avoidance of the more immediate pains and dis-
comforts. The same seems to be true of cases of pathological
suppression. If, as I suppose, the claustrophobia of my patient
was the result of the suppression of his four-year-old experience,
there can be little doubt that the sum-total of unhappiness due
to his dreads was far greater than that which would have resulted
from the immediate memories of his terror when in the passage
with the dog. The memory was suppressed because of its
immediately painful character, and in following this course
Nature took no account of the effects of the suppression which
were to torment the child and man for thirty years. The
suppressions which form so large an element in the neuroses of
war are also directed to allow escape from the immediately
unpleasant, regardless of future consequences. Suppression is a
process of reaction to the pleasures and pains which are imme-
diately present, and takes no account of the more extended
experience with which it is the function of intelligence to deal.

CHAPTER IV

SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION

The examples of the unconscious and of its instrument, sup-
pression, which have been given in the last two chapters, have
been taken from aspects of experience which belong clearly to
the domain of psychology, and involve mental processes of a
relatively high order, I propose now to consider the relation
between the suppression of psychological experience and certain
physiological processes. I will begin with an example drawn
from the borderland between the psychological and the physio-
logical, one dealing with the sensory concomitants of nervous
process in a case of experimental interference with the integrity
of the nervous system.

Observations on the sensory changes which accompany the
regeneration of a divided and reunited nerve have led Head and
his colleagues to distinguish two different kinds of mechanism on
the afferent side of the nervous system. ^ Prolonged observations
after the division of nerves in Head's own arm brought out
clearly the existence of two definite stages in the return of
sensibility. In one of these, the protopathic stage, the sensations
are vague and crude in character, with absence of any exactness
in discrimination or localisation and with a pronounced feeling-
tone, usually on the unpleasant side, tending to lead explosively,
as if reflexly, to such movements as would withdraw the stimu-
lated part from contact with any object to which the sensory
changes are due. At this stage of the healing of the reunited
nerve there are present none of those characters of sensation by
which we recognise the nature of an object in contact with the
body. The sensations are such as would enable one to know

^ H. Head, W. H. R. Rivers, and J. Sherren, Brain, vol. xxviii. (1905),
p. 99 ; H. Head and J. Sherreu, ibid., vol. xxviii. (1905), p. 116 ; W. H. R.
Rivers and H. Head, ibid., vol. xxxi. (1908), p. 323.

22

SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION 23

that something is there and that it is pleasant or unpleasant.
It is also possible to distinguish between mere contact or pressure
and stimulation by heat or cold, but within each of these modes
of sensation there is no power of distinguishing differences in
intensity nor of telling with any exactness the spot where the
processes underlying the sensory changes are in action.

The second stage of the process of regeneration is characterised
by the return of those features of normal cutaneous sensibility,
such as exact discrimination and localisation, by means of which
it becomes possible to perceive the nature of an object in contact
with the skin and adjust behaviour according to this perception.
The modes of reaction which make this exactness of discrimina-
tion and power of external projection possible are grouped
together under the heading of epicritic sensibility. In inter-
preting these observations two chief possibilities are open.
Epicritic sensibility may be only a greater perfection of proto-
pathic sensibility, experience gradually enabling an exactness of
discrimination and localisation which were not at first possible.
The other alternative is that the two kinds of sensibility
represent two distinct stages in the development of the afferent
nervous system. According to this second view the special
conditions of the experiment revealed in the individual two
widely different stages in the evolution of cutaneous sensibility.
Many features of the experiment point strongly to the truth of
the second of these alternatives. The way in which epicritic
sensibility returns and the fact that it is possible to annul it by
treatment affecting only the peripheral factors, without influence
on such central processes as would be set up by experience,^ go
far to show that the two modes of sensibility represent two
stages in phylogenetic development.

All that we know of the protopathic stage is consistent with
its being the representative of the sensibility of an animal which
possesses only the power of becoming aware of changes of a crude
kind and, according as these changes are pleasant or unpleasant,
of reacting at once by such mass-movements as would take it
nearer to, or remove it from, the source of the stimulation. If
1 Brain, vol. xxxi. (1908), p. 396.

24 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

there is only capacity for such mass-movements, there will be no
necessity for the discrimination which would enable the exact
perception of the nature of the object. There would be a
definite correlation between the crude nature of the sensibility
and the limited capacity for behaviour possessed by the animal.

Epicritic sensibility, on the other hand, is adapted to behaviour
of a far more complex and delicate kind. The sensations do not
merely tell the animal or man that something is there and set up
the crude mass-movements of approach or withdrawal, but they
enable the many forms of reaction which become possible when
the exact nature of the stimulating object is recognised.

It is not necessary for my present purpose to consider these
two possibilities fully. Whatever be the interpretation of the
two stages, there is no doubt as to their existence, and my
present object is to point out certain special features of the
relation between the two. When epicritic sensibility returns,
the earlier protopathic sensibility does not persist unaltered side
by side with the later development, but undergoes certain
definite modifications. Some of its elements persist and combine
with elements of the epicritic stage to form features of normal
cutaneous sensibility. Thus, the cold and heat of the proto-
pathic stage blend with the modes of temperature sensibility
proper to the epicritic stage, and form the graded series of
temperature sensations which we are normally able to dis-
criminate. The crude touch of the protopathic system blends
with the more delicate epicritic sensibility of this kind, while
protopathic pain, with its peculiarly uncomfortable rather than
acute quality, forms a much larger element in the normal
sensibility to pain. In this process of blending or fusion certain
aspects of the earlier forms of sensibility are modified to a greater
or less extent, and in some cases this modification involves the
disappearance of certain characters. This disappearance is
especially striking and complete in the case of the spatial
attributes of protopathic sensibility. In the protopathic stage
(when the sensibility of deeper structures is excluded) there is no
power of exact localisation. When a point of the skin is stimu-
lated the sensation radiates widely and is often localised at a

SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION 25

considerable distance from the actual place of stimulation.
These two characters of radiation and distant reference disappear
with the return of epicritic sensibility, and afford examples of a
process of suppression comparable with that considered in the
last chapter. Moreover, these spatial features of protopathic
sensibility do not disappear entirely, but persist in a latent form
ready to come again into consciousness if the appropriate con-
ditions are present. This was well illustrated by certain experi-
ments made shortly after the return of epicritic sensibility.^
At this time, when radiation and reference were completely
absent at the ordinary temperature of the room, they could be
again brought into existence by cooling the limb. Characters
of sensibility which a few minutes before had so disappeared from
consciousness so they could not be elicited by any kind of
stimulus, were again brought to consciousness when the control-
ling epicritic system, but lately returned and not having yet
attained its normal stability, was put out of action by the
application of cold. When the limb was warmed the radiation
and reference disappeared, but were again made manifest when
the limb was once more cooled. In this state of enhanced
vulnerability of the lately recovered epicritic sensibility, it was
possible to produce suppression experimentally. Moreover, if
the whole process of regeneration is interpreted as the mani-
festation of an early stage of the development of the nervous
system, it will follow that the potentiality for the radiation and
reference of localisation had been present throughout the life of
the subject, but in so complete a state of suppression that we
only became aware of their existence through a special experi-
mental procedure. The experiment revealed a feature of
primitive sensibility which had been so successfully suppressed
that its existence had not been suspected until the beginning of
the twentieth century, though radiation and reference in other
parts of the body, where they have not been so completely
suppressed, might have led students to its recognition.^

1 Brain, vol. xxxi. (1908), p. 396.

- H. Head, "On disturbances of sensation with especial reference to the
pain of visceral disease/' Brain, vol. xvi. (1893), p. 1 ; vol. xvii. (1894), p.
339; vol. xix. (1896), p. 163.

26 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

Another interesting and rather more complex example of
suppression became evident in Head's experiment.^ On the
normal skin stimulation by a temperature of 40° C.-44° C.
produces a pleasant sensation of heat free from any element of
pain, and this effect was present on the dorsum of Head's thumb
after epicritic sensibility had returned. The index knuckle
lingered in its recovery behind the thumb, so that at one stage
of the experiment when epicritic sensibility was present on the
thumb, it was still absent on the index knuckle. At this time
stimulation of the knuckle by cold produced a referred sensation
of cold on the dorsum of the thumb. When the two regions
were stimulated simultaneously, the thumb by a stimulus of
40° C.-44° C. and the index knuckle by cold, the two
temperature sensations on the thumb neutralised one another
and a third mode of sensation, one of pain, appeared. The
observation is most naturally interpreted by the supposition
that when a temperature sensation is present, any painful
element is suppressed. Though the pain was localised on the
thumb, it may have belonged either to the heat sensation due to
direct stimulation of this region or to the referred cold, and
observations on another part of the body point to the former
alternative. When a part of the glans penis which is free from
heat-spots is stimulated by a temperature of 40° C.-44° C.
there is no sensation of heat, but only one of pain. This part
of the body is normally devoid of epicritic sensibility, and the
occurrence of pain on the glans, as the result of stimulation by
heat, points to the pain on the thumb having been the result of
the direct stimulation of that region by heat rather than an
element of the referred cold. In either case the special con-
ditions of the experiment allowed the emergence of a mode of
sensation which in the normal state is kept in a state of sup-
pression, though it is manifest on the glans penis in the absence
of heat-spots and of epicritic sensibility.

The special inteiest of the case is that there is no such
suppression for temperatures of 45° C. and upwards, where pain
is the normal result of stimulation. It is only in the case of
1 Brain, vol. xxxi. (1908), p. 445.

SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION 27

temperatures less than 45° C, where the presence of pain would
conflict with the pleasurable character of the heat sensation, that
suppression has taken place.

These examples of suppression have been taken from the
physiology of the nervous system. Though they became
manifest through the changes in consciousness we call sensa-
tions, they are nevertheless the expression of purely physiological
processes in the peripheral nervous system.

There is reason to believe that the two forms of cutaneous
sensibility, which I have described, represent two different stages in
the evolution of the nervous system with their associated varieties
of consciousness. The facts seem best to fit with the hypothesis
that the manifestations of protopathic sensibility which are
suppressed belong to a crude form of nervous system which has
been superseded by a later and more efficient mechanism. If
now we pass to the central end of the nervous path by which
the impulses subserving cutaneous sensibility reach the brain.
Head working in conjunction with Holmes^ has discovered a
relation between the cerebral cortex and the optic thalamus
very similar to that existing between protopathic and epicritic
sensibility. In this case the special modes of activity they have
studied are associated with structures which belong to widely
separated stages of the development of the nervous system.
The optic thalamus represents the dominant part of the brain
of lower vertebrates, while the cerebral cortex or neo-pallium
developed far later. When by injury, disease, or operative
procedure, the cortex cerebri has been put out of action,
stimulation of the skin produces sensations characterised by a
pecuhar quality such as would be produced by over- weight of
the affective aspect of sensation, very similar to that shown by
protopathic sensibility. Moreover, there is an absence of
objective character very similar to that of this form of sensi-
bility. When the cortex is in action the affective over-response
of the thalamus is largely suppressed under ordinary conditions,
but the process of suppression does not come out so strongly as
in the case of the peripheral nervous system because some of the

^ H. Head and Gordon Holmes, Brain, vol. xxxiv. (1911-12), p. 102.

28 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

primitive features which most need suppression have already
suffered this fate. Thus, removal of cortical activity does not
produce radiation and reference of localisation because the
suppression of these characters is still being maintained at the
periphery.

Similar examples of suppression have been observed in the
reflexes. In reflex action a movement takes place in response
to stimulation which depends on a highly-organised and strictly-
determined physiological mechanism. The whole process is
immediate and incapable of modification. With a given
stimulus and an intact nervous system, the effect follows the
cause with a simplicity and definiteness far more obvious than
in the case of activity which is accompanied by consciousness.
In the normal state most of the reflexes, at any rate those in
which the limbs and exterior of the body are concerned, are of
a kind which, were they accompanied by consciousness, would
imply accuracy of localisation and other forms of discrimination.

Experiments on animals, in which there has been interference
with the integrity of the nervous system, have shown the
exaggeration of certain forms of reflex action, pointing to the
existence of some degree of suppression, but it has been
reserved for injury of the nervous system in Man to show this
process in its most characteristic forms.

Head and Riddoch ^ have observed a number of patients in
whom the spinal cord has been completely divided, and in these
cases have been able to study the functions of the lower end of
the spinal cord when isolated from the rest of the nervous
system. In such cases they find a peculiar form of reflex with
characters unknown when the nervous system is intact. The
reflex shows itself in movements, chiefly of flexion, involving
mainly the stimulated side of the body, but far more widespread
than is the case with the reflexes of health. The reflex can be
produced by stimulating almost any part of the limbs or trunk
below the site of the injury. The nature and extent of the
movements does not vary with the locality of the stimulus as in

1 H. Head and G. Riddoch, Brain, vol. xl. (1918), p. 188 ; G. Riddoch,
ibid., p. 264.

SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION 29

normal reflexes, but is of much the same nature whatever the
stimulated part. Moreover, the movements of the limbs and
trunk muscles are accompanied by sweating and contraction
of the bladder. This form of reflex has been called by Head
and Riddoch the " mass-reflex." They note that such a mass-
reflex would form an excellent answer to noxious stimuli in the
lower animals. Owing to the necessary conditions of their
observations the movements are limited to part of the body,
but similar movements of the whole body would tend to remove
an animal from noxious stimulation. They point out that this
kind of reflex would be useless for the purpose of discrimina-
tion. The " mass-reflex " has a generalised character and shows
an absence of discrimination and localisation which reminds us
at once of the characters of protopathic sensibility. The special
feature of interest from our present point of view is that this
diffused and generalised reflex is wholly suppressed in the
normal human being, the suppression having taken place in
favour of reflexes delicately regulated according to the locality
and, to some extent, according to the nature of the stimulus.
Here, as in the case of protopathic sensibility, the suppression
has been so complete that the presence of the mass-reflex is only
revealed by disease or injury. It has been so successful that it
needed the vast scale on which injuries of the central nervous
system have been produced during the war to enable Head and
Riddoch to discover the presence in Man of these old and long-
suppressed processes.

In this case, and in the case of protopathic sensibility, we are
not dealing with the suppression of individual experience, but
with the suppression in the race of experience belonging to the
earlier phases of its history. Through a special experimental
procedure, or through the accidents of war, it has been possible
to follow the suppression of this experience in the individual.
The fact that this is possible suggests that the racial suppression
is repeated in every individual as part of the recapitulation of
the racial history. If this be so, however, the suppression takes
place at so early an age that its detection is impossible. It
would never have been suspected if the experiment and the

80 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

clinical observations of Head had not pointed to the way
thereto.

The special importance of suppression on the reflex and
sensori -motor levels is that it reveals clearly the biological
significance of the process. The exact localisation of fully
developed cutaneous sensibility would be impossible if the early
radiation and distant reference of the protopathic stage persisted.
These features would furnish elements of vagueness and con-
fusion wholly incompatible with the exact power of localisation
which developed later and enabled the animal to modify its
behaviour according to the nature of the external object by
which the sensations were being produced. It is essential that
reactions founded on the exact discrimination and localisation
rendwed possible by the epicritic system shall be prompt and
definite. This would not be possible if the properties of the
new order of sensibility were continually being complicated by
sensations characterised by the old vagueness and the old
inexactness of spatial reference.

Similarly, the uncomfortable feeling-tone of protopathic
sensibility and the strongly affective aspect of the reactions of
the thalamus need suppression when it is necessary to dis-
criminate with exactness and to adjust behaviour to the more
complicated conditions of life, made possible by the development
of epicritic and cortical activity. In these cases, however, the
suppression is less complete and only occurs when the affective
accompaniments would interfere with the perfect adjustment of
behaviour to the needs of the situation which the animal has to
meet. The affective reactions lie ready to spring into activity
whenever the situation calls for an emotional rather than an
intellectual response.

In the case of the reflexes the need for suppression is
imperative. The essence of reflex action is its immediacy and
perfection based on the thorough organisation of the physio-
logical mechanisms. The perfection of one of the higher reflexes
would be hopelessly prejudiced if there were even a trace of the
activity of the older mass-reflex with its diffuse character and
implication of visceral processes. The movements of the

SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION 81

localised reflex could not perform their task properly if at the
same time they were involved in mass-movements of a wholly
different kind. Suppression is here even more essential than in
the case of conscious activity.

The argument of this chapter has been directed to show that
the process of suppression by which elements of conscious
experience pass into the " unconscious " is of the same order as
the suppression which takes place on the sensori-motor and
reflex levels. A number of processes have been found which
form intermediate links connecting the suppression of highly
complicated mental process at one end of the series with the
suppression necessary for the perfection of reflex action at the
other end of the series. In all cases we have to do with the
means by which behaviour, whether of human being or animal,
is adjusted to the needs with which man or animal is confronted.
The suppression of conscious experience is only one example of
a process which applies throughout the whole of the animal
kingdom and is essential to the proper regulation of every form
of human or animal activity. This suppression is only an
example of a process even more fundamental in the animal
economy. Every living process of the animal involves, not
only activity devoted to the special end the animal has to meet,
but also the inhibition of tendencies to activity of other kinds.
The suppression which I have been considering in the last two
chapters is only one aspect of the universal physiological
property of inhibition. It is now recognised that the activity
of every functional imit of the nervous system is of two kinds.
Every unit forms part of a hierarchy in which it controls lower,
and is itself controlled by higher, elements of the hierarchy.
Control or inhibition belongs to the essence of nervous activity,
and the lesson suggested by the study of sensation and reflex
action is that the suppression by which experience becomes
unconscious is only a special variety of the process of inhibition,
common to every phase of animal activity.

There is one aspect of the psychological processes I have been
considering which I should like especially to emphasise. If I
am right in my interpretation of the facts revealed by the

82 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

observation of cutaneous sensibility during the regeneration of
a divided and re-united nerve, the earher and cruder kind of
sensibility undergoes two different kinds of fate. Such elements
as are serviceable are utilised when the later and higher forms
of sensibility come into existence. These useful elements of
protopathic sensibility become fused with epicritic elements to
form the fully developed sensibility which is possessed by the
normal skin. Utilisation by means of the process of fusion is
the fate of the greater part of the complex body of processes
which make up protopathic sensibility. It is only the smaller
part which undergoes the other fate of suppression. It is only
those features of early sensibility which are incompatible with
later developments which are suppressed. Thus, the wide
diffusion and distant reference of protopathic spatial sensibility
are suppressed because, if they persisted, they would prejudice
in the most serious manner the exact localisation and spatial
discrimination of fully developed cutaneous sensibility. Again,
the suppression of the painful element when the normal skin is
stimulated with an object at 40° C.-44° C. takes place because
this painful quality would interfere with the pleasant character
of the normal heat sensation and with the discrimination which
is normally possible at that temperature. In the case of
cutaneous sensibility there has taken place a differentiation of
treatment according as the earlier material could or could not
be utilised in the interests of the higher purpose offered by the
possibility of discrimination and graduation. Corresponding
with this distinction two kinds of elements in the unconscious
might be recognised — those which have only disappeared from
consciousness in their original form, but continue to exist in the
different form they have assumed through the process of fusion,
and those whose disappearance has been more complete so that
they do not enter into consciousness even in an altered form
under normal conditions, though their continued existence is
shown by their reappearance under peculiar conditions such as
those which accompany the regeneration of a divided and
reunited nerve.

There is little doubt that a similar twofold possibility is also

SUPPRESSION AND INHIBITION 33

open in the case of other kinds of early experience. There is
reason to beHeve that all kinds of early experience undergo
transformations similar to those undergone by protopathic
sensibility. According to this view certain elements of early
experience are utilised and form, by fusion with other elements,
the products which make up the experience of any later period
of life. It is only elements of experience and modes of behaviour
which are incompatible with these later developments which
are suppressed.

It now becomes necessary to reconsider the sense in which we
shall use the term " the unconscious." It would be possible to
use it to include, not only the fully suppressed elements, but
also those which might be regarded as unconscious because they
no longer exist in their original form but in the form they have
assumed through their fusion with later products of mental
development. It will, I believe, be convenient to limit the use
of the term " the unconscious " to the former category, to those
earlier forms of mental activity and mental experience which
have not been capable of utilisation by the process of fusion,
but have required the more drastic measure of suppression.

CHAPTER V

THE CONTENT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The last three chapters have been devoted to the definition
of the unconscious and the consideration of the mechanism by
which experience becomes unconscious and exerts activity in the
unconscious state. I have now to consider the nature of the
experience which forms the content of the unconscious.

In the examples which I have given the suppressed experience
covers a very wide ground. In the case of my claustrophobic
patient it included all the memories, memories involving very
impressive emotional experience, of a series of activities of
unusual complexity in the life of a four-year-old child. In the
case from my own life we have the suppression of all the events
which took place in part of my infantile environment where
much must have happened, equalling, if not surpassing, in
interest the many events in other parts of the environment of
that early age which I have remembered. The suppression
of war-neurosis involves the disappearance from conscious-
ness of both intellectual and emotional experience of the most
impressive and varied kind.

If now we turn to the nature of the experience suppressed on
the sensori -motor and reflex levels, we find that it includes
sensations which, in spite of their crudeness, can be regarded as
belonging both to the affective and intellectual aspects of mind.
The diffusion and faulty localisation of protopathic sensibility,
which I have specially chosen to illustrate suppression on the
sensori-motor level, must, in spite of its imperfection, be classed
with the intellectual activities of more highly developed mental
process. In general, however, the elements which produce this
need for suppression belong rather to the affective aspect of

.34

CONTENT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 35

mind, while the mass-reflex which furnishes so good an example
of the need for suppression on the purely physiological level of
reflex action seems also to be associated with experience of an
affective kind. The lesson suggested by the study of suppression
in the domain of sensation is that it is emotional or affective
experience, or intellectual experience with a strong affective
tone, which is especially liable to be suppressed.

If we consider the experience from which I have drawn my
examples of suppression in the domain of the higher mental
processes, we find that the process of suppression is especially
likely to occur — there is even reason to suppose that it only
occurs — when the emotions have been strongly aroused. It is
certainly more likely to occur the more strongly this stirring up
of the emotional aspect of mind has taken place. The experi-
ence which was suppressed in my claustrophobic patient was
accompanied by emotion of a most intense and poignant kind,
and this is also universally true of the experience which is sup-
presssed in war-neurosis. Suppression is especially apt to occur
as a means of getting rid of painful experience, the memory of
which would interfere with comfort and happiness, or as its
immediate effect would prejudice health.

It is necessary, however, to distinguish between the primary
motives for suppression and others which take part in determin-
ing the nature of the content of the unconscious. My own
infantile experience suggests that if for any reason some part of
the mental content is suppressed, it tends to carry with it into
the unconscious a vast amount of other experience of a neutral
kind. We do not yet know the nature of the experience which
led to the suppression of all memories of the upper floor in
which I passed so much of my infancy, but if suppression took
place on account of some especially unpleasant event, this
suppressed unpleasant experience took with it into the uncon-
scious a vast mass of neutral experience, for it would be absurd
to suppose that the whole of my life in that upper storey was
accompanied by an unpleasant affective tone. Ignorance con-
cerning the nature of the experience which led to suppression
makes this case inconclusive, but all the knowledge gained by

36 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

the process of psycho-analysis points definitely in the same
direction. We can be confident that when an experience is
suppressed on account of its unpleasant nature, it may take
with it into the unconscious a vast mass of neutral experience
which would have remained accessible to consciousness if it had
not been associated with experience needing suppression. There
is a large body of evidence pointing to the presence of experi-
ence of this neutral kind in the unconscious region of the mind.
The investigation of cases of multiple personality, and the
exploration of the imconscious by means of hypnotism in healthy
persons, point to the presence of much experience for the sup-
pression of which it would be difficult or impossible to find any
adequate motive. It is at least a legitimate hypothesis that this
experience has come to form part of the content of the uncon-
scious on account of its association with experience which needed
suppression on account of its painful character.

It is necessary now to consider how far we are justified in
supposing that affects and conative tendencies can be regarded
as entering into the content of the unconscious. The nature of
the suppressed experience, both on the sen sori -motor and fully
conscious levels, points to the great importance of feeling and
affect as furnishing the immediate motives for suppression, while
the experience which is suppressed, especially on the sensori-
motor level, is predominantly of an affective kind. This would
suggest that the content of the unconscious is made up of
affective elements and conative tendencies together with sensory
and intellectual experience associated therewith. There is little
difficulty in conceiving that affective states and conative tenden-
cies should be suppressed, and that they should nevertheless
be ready to reappear and manifest themselves when the suitable
occasion arises. It is more difficult to conceive them as parts of
the content of the unconscious. It seems to be easier for us, or
at any rate for most of us, to conceive the content of the
unconscious in terms of intellectual elements such as the memo-
ries of my claustrophobic patient or of my own life in the upper
storey. It is a question, however, whether it is not best to go
the whole way and acknowledge that affective states and the

CONTENT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 37

impulses associated therewith may be elements in the content
of the unconscious, and there is much in the more pathological
aspects of suppression which can be most adequately expressed
if it be assumed that affective processes are actively present in
the unconscious.

This subject is of great interest in that it brings us face to
face with the unconscious " wish "" of Freud. Many of those ^
who accept the main teachings of this writer are troubled by
his use of the term " wish " as the basic element of his system of
the unconscious. This term is definitely derived from the
psychology of the conscious and it tends to convey much which
is very doubtfully to be ascribed to those elements of the
unconscious to which so potent a role is assigned in the Freudian
psychology. It is of the utmost importance that we shall attain
clear ideas concerning this fundamental aspect of the psychology
of the unconscious. In attempting to deal with this matter it
is an obvious task to consider the general character of affective
experience and of the conative trends associated with it.

Through the work of modern psychologists, and especially
through that of Shand and McDougall, we have come to see
the close relation between affect and instinct. Each of the
emotions can be regarded as an affective aspect of an instinctive
reaction. Thus, fear is especially connected with the instinctive
reaction to danger by flight ; anger with the reaction to danger
or injury by aggression ; love with the parental and sexual
instincts, etc., while the primary states of pleasure and pain are
the psychical accompaniments of the fundamental reactions of
attraction towards the useful and repulsion from the harmful.
The primary feelings of pleasure and pain and all emotions,
whether simple or complex, can be regarded as aspects of
consciousness especially associated with instinct. This close
relation between emotion and instinct leads us to a definite
theory concerning suppression and the unconscious. It has
been found that experience which becomes unconscious through
the agency of suppression either belongs definitely to the
affective aspect of mind or, when intellectual in character, has

^ See, for instance, E. B. Holt, The Freudian Wish, London (1915).

88 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

been suppressed on account of its association with affective
elements. The relation of affect to instinct suggests that the
special function of the unconscious is to act as a storehouse of
instinctive reactions and tendencies, together with the experience
associated with them, when they are out of harmony with the
prevailing constituents of consciousness so that, when present,
they produce pain and discomfort.

If, now, we study our examples of suppression on the sensori-
motor level, we find that they lead us in the same direction.
The crude, immediate, and, as it were, unreflecting reactions of
protopathic sensibility, which need suppression in the interests
of the later and more delicate reactions of epicritic sensibility,
are just such as we associate with instinct. According to the
view put forward in the last chapter they are reactions belonging
to an older order which have been suppressed because they are
out of harmony with later and more exact modes of behaviour.
We are in similar case when we turn to the reflexes. Reflex
action is generally acknowledged to be clearly related to instinct.
Reflex acts are products of evolution even more highly organised
than the instincts. It is therefore quite in accordance with the
function of suppression in relation to instinct that this process
should come into action in connection with the reflexes.

If, therefore, we accept the close relation between emotion and
instinct, all branches of our inquiry lead us to the view that the
content of the unconscious is made up, in the first place, of the
feelings and affects which normally form the conscious aspect of
instinctive reactions and tendencies, and in the second place,
of sensory and intellectual elements which have been associated
with these instinctive and affective reactions and tendencies. It
is thus suggested that there is the closest relation between the
unconscious and instinct, that the unconscious is a storehouse of
experience associated with instinctive reactions. Moreover, I
have shown that suppression, the process by which the conscious
becomes unconscious, itself takes place unwittingly. The ques-
tion arises how far the unwitting character of a process is a
mark of instinct and is associated with instinctive reactions.

The argument of this book has now brought into connection

CONTENT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 39

with one another the two concepts which form its title. Up to
this point I have been chiefly occupied in making clear what
I mean by the unconscious and describing its mechanisms and
its content. It is now necessary that we shall become equally
clear concerning the meaning to be attached to instinct, and I
shall enter upon this task in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VI

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT

It is not long since it was regarded as a sufficient definition
of instinct that it is the mode of mental activity proper to
animals as distinguished from the intelligence which was believed
to be the chief, or even the only, factor of any importance in
regulating Man's behaviour. All recent work in psychology
has shown this distinction to be of little value. On the one
hand, it has been found that the behaviour of animals, even
such animals as the insects which are regarded as pre-eminent
patterns of the instinctive, shows many features, such as
adaptability to unusual conditions, which can only be explained
by qualities of the same order as those belonging to intelligence.^
Exact observation on animals has shown that their reactions to
their surroundings have not the rigid and mechanical character
which was once ascribed to them. Not only do failures occur
in the adjustment of action to circumstance, but when these
failures occur, or when the conditions are such as would lead to
failure if the reactions took their ordinary form, animal
behaviour has been found to be capable of modification. On
the other hand, we have learnt that the behaviour of man is far
less subject to reason and intelligence than was once supposed,
and that his reactions to circumstance are often with difficulty
to be distinguished from the behaviour of the unreasoning
brutes. This absence or deficiency of reason is especially pro-
nounced in those social reactions in which individual differences
dictated by reason sink into insignificance before the mass-
reactions of the crowd. We are learning that the behaviour of

1 See the series of papers on " Instinct and Intelligence," Brit. Journ.
Psych., vol. iii. (1910), pp. 209-270.

40

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 41

animals does not differ from that of Man in kind, but rather in
the relative degree and importance of the different modes of
reaction of which the behaviour consists.

A second way of distinguishing between instinct and intelli-
gence is psychologically even less valid than the last. In the
higher vertebrates, i. e., in those which have developed a cerebral
cortex or neo-pallium as part of their central nervous system,
instinct is regarded as the product of sub-cortical activity, while
intelligence is held to depend on the activity of the cortex or
neo-pallium. It is an instructive commentary on the difficulties
presented by current definitions of instinct that in the last
resort even so psychological a writer as Lloyd Morgan is
repeatedly driven to employ this anatomical distinction in his
work on instinct and intelligence, thus virtually giving up the
attempt to make a psychological distinction between the two.i

A third and most important distinction which has been made
between instinct and intelligence is that the former is innate
and the latter acquired. If an animal or man behaves in a
certain way which is quite independent of any experience it can
have acquired in its individual existence, the behaviour is
regarded as purely instinctive. If, on the other hand, it were
possible to say that the behaviour of an animal or man was
wholly determined by the experience of the individual, we should
regard the behaviour as an example of pure intelligence. Since,
however, it is impossible to exclude innate factors, all that we
can do is to recognise as intelligent those components of
behaviour which can be ascribed to individual experience.

This difference between instinct and intelligence is one of
great value and probably furnishes the best theoretical distinc-
tion between the two kinds of behaviour, but when we endeavour
to use the theoretical difference as a guide in practice and
research, we are met by several difficulties. The distinction is
one which is difficult to utilise in practice, for, as soon as an
animal has acquired experience of any kind, it becomes a matter
of the greatest difficulty to distinguish between the innate and
the acquired conditions, while, as already pointed out, in all
^ Lloyd Morgan, Instinct and Ejcperience, London (1912).

42 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

examples of intelligent behaviour, it is impossible to exclude
innate factors. Often, as in the case of insects and other
animals which carry out actions of a most complicated kind,
wholly independent of individual experience, the distinction is
valid and useful. Thus, the butterfly which lays its eggs on a
special kind of plant in the absence of any experience derived
from the observation of this action by others of its species may
be regarded as a typical example of instinct. An especially
striking and often quoted example of this kind is that of the
yucca-moth (Promcba yucadella) which, preparatory to laying
its eggs in the ovary of the yucca plant, cuts open the pistil
and stuffs into it the pollen from another plant, so that at one
stroke it both fertilises, and ensures the persistence of, the
plant which is essential for the future welfare of its progeny.
A still better example is given by the behaviour of the grub
of the Capricorn beetle {Ceramhyx miles). After a larval life
wholly spent in the channels which it manufactures within a tree,
this creature, little more than a piece of crawling intestine, as
Fabre says, makes elaborate preparations to ensure that after the
pupal state it shall escape from the woody prison in which it
has been for all its life immured ^ I call this insect a better
example than the butterfly or the moth because it is quite im-
possible that the behaviour of the grub can have been in any way
influenced by the imitation of its kind.

The exclusion of individual experience which is possible or
even easy in the insect is beset with the greatest difficulties in
the case of the higher animals. These difficulties become espe-
cially great in those animals, of which Man is the best example,
which are born in a state of great immaturity. The years
spent by the child in acquiring experience, which it is impossible
to record with any degree of accuracy, make it peculiarly
difficult to analyse human behaviour into its innate and acquired
components.

One other point about this mode of distinguishing instinct
and intelligence may be mentioned. The distinction belongs to
the field of biology rather than of psychology. If we were able
1 J. H. Fabre, The Wonders of Instinct, London (1918), p. 49,

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 43

to analyse every case of behaviour, whether human or animal,
into its innate and acquired elements, we should still be little,
if at all, nearer the solution of the psychological as opposed
to the biological problem. We should not yet have begun to
understand the place of consciousness in relation to behaviour,
which, whatever may be our interest in the unconscious, must
still remain the special task of psychology.

So long as we are considering the subject biologically we may
be content with distinctions which depend on whether behaviour
is exhibited by Man or animal, whether it is dependent on, or
independent of, acquired experience, and on the locality of the
physiological processes with which the behaviour is correlated.
These modes of distinction, however, will not, or should not,
satisfy the psychologist who requires something in the nature of
the behaviour itself by means of which he may distinguish the
instinctive from the intelligent. Nevertheless in the present
state of the subject I believe we shall do best to take as the
distinguishing mark of instinct its innate character, even though
this character be biological rather than psychological. We
shall do best if we devote our inquiries to the attempt to
distinguish different kinds of instinct according to their psycho-
logical character. It should be our task to analyse the general
group of instincts into its component parts just as it has been
the main task of psychologists hitherto to analyse the different
forms of intelligent behaviour.

In seeking for a criterion by which to distinguish different
varieties of instinct, I propose to turn away for a time from the
behaviour of insects or other invertebrate animals which are
usually taken as our patterns of the instinctive. These animals
differ so enormously from ourselves that it is too great an
adventure into the unknown to base any distinction on differ-
ences between their behaviour and ours. Let us look rather to
the behaviour of Man as compared with the animals to which
he is more nearly related, and to the behaviour of adult man as
compared with the infant, for oui' clue to the nature of the
differences which will enable us to distinguish different classes
of instinctive behaviour.

44 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

I will begin with a difference taken from the comparison of
the human adult with the infant and the animal. An animal
or child exposed to danger, which is so recognised as danger
that it produces a reaction, tends to give itself to the reaction
fully. If it runs away, it tends to run with every particle
of the energy which it is capable of putting forth ; if it cries,
screams, or utters other sound, it tends to do so with all the
vigour at its command. In these cases there is no discrimination
of the degree of danger. The reaction by flight or cry is the
same whether the danger be great or small. In the case of
the animal the movement of a shadow thrown by a falling leaf
may produce as strong a reaction as the full sight of its deadliest
enemy. The child may scream as vigorously after some trivial
touch as it does with the pain of a cut or burn. With no
discrimination of the degree of danger, there may be complete
absence of graduation of the reaction to the nature of the
stimulus which occurs even in the animal in its more intelligent
behaviour, and is characteristic of the behaviour of the adult
man when danger threatens. If the danger is sufficiently great,
or if certain lines of behaviour by which the danger would normally
be met are frustrated, even the adult man will fail to discriminate
the nature of the danger and to graduate his movements accord-
ingly. He will devote every particle of his energy to flight or
other form of primitive or instinctive behaviour. Thus, if he
becomes angry and assumes an aggressive attitude, his anger
and aggression will go far beyond those called for by the needs
of the situation. If he flees, his flight may continue long after
it has removed him to a safe distance from the source of danger.

In what I have just said I have spoken of the child as
tending to scream and of the animal as tending to run away
with all the force at their command, because I wish to make
clear that the child or animal does not always behave in this
thoroughgoing manner. All I wish to imply is that when these
reactions take place in their most characteristic manner, they
show a complete absence of proportionality between the
behaviour and the conditions which call it forth. I assume
that when the child and animal are so behaving, they are acting

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 45

in a manner in which they would act if their instinctive behaviour
had not been modified by experience.

In the last chapter I have adopted the current view that
such emotions as fear or anger, with the reactions characteristic
of them, are expressions of instinct. When they occur in Man,
these reactions are prominent, even the most prominent, elements
in that part of his behaviour which can be ascribed to instinct.
We have now seen that these reactions, when occurring in their
most characteristic form, have the special feature that there is
an absence of graduation according to the nature of the con-
ditions by which the behaviour is produced. If they take place
at all, they tend to occur in their full strength. This form of
reaction is known in physiology as the " all-or-none " reaction,^
and I propose to adopt this term for the special kind of
behaviour I am now supposing to be characteristic of certain
forms of instinct.

It may help us to understand this reaction if I give a brief
account of its nature in physiology. For this purpose I will
begin with the instance in which the principle was discovered
by Keith Lucas and Adrian. I will not describe the some-
Avhat complex experimental procedures which were needed to
demonstrate the principle, and will give only the essential facts.
When a weak electrical stimulus is applied to isolated nerve-
fibre, and the impulse which in consequence travels along the
nerve is measured, it is found that if the stimulus is weak
there is no impulse at all, or more correctly, the electrical
behaviour of the nerve gives no evidence of any impulse. If
the strength of -the electrical stimulus is gi'adually increased, a
point is reached when the nerve gives the response normally
associated with an impulse passing along its length. If now
the strength of the stimulus is increased, there is no correspond-
ing increase in the response, and this remains so, however great
the increase of the stimulus. If the isolated nerve-fibre is set
in action at all, it reacts with its full strength and produces all
the effect of which it is capable.

1 See E. D. Adrian, Joum. of Physiol., vol. xlv. (1912), p. 389 ; ibid.y
vol. xlvii. (1914), p. 4G0 ; Brain, vol. xli. (1«18), p. 26.

46 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

In previous chapters I have cited the work of Head as giving
good examples of the process of suppression, and protopathic
sensibihty as a characteristic example of the content of the
unconscious. It will greatly strengthen my argument and help
to show that I am dealing with a real character of certain forms
of instinct if protopathic sensibility should be subject to the
" all-or-none " principle. As a matter of fact this is practically,
though not completely, the case. When a region of the skin
which is endowed only with protopathic sensibility is stimulated
with cold, the intensity of the cold sensation is roughly the
same whether the temperature of the stimulating surface is zero
or 20° C, i. e., whether it is the temperature of ice or about the
temperature of a summer day. The sensation due to the colder
stimulus radiates over a larger area, which makes it difficult to
be absolutely confident that there is no difference in the intensity
of the sensation of cold, but we can be confident that when
protopathic sensibility reacts to cold, it does so with approxi-
mately or altogether the same strength so far as this can be
tested by sensory experience.

The principle also holds good of certain forms of reflex
action. Thus, the nature of the reflex known as the " extensor
thrust " led Sherrington to think that the strength of the
stimulus had no influence upon the amount of the response,
and that the reflex occurred either not at all or fully. ^ The
mass-reflex recently observed by Head and Riddoch, of which
I gave an account in Chapter IV^, also obeys the " all-or-none "
principle fairly completely. Still more significant is the fact
that the heart-muscle responds to stimulation either not at all
or fully, this mode of reaction being of especial importance
owing to the close relation between the heart and those affective
disturbances which are closely connected with instinct.

Thus, the isolated nerve-fibre, the heart, certain forms of
reflex action, and the protopathic sensibility of the skin all
agree in having characters which only appear in the more
complex behaviour of man or animal under conditions which
bluing instinctive processes into activity.

^ The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, London (1906)^ p. 74.

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 47

The " all-or-none " principle may be regarded as only a
special case of a wider law holding good of the relation between
stimulus and sensation, or between stimulus and reaction.
Except at the limits of the range of intensities the normal
sensibility of the skin or other sense-organs shows definite
proportionality between stimulus and reaction, of which the
most exact expression is given by Fechner's formula that the
sensation is proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus.
Any such exact relation is wholly absent in the case of proto-
pathic sensibility, in the reactions of the " extensor-thrust " or
the mass-reflex, and similarly, there is no such exact relation
between the conditions setting an instinctive or emotional
reaction into being and the strength of the reaction, at any
rate in the child, or in the adult human being whose emotions
have not been brought well under control by long training and
practice.

The Fechner formula has been supposed to hold good of one
affective state. It has been pointed out that the amount of
pleasure derived from an accession of fortune stands in a definite
relation to the fortune we already possess. A gift of half-a-crown
will have a very different effect on a beggar and on a millionaire,
and it has been supposed that this relation is subject to
logarithmic expression ; that equal increments of good fortune
produce steadily decreasing increments of pleasure. Even if
this law could be shown to apply with any degree of exactness,
it concerns a highly-developed aspect of the affective life, one in
which the crude emotional basis has been elaborated by the
addition of highly complex intellectual factors. The states of
pleasure and displeasure, at any rate in their more customary
forms, are definitely graded. From the point of view here put
forward, they must be regarded as states in which the crude
emotional basis has undergone great development under the
influence of individual experience. The nature of pleasure and
displeasure, as well as the relation between what have been
called physical and moral fortune, show a certain amount of
definiteness of relation between stimulus and affect. This
definite and even quantitative relation is not true of the cruder

48 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

passions which 1 connect with the instinctive behaviour of the
man, and still less is it true of the passions of the child. Here
there is not even an approach to any exact proportionality
between the fear or other emotion and the condition or con-
ditions by which the emotion has been produced.

I have chosen the " all-or-none " principle and the absence of
the relation expressed by Fechner's formula as my examples of
the kinds of character by which we may distinguish different
forms of instinctive behaviour, because they furnish differences
which are capable of exactness of expression and even of
measurement. Another character, common to emotive reactions,
to protopathic sensibility and to the forms of reflex action
I have considered, is their immediate, and as it were unreflective,
character. It is characteristic of emotion that it flares up at
once and leads immediately to the behaviour characteristic of
it. When, on the other hand, the crude affective tendencies
which I associate with instinct have been brought under control,
and even brief reflexion becomes possible, the emotion will only
come into being if the conditions tending to produce it have
such force as to sweep before them with their flood the obstacles
interposed by intelligence. Similarly, it is characteristic of the
reactions of protopathic sensibility that they tend immediately
to result in movements approaching in nature those of reflex
action, and are quite beyond the control which we normally
exert over our more reasoned movements. One of the first signs
of the return of the later epicritic sensibility is that this urgency
goes, so that stimulation is followed by movements which are
adapted to the nature of the stimulus.

I propose, therefore, to adopt as the distinguishing marks of
one class of instincts : firstly, the absence of exactness of dis-
crimination, of appreciation and of graduation of response ;
secondly, the character of reacting to conditions with all the
energy available; and thirdly, the explosive and uncontrolled
character of the response. It is interesting to note that Head
and Gordon Holmes have found these characters to hold good
in large measure of the activity of the optic thalamus, the
essential nucleus of which they have shown to be the central

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 49

representative of the protopathic aspect of peripheral sensibility
and the central basis of emotive reactions. As I have already
pointed out, it is clear that in this case we have to do with a
structure which has come down from an early stage of the
development of the nervous system. The optic thalamus is now
hidden away in the interior of the brain, overlaid and buried by
the vast development of the cerebral cortex. Just as I have
supposed that emotive and instinctive reactions are buried
within the unconscious, hidden from consciousness by the vast
development of those reactions which are associated with in-
telligence, so do we find that the organ of the emotions and
instinctive reactions has been buried under the overwhelming
mass of the nervous structure we know to be pre-eminently
associated with consciousness.

It is interesting to note that the line of argument which
I have followed has brought us to the view of Lloyd Morgan
that instinct is the product of subcortical activity, but with the
very important difference that I regard such structures as the
thalamus as the organs only of certain forms of instinct, and
have attempted to distinguish these forms of instinct by means
of definite characters of the mental processes involved, and of
the behaviour by which the instinct becomes manifest.

It must be remembered that this attempt to mark off one
kind of instinctive behaviour by its psychological characters has
been based almost entirely on the study of human behaviour
It is now necessary to consider briefly how far these distinctions
apply to the behaviour of those animals we have come to regard
as our patterns of the instinctive. It is quite clear that the
characters w^hich I have taken as the special marks of certain
instinctive aspects of human behaviour do not apply to those
actions which are universally regarded as characteristic forms of
the instinctive behaviour of the insect. It is certain that the
" all-or-none " principle does not hold good of the activity of
the bee when constructing the cells of the honeycomb, nor even
of the cruder art of such an animal as the grub of the Capricorn
beetle which I have cited as a typical example of innate
behaviour. The actions of these animals, certainly those of the

50 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

bee, require in large measure the fine discrimination and delicacy
of adjustment which remind us of epicritic rather than of
protopathic sensibility. The way in which an insect will often
carry out a set of activities dependent on its inherited tendencies
when the external conditions are different from the ordinary,
thus depriving these activities of all value, may perhaps be
regarded as a sign that the insect is subject in some measure to
the working of the " all-or-none ''"' principle, but this is some-
thing different from the nature of the reactions themselves.

If we were to take the characters I have considered as marks
of certain forms of instinct, it is evident that the behaviour of
the insect could not be thus explained, but that some other
principle must be in action, giving to its behaviour the power
of discrimination and graduation of response. The lines taken
by the development which has conferred this power are probably
widely different from those which have been followed in the
case of the vertebrata. The vast difference between the nervous
system of an insect and that of a vertebrate animal would lead
us to expect a correspondingly wide difference in the nature of
the controlling and graduating mechanisms of the two kinds of
animal. If the views here put forward seem worthy of adoption
as a working hypothesis by students of insect-behaviour, it will
become their business to seek out the nature of the controlling
and graduating mechanism by which the originally crude modes
of response of the insect have been modified and regulated.

I have in this chapter attempted to show that it is possible
to distinguish two kinds of instinctive behaviour according as
they do or do not exhibit certain characters. The characters
which I have used as a means of distinguishing the instincts
which are especially obvious in the innate behaviour of Man
resemble in many respects the characters of protopathic sensi-
bility, of a person who is dependent on the activity of the
thalamus or of the isolated spinal cord, and in the domain of
pure physiology the characters of the isolated nerve and of the
heart. The discriminative and graduated activity of the more
elaborate instincts of the insect, and also of certain forms of
innate behaviour in Man, resemble in its general nature the

THE NATURE OF INSTINCT 51

epicritic sensibility of the skin and the activities of the body
generally when fully under the influence of the cerebral cortex.
It will be convenient to have terms for these two different kinds
of instinct and instinctive behaviour, and I propose that they
shall be named after the two kinds of characters which, through
the work of Head, can be recognised in cutaneous sensibility.
I shall, therefore, in this book, speak of instinctive behaviour as
protopathic or epicritic according as it is or is not subject to
the " all-or-none " principle, and according as it is not or is
capable of graduation in relation to the conditions which call it
forth.

CHAPTER VII

THE DANGER-INSTINCTS

Instincts may be classified as of three main kinds — those of
self-preservation ; those which subserve the continuance of the
race ; and those which maintain the cohesion of the group,
whether this group be a clump or herd of animals, or the more
complex mass of individuals which makes up human society
with its highly varied forms of grouping.

The instincts of self-preservation are concerned especially
with the welfare of the individual. They may be divided into
two main groups. One is of the more appetitive kind which
subserves the function of nutrition, hunger and thirst being
the chief representatives of the conscious states which accom-
pany their activity on the side of attraction, while disgust is
the mental correlative of the opposite state of repulsion from
the harmful. This group of instincts includes not only the
elementary instinct of sucking and the innate awareness of
useful and harmful foods, but it is also concerned in the
instinctive aspect of such a pursuit as hunting. It also takes
a large part in the development of curiosity.

The other group of the instincts of self-preservation, made
up of the reactions which serve to protect from danger, will
be considered at length in this chapter.

The second main variety of instinct comprises those which
subserve the continuance of the race. Here again they may
be divided into two main groups — a more appetitive, making
up the sexual instinct in the strict sense, while the chief con-
stituent of the other group is the parental instinct with which,
and with the sexual instinct, is associated the tender emotion.

52

THE DANGER-INSTINCTS 53

The third main variety of instinct is concerned with the
welfare of the group. Its main constituent is the gregarious
instinct with its different aspects of suggestion, sympathy,
imitation and intuition which I shall consider in a later
chapter.

As in most branches of psychology, there are no sharp lines
between these three varieties of instinct, and in many instinc-
tive reactions more than one variety is involved. Thus, if we
recognise acquisition as an instinct, this must be regarded as
primarily an off-shoot of the instinct of self-preservation, which
manifests itself strongly in connection with the sexual and
parental instincts and plays a part in the higher developments
of the gregarious instinct. Again, if we acknowledge an
instinct of construction, this can be regarded as primarily
a manifestation of self-preservation, but its most complete and
striking developments are connected with the parental occupa-
tion of nest-building, and with the social ends of the honey-bee.
The gregarious instinct is closely interwoven with members of
the other two main groups of instinct. The instinct of play,
which seems to be connected in some measure with self-
preservation, as the practice of activities which will be useful
to the individual in later life, manifests itself also in a striking
manner in the playful performance of activities which have
a strictly social purpose.

I propose to consider in this chapter that group of the
instincts of self-preservation, the end of which is the protection
of the animal or man from danger. I shall first describe the
reactions to danger which can be objectively observed, and
then attempt the more difficult task of connecting these with
specific forms of emotion, or other forms of conscious response.
Five chief forms of reaction to danger can be distinguished,
other forms seeming to be modifications or combinations of
these.

Flight. — Flight from danger is probably the earliest and
most deeply seated of the various lines of behaviour by which
animals react to conditions which threaten their existence or
their integrity. Flight may be regarded as a development of

54 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

the reaction of repulsion from the noxious which is one of the
fundamental modes of response to stimulation in those animals
which are capable of mass-motion — attraction towards the bene-
ficial or useful ; repulsion from the harmful. Those instinctive
reactions in which animals seek special sources of safety may
be regarded as developments, or modifications, of the instinct
of flight, while the instinctive cry which so often accompanies
flight is probably a still later development arising out of the
gregarious habit.

Aggression. — The second kind of reaction to danger is by
aggression. This may be regarded as the opposite of flight.
Since it will only come into play where the source of danger is
another animal, this instinct must be later than that of flight, at
any rate in its primitive form. Moreover, this kind of reaction
would hardly be possible until an animal had reached a degree
of development which endowed it with jaws and limbs fitted to
act as instruments of offence and defence.

Manipulative Activity. — I have had great difficulty in finding
a term for the mode of reaction to danger I have now to
consider. Originally I chose "pure serviceable activity," but
since both flight and aggression are also serviceable, I have
discarded this term in favour of " manipulative activity." This
form of reaction is of great importance in the present discussion
because it is the normal reaction of the healthy man. In the
presence of danger Man, in the vast majority of cases, neither
flees nor adopts an attitude of aggression, but responds by the
special kind of activity, often of a highly complex kind, whereby
the danger may be avoided or overcome. From most of the
dangers to which mankind is exposed in the complex con-
ditions of our own society, the means of escape lie in complex
activities of a manipulative kind which seem to justify the
term I have chosen. The hunter has to discharge his weapon,
perhaps combined with movements which put him into a
favourable situation for such an action. The driver of a car
and the pilot of an aeroplane in danger of collision have to
perform complex movements by which the danger is avoided.
The beings which seem to come next to Man in this respect

THE DANGER-INSTINCTS 55

are the quadrumana or other animals with an arboreal habit,
for this habit greatly increases the complexity of flight and
needs a high degree of delicacy of adjustment of sense and
movement. This must have formed a fitting ground for the
development of the manipulative skill which forms Man's most
natural response to danger.

Immobility. — The three forms of reaction already considered
resemble one another in that they involve definite activity on the
part of the being, whether man or animal, threatened by danger.
The mode of reaction now to be considered differs fundamentally
from them in that it involves the complete cessation of movement,
the complete inhibition or suppression of the movements which
would be brought into being by the instincts of flight and
aggression, or by manipulation. The instinct which thus leads
to the complete absence of movement seems to go very far back in
the animal kingdom. It is often associated with purely physio-
logical modes of reaction, such as changes in the distribution
of pigment, which increase the chances of safety of the animal
by making it indistinguishable from its backgroiuid. The
instinctive reaction by means of immobility has the end of
concealing the animal from the danger which threatens it, and
this end of concealment is often assisted by other means, which
may also be more or less instinctive in character.

Collapse. — This last form of reaction to danger is one which
has greatly puzzled biologists. The reaction is usually accom-
panied by tremors or irregular movements which wholly deprive
the reaction of any serviceable character it might possess
through the paralysis of movement. Haller ^ has suggested that
though this form of reaction is useless to, or even prejudices the
welfare of, the individual, it is useful to the race by eliminating,
or helping to eliminate, the more timid members of the species.
From this point of view the reaction would be a failure of the
instinct of self-preservation in the interest of the continuance
of the species. I think we shall take a more natural view of
the reaction by collapse if we regard it as a failure of the

1 " Elementa Physiologiae corporis humani," Lausanne (1763), t v,
p. 588.

56 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

instinct of self-preservation taking place in animals when
instinctive reactions to danger have been so overlaid by
reactions of other kinds that, in the presence of excessive or
unusual stimuli, the instinctive reactions fail. It is noteworthy
that collapse with tremor seems to be especially characteristic
of Man in whom all the different modes of reaction to danger
found in the animal kingdom are present in some degree, but
no one of them so specially developed as to form an immediate
and invariable mode of behaviour in the presence of danger.

There is evidence also that collapse and tremor occur especi-
ally when there is frustration of an instinctive reaction. Thus,
Brehm ^ describes a motionless state, with staring eyes and
tongues hanging out of their mouths, in seals which had been
surprised in their favourite place of repose and cut off* from
their usual access to the sea. Again, as an example in Man,
Mosso^ observed collapse with violent tremor in a youthful
brigand condemned to summary execution. Emitting a shrill
cry, the boy turned to flee, and rushing against a wall, writhed
and scratched against it as if trying to force a way through.
Baffled in his attempt to escape, he at last sank to the ground
like a log and trembled as Mosso had never seen another
tremble, as "though the muscles had been turned to a jelly
shaken in all directions."

I have mentioned several modifications or complications of
these five main forms of reaction to danger. Some of them serve
the end of concealment which may be attained by immobility or
by flight to a place of safety, and concealment may serve as the
end of a still more complex chain of reactions.

Having now considered certain modes of reaction to danger,
I can consider how far it is possible to connect these with
definite states of consciousness, positive or negative.

Flight and Fear. — It is generally assumed without question
that the instinctive reaction of flight is accompanied by fear,
and human experience points to the truth of this conclusion,
though the evidence is not as abundant as might be desired.

1 A. E. Brehm, Thierleben, Leipzig (1877), vol. iii. p. 601.

2 A. Mosso, Fear, London (1896), p. 145.

THE DANGER-INSTINCTS 57

There seems to be little doubt that fear becomes especially
pronounced when there is interference with, or even the prospect
of interference with, the process of fleeing, and the possibility
cannot be excluded that the normal and unimpeded flight of
animals from danger is not accompanied by the emotion of fear.

Aggression and Anger. — The reaction to danger by aggres-
sion is definitely connected with anger. In Man acts of
aggression, or acts which have the appearance of aggression,
may be expressions of fear. A man in a state of sheer terror
may do violence to others who stand in the way of his own
safety. There is no doubt that such behaviour occurs, but in
the main we may conclude that the primary instinct of
aggression is bound up with the emotion of anger.

Manipulative A ctivitz/ and Absence of Affect. — There is abun-
dant evidence, probably such evidence could be provided by the
personal experience of everyone, that manipulative activity in
response to danger is, or may be, wholly free from fear, or from
any other emotion except perhaps a certain degree of excitement.
Those who escape from danger by the performance of some
complex activity bear almost unanimous witness that, while so
engaged, they were wholly free from the fear which the danger
might have been expected to arouse. Highly complex acts
designed to allow escape from, or to overcome, the danger are
carried out as coolly as, or even more coolly than, is customary
in the ordinary behaviour of daily life. There seems to be in
action a process of suppression of the fear or other affective
state. That there is such suppression is supported by the fact
that fear may be present, perhaps in an intense form, if the
experience is reproduced later in a dream.

That the absence of fear is due to suppression of the aff*ect,
which seems to accompany the primitive reaction to danger, is
supported by the insensitiveness to pain which often occurs at
the same time. Not only may an injury occurring in the
presence of danger fail wholly to be perceived, but the pain
already present may completely disappear, even if it depends
upon definite organic changes. On one occasion I was in
imminent danger of shipwreck while suffering from severe

58 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

inflammation of the skin over the shin-bones, consequent upon
sun-burn, which made every movement painful. So long as the
danger was present I moved about freely, quite oblivious of the
state of my legs, and wholly free from pain. There was also a
striking absence of the fear I should have expected the incident
to have produced.

It is evident that the occurrence of either pain or fear would
interfere with the success of manipulations or other activities
by which a creature escapes from danger. If a man or animal
is to escape from a dangerous situation by means of delicate
manipulations or other complex form of activity, success would
be seriously prejudiced by the presence of fear or pain. When,
as in arboreal animals, successful flight depends on a highly
delicate adjustment of hand and eye, the occurrence of pain or
fear would inevitably interfere with its success.

The complete suppression of pain and fear, even in the
presence of imminent danger, may also take place when any
form of serviceable activity is impossible. The best known case
of this kind is that of the missionary and explorer, Livingstone,
who experienced neither pain nor fear while his arm was being
devoured by a lion, and others who have been mauled by
animals while hunting have had a similar experience.

Immobility and Suppression. — The suppression which occurs
in the manipulative activity of Man, and may safely be assumed
to occur in many of the higher mammals, seems also to afford
the most natural explanation of the immobility which forms the
chief instinctive reaction to danger in so many animals. If
immobility is to be useful in the presence of danger, and
especially in dangers threatened by other animals, it is essential
that it shall be complete. It is a well-recognised character of
animals that their vision is especially sensitive to movement.
The perception of movement probably forms the most primitive
form of vision,^ and concealment by means of immobility would
be of little use unless it were complete. If an animal capable of
feeling pain or fear, in however crude a form, were to have these

^ W. H. R. Rivers^ Schafer's Textbook of Physiology, Edinburgh, vol. ii.
(1900), p. 1146.

THE DANGER-INSTINCTS 59

experiences while reacting to danger by means of immobility,
the success of the reaction would certainly be impaired and
would probably fail completely. I suggest, therefore, that the
essential process underlying the instinct of immobility is the
suppression of fear and pain. It is possible that the instinctive
reaction to danger by means of immobility may have furnished
one of the earliest motives for suppression. It may be that the
suppression of the immediately painful or uncomfortable, the
process by which the highly complex experience of Man becomes
unconscious, is only a modification of a process going very far
back in the animal kingdom, which was essential to the safety of
animals in their reaction to danger by means of immobility.

Collapse and Terror. — There is little doubt that the collapse,
associated with tremor, which forms one mode of reacting to
danger, especially in the higher animals, is accompanied by
that excess of fear we call terror. This association, based on
the experience of Man, may also be ascribed to animals.
Though immobility and collapse resemble each other super-
ficially, I suppose them to be poles apart so far as the
accompanying affect is concerned. In dealing with collapse as
a mode of reaction, I pointed to interference with flight or with
some other form of serviceable activity as one of its most
important conditions. In this obstruction to normal instinctive
modes of reaction by which danger would be avoided, we have
a satisfactory explanation of the excess of affect by which it is
characterised. The conflict of different instinctive modes of
reaction with their consequent failure would furnish an alternative
explanation of the excessive affect. In most animals there is
a special disposition towards some one of the various forms of
reaction to danger, so that in them there is little room for
conflict between alternative tendencies. Conflict leading to
collapse only occurs when the tendency proper to each is
obstructed. In Man, on the other hand, all the different
tendencies found throughout the animal kingdom seem to be
present. Man may flee, become aggressive, or adopt some
other form of serviceable activity in the presence of danger, and
there is reason to believe that he may show, at any rate in patho-

60 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

logical states, the reaction of immobility. The conflict between
tendencies in these different directions is probably a definite
reason for his liability to collapse or other non-serviceable
states, such as trembling, in the presence of danger. This is
the penalty Man has to pay for the pliancy of his danger-
instincts, for their failure to become systematised or fixed in
any one direction.

I have in this chapter spoken of reactions to danger rather
than of danger-instincts when referring to Man. Some of these
reactions, such as those by flight and aggression, are clearly
instinctive. The reaction by manipulative activity, on the other
hand, can hardly be regarded as an instinct, though it usually
involves processes which are innate.

In the sketch I have just given of the modes of reaction and
associated mental states which make up what I have called
the danger-instincts, the feature I wish especially to emphasise
is the suppression of affect which certainly accompanies the
manipulative activity of Man, and has been assumed to accompany
the immobility of the lower animals. These two modes of
reaction differ from one another in one important respect. The
suppression of pain and fear in the manipulative activity of
Man is not necessarily accompanied by any failure of memory
of the events which produced the reaction, or of the nature of
the reactions themselves and their accompanying mental states.
In some cases, however, as has not uncommonly happened in
war, there is partial or complete amnesia for the period of
activity. Soldiers have carried out, so skilfully as to earn the
special commendation of their superiors, highly complicated
processes of giving orders, directing operations, showing personal
skill in attack and defence, while afterwards their memories
have been a blank for the whole series of events and their own
behaviour in relation to it. Moreover, there is abundant
evidence that the experience which had thus lost direct access
to consciousness is still present and may show itself in some
indirect manner.

CHAPTER VIII

SUPPRESSION AND THE ALL-OR-NONE PRINCIPLE

Some of the instinctive reactions to danger described in the
last chapter are evidently subject to the all-or-none principle.
If an animal is to flee from danger it is essential that this
reaction shaU be carried out as completely as possible. There
is no opening for graduation of the degree and rapidity of
flight, and probably in the most primitive forms there is little
power of regulation of direction, while the flight may continue
long after the animal is at a safe distance from the source of
danger. Even in Man there is no graduation of the rapidity
and length of a flight accompanied by definite fear. The extent
of the flight is usually quite out of keeping with the nature of
the danger, real or imaginary, to which the emotion and its
reactions are due.

It is much the same in the case of the aggressive reaction
with its affective accompaniment of anger. If an animal, instead
of fleeing from an enemy, stands and fights, it does so with all
the energy at its command, and this is also true of Man in his
natural state. It needs a prolonged course of training to
enable a man to fight, whether with his fists or with weapons,
and yet preserve his composure so that he can discriminate the
movements of his enemy and adjust his own actions accordingly.
Even the practised fighter may allow the purely affective
attitude to overcome him and, as we say, may lose his head,
putting out all his powers blindly, and failing because he is no
longer regulating his actions according to the nature of the
situation. In such a case a crude instinctive impulse of aggres-
sion has mastered all the later developments due to his special
training. This training consists in putting the crude actions of

6i

62 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

the primitive instinct of aggression under subjection to carefully
discriminative and chosen actions based on intelligence.

I have now to consider how far the all-or-none principle
applies to the process of suppression which forms so important
an element in the reaction to danger by means of immobility
and in that of manipulative activity. We have to inquire
whether a principle which holds good of certain emotional
reactions also applies to the process by which these reactions
are controlled and suppressed.

In the case of the reaction of immobility, we can be confident
that the all-or-none principle holds good. The reaction by
immobility is radically opposed to the other two chief reactions
by flight and aggression. If the animal is to flee or fight,
suppression would be wholly out of place. Any trace of it
could only interfere with the success of the more active reaction.
If, on the other hand, the animal adopts the reaction of immo-
bility, the process of suppression upon which this reaction
depends must be complete. Even the slightest movement will
endanger the success of the whole reaction. Any graduation of
the process of suppression, any a,ttempt to discriminate differ-
ences in external conditions and to adjust the degree of sup-
pression accordingly, would be fatal to success. We have here
a case in which the all-or-none principle applies most definitely
and is essential to the working of the instinctive reaction.

The manipulative reactions of Man or of arboreal mammals
also require that the suppression of tendencies to other kinds of
reactions shall be thorough, though not necessarily as complete
as in the case of the reaction by immobility. The movements
of flight from bough to bough, or from tree to tree, would be
impaired if the animal were at the same time the subject of
blind impulses of the same order as those which actuated
ancestors who lived on the ground or underwater. In the case
of Man, we know that where the efficiency of manipulative
activity is greatest, there is no trace of impulses of other kinds,
certainly no trace of fear or of emotional states associated with
other kinds of reaction.

Thus far I have considered the process of suppression as it

THE ALL-OR-NONE PRINCIPLE 63

affects instinctive reactions to danger. Let us now turn to our
earlier topics and consider the suppression of forgetting. The
first point to notice is that forgetting, and especially that kind
of active forgetting with which we are especially concerned,
is not a graduated process ; or, any graduation that it may
possess is not adjusted to the needs of the situation. We may
remember experience with different degrees of clearness, de-
pendent on such factors as the time which has elapsed since the
remembered experience, the intensity of the experience, and the
interest given to it by association or meaning. But when an
experience has been forgotten by means of the active process
of forgetting, there is, so far as we know, no corresponding
graduation of the process. An experience is either remembered
or forgotten. There may, however, be different degrees of
difficulty in bringing the experience again to consciousness,
and these differences would seem to be due to different degrees
of obstruction to recall. The experience of the psycho-analytic
school goes to show that there are such differences of resistance,
and this may be regarded as constituting different degrees of
strength of suppression. Consequently these differences suggest
that suppression of this kind is not subject to the all-or-none
principle. If, as seems clear, the process of suppression was
originally subject to this principle, the nature of active for-
getting suggests that it has been modified in later evolution and
that in Man, at any rate, the process of suppression has departed
from the all-or-none principle and is, at any rate in some
degree, capable of graduation. It is noteworthy that the most
complete cases of forgetting seem to occur in early childhood,
when we are justified in supposing that the later developed
principle of graduation is still of little power. The forgetting
of adult life may be regarded as an epicritic modification of the
original instinctive or protopathic process of suppression, j ust as
most of our adult sensations are the result of the modification
of the original protopathic forms of sensation by fusion with
epicritic elements.

The application of the all-or-none principle may be examined
from another point of view. We have seen that there is evidence

64 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

that the process of suppression does not act merely on the
special experience which is producing pain or discomfort, but
when it suppresses this, it suppresses with it much other
experience of a neutral or even beneficent kind. Thus, if I am
right in supposing that the suppression of all memories and
images of the upper floor in my own child-memory is due to
the existence of some unpleasant event or events, the process
has not been limited to that experience, but every memory of
life on that upper floor has disappeared completely. Similarly,
those whose memories of some painful experience of war have
been suppressed have at the same time lost the memory of all
that happened over a period much longer than that of the
unpleasant experience itself. In getting rid of the memory of
an unpleasant experience, the process of suppression tends to
involve all experience associated in time and space with that
which is the immediate occasion of the suppression.

The foregoing considerations seem to show that, while sup-
pression in the primitive form revealed in the simple instinctive
reactions to danger is definitely subject to the " all-or-none "
principle, this principle does not hold good, or is much modified,
in later development, so that the process becomes, at any rate
to some extent, capable of graduation. The idea that the all-
or-none principle holds good of instinct, at any rate in its more
primitive and cruder forms, was supported by the nature of
primitive sensibility as revealed by the experiments of Head.
It is, therefore, of great importance to note that the suppression
of protopathic manifestations revealed bv those experiments was
far from being complete. Only certain elements of the proto-
pathic complex have been suppressed, while others have been
utilised to enter into the composition of the fully developed
cutaneous sensibility. The process of suppression on the
sensori-motor level has here shown that it possesses the capacity
for discrimination, selection and graduation, and if this be so on
the physiological level, it is not surprising that the relatively
high development on the psychological level of active forgetting
should reveal a similar process of development and modification.
The evidence, therefore, goes to show that, while suppression was

THE ALL-OR-NONE PRINCIPLE 65

originally subject to the all-or-none principle, this principle has
in the course of phylogenetic development been modified, and
has become capable of graduation. But it is still liable to show
itself in its original form when it occurs in infancy. I hope to
show later that the all-or-none principle tends to reappear in
disease, when the process of regression reduces mental activity to
a state comparable with that which it possessed at an early
stage of its development.

CHAPTER IX

INSTINCT AND SUPPRESSION

I PROPOSE in this chapter to consider a little more fully some
features of suppression to which I have already referred in
connection with the " all-or-none " principle. Some of the
instinctive modes of reaction to danger which I have described
would fall short of their full effect, or would even fail altogether,
if they were not accompanied by the complete suppression of
tendencies to other kinds of reaction and of any conscious states
associated therewith.

Thus, the reaction to danger, which may be regarded as
natural to the healthy man, a reaction characterised by complete
absorption in the immediate task by which the danger may be
averted, would be impossible if complete suppression, not only
of any tendency to the reaction of flight, but also of any trace
of the emotion of fear which is its normal conscious accompani-
ment, did not occur. A man whose attention is wholly absorbed
in the business of flying an aeroplane, or directing the move-
ments of a company of soldiers, would certainly fall short of full
efficiency if his movements were complicated by impulses to
flight or his composure disturbed by even a trace of fear.

I have suggested that this normal reaction to danger has
been inherited by man from his arboreal ancestors. When
these ancestors took to an arboreal existence the reaction to
danger by flight, which had previously involved the simple and
wholly instinctive movements of running, now required the
delicate adjustments of eye and limbs involved in movements
from branch to branch and from tree to tree. Any animal in
which such movements were complicated by impulses to the
simpler motion of running, or whose consciousness was disturbed

66

INSTINCT AND SUPPRESSION 67

by the emotion of fear, would certainly fail to perform success-
fully the complicated movements of its arboreal existence.
Accidents of various kinds would furnish means by which a
rigorous process of selection would eliminate those animals
which were unable to suppress their instinctive tendencies and
any conscious affective states derived from their earlier mode
of existence on the ground. It is evident that such adaptation
to an arboi'eal existence by the suppression of inappropriate
instinctive tendencies would have but poor chances of success
if the mechanism of suppression only came into existence in
order to meet the special conditions with which the arboreal
tyro was confronted. The process ol suppression could only
be expected to succeed if it had been developed to meet other
needs and was already there, only waiting to be employed in
helping the animal to overcome the obstacles presented by a
new mode of existence. We can be confident that the mechanism
of suppression had already come into being in the ancestors of
the tree-dweller long before there arose the needs due to a life
above the ground.

In our search for conditions which would have brought the
need for suppression, let us continue to deal with the instinctive
reactions to danger. One of these clearly brings out the need
for suppression. The reaction to danger by means of immobility
is one which would obviously be impossible if the inhibition
which led the animal to become motionless were complicated
by the presence of impulses to movement, and especially to those
pronounced and violent movements which make up the other
great fundamental reaction — that of flight. In order that an
animal shall lie wholly motionless in the presence of danger, it
is essential that this raotionlessness shall be complete. Such
danger would generally come from another animal and owing
to the primitive character of the cognition of movement in
visual perception, to which I have already referred,^ it is
essential that the animal in danger shall avoid any movement
whatever. There must be complete suppression of such impulses
as would produce even a trace of the movements which make

1 See p. 68.

68 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

up the reaction by flight. Moreover, it is equally necessary
that the consciousness of the animal reacting to danger by
means of immobility shall not be disturbed by such feelings
or images as would tend to set up movements, whether adapted
to flight or of an irregular kind. It is essential that such
consciousness as the animal may possess shall be wholly in
harmony with the need for immobility which the instinct of
the animal has led it to adopt. The need for suppression is
all the greater in that animals which are accustomed to react
to danger by immobility are usually, if not always, capable also
of the reaction to danger by flight. We have not merely to
do with an ancestral tendency to an incompatible kind of
reaction, but with the need for the inhibition of an alterna-
tive mode of reaction. Moreover, there are many animals
which flee till they have removed themselves from the source
of danger, and only then resort to the reaction of immobility.
In such a case it is necessary to inhibit a mode of reaction
which, only a moment earlier, has been in full activity. The
mechanism of suppression is thus one which must have come
into being at a very early stage of animal existence. When,
far later, an animal changed its habit of life, as in taking to
an arboreal existence, it would already possess, waiting to be
utilised when needed, a mechanism by which it could suppress
instinctive impulses and conscious states which would interfere
with the needs of its new life.

I have so far considered especially the needs for suppression
which would be required when there is the possibility of two
kinds of instinctive reaction incompatible with one another, or
when an animal adapted to one kind of existence is forced by
new needs to take up new modes of reaction which would be
disturbed even by traces of its old behaviour. Still another
opening for suppression is presented by those animals whose
life-history is characterised by changes of habit so great that
the modes of reaction proper to one phase would be seriously
prejudiced if the tendencies of the earlier phase or phases were
not suppressed. Thus, the metamorphoses of an insect produce
existences so different from one another that if the impulsive

INSTINCT AND SUPPRESSION 69

tendencies and modes of consciousness proper to one phase were
to continue in a later phase, they would greatly interfere with
the behaviour proper to that phase. Thus, during the larval
existence of the butterfly, the caterpillar reacts to the stimuli
of certain leaves and plants in definite ways and exhibits certain
movements adapted to the mode of progression proper to that
stage of the life-history of the insect. If the impulses to
such movements or the feelings and sensations which aroused
the activity of the caterpillar were to persist in the imago, they
could only interfere with the harmony of movements exquisitely
adapted to the wholly different motions of flight. The harmony
of its existence would be continually prejudiced if the memories
of its larval existence were liable to intrude into the conscious-
ness of the fully-developed butterfly with its vastly different
needs and interests.

Again, to take an example from an animal nearer to ourselves,
the movements of the frog could only be impaired if it were
liable to be disturbed by impulses of such a kind as were needed
by the tadpole, or if sensations referable to its caudal extremity
were liable to complicate the sensations regulating the movements
of limbs which did not exist in its larval stage.

I have so far spoken only of suppression of tendencies and
conscious states as characters of early modes of animal reaction.
In the case of Man, however, we have not only suppression of
tendencies and of states of consciousness, but there is definite
evidence that the suppressed experience and the tendencies
associated therewith, may have a kind of independent existence,
and may act indirectly upon or modify consciousness even when
incapable of recall by any of the ordinary processes of memory.
Let us now inquire how far there is evidence of this continued
existence in those animals in which we have found evidence for
the process of suppression. One form of instinctive reaction,
the suppression of which has been shown to be necessary
under certain conditions, is that of flight, whether by move-
ments of swimming in the water or of running upon the
ground. Although these movements may need suppression,
either in the interests of the alternative instinct of immobility

70 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

or of a new mode of existence, the older instinct may still be
needed at times. It is essential that its mechanism shall remain
intact ready to be utilised whenever it is needed. For most
animals it is essential that the mechanism for each kind of
reaction shall be present ready to be called into activity if the
need should arise. This is so even if one mode of reaction is
habitual, while the need for the other may only arise once in
a lifetime or may always lie dormant.

The need for the continued existence in one phase of an
instinctive mode of reaction proper to another phase of the
life-history of an animal subject to metamorphosis is less obvious.
There is no immediately obvious reason, for instance, why a
butterfly should preserve among the potentialities of its exist-
ence the sensations or feelings which were aroused in the
caterpillar by the leaves on which it feeds. One possible
motive for such preservation, however, may be discerned. It is
essential to the existence of the species that the female butterfly
shall lay her eggs on or near the plant upon which the future
larvae will feed. In order that this shall happen it seems to
be essential that the food-plant shall be capable of arousing
such sensations in the butterfly as will make her choice possible.
Professor Seiigman has suggested to me that it may be to this
end that the suppressed sensations of the larva persist during
metamorphosis to be called once more into activity when,
preparatory to its death, the imago carries out the act by which
it perpetuates the race.

CHAPTER X

DISSOCIATION

At the end of the last chapter I have referred to the activity
of surpressed experience which is exemphfied, for instance, by
the case of claustrophobia which I have chosen to illustrate the
nature of " the unconscious." This activity is usually known
by the name of dissociation and it now becomes necessary to
consider exactly what is meant by this term and how it may be
used so as to be of most service in the study of psycho-
pathology.

It is not unusual to find the terms "suppression" and
" dissociation " used as if they denoted one and the same
process. I have myself been guilty of this confusion, or have
at any rate used language which mighx be supposed to indicate
that I regard the two terms as synonymous.^ I have now,
I hope, made it clear what I mean by suppression, and it remains
to make equally clear the sense in which I shall speak of
dissociation.

Before I do so, one possible source of confusion must be
mentioned. In their work on the nervous system. Head,"
Riddoch and others use " dissociation " in a manner very
different from that in which the term is used by writers on
morbid psychology. When Head and his colleagues speak
of " dissociation " they refer to a process, pathological or
experimental, whereby one set of nervous functions are separated
from others with which they are normally associated so that
they become capable of independent study. A good example is
given in the spinal cord where the selective action of certain

^ Brit. Journ. Psych., vol. x. (1919), p. 6-
2 Brain, vol. xli. (1918), p. 57.

71

72 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

morbid processes removes the activity of some forms of
sensibility and allows others to remain. Thus, interference with
the conductivity of the posterior columns will abolish the power
of appreciating two points placed on the skin simultaneously
while leaving touch unaffected, and Head speaks of this occur-
rence as one in which the power of appreciating compass points
has been dissociated from touch. Again, Riddoch finds ^ that
in pathological states of the occipital cortex the power of
appreciating movement may remain intact while other visual
activities are destroyed, and he again speaks of this process
of separation as " dissociation." To Head and Riddoch
dissociation is pre-eminently a method provided by disease
which makes it possible to analyse complex nervous processes
into their component elements. It is a process which on the
psychological side stands in a definite relation to the process of
fusion, but has none of the special relation to suppression which
is so definite in the connotation of dissociation as I shall use the
term, and as it is used by most writers on morbid psychology.
The dissociation of Head is predominantly a physiological
rather than a psychological term, and it might therefore be
thought that there is no danger of confusion, but the physio-
logical processes for which the term is used stand in so close a
relation to the psychological that there certainly is such
a danger. I was at one time inclined to use dissociation as
Head and Riddoch propose and find some other word for the
psychological process, but the term is now so firmly established
in psycho-pathology that it will be very difficult to give it up.
Moreover, the word " dissociation " is peculiarly appropriate to
the nature of the psychological process. I believe it would be
more practicable for Head and his colleagues to find some other
term for the process so essential to the method by which they
are making such momentous contributions to the physiology of
the nervous system and at the same time to the foundations of
any scientific study of mental process.

I can now pass to the definition of " dissociation "as I shall
use the term. I have already stated that I regard it as a
» Brain, vol. xl. (1917), p. 15.

DISSOCIATION 73

process which experience undergoes when it has been suppressed.
The special feature of dissociation, as I understand it, is that
the suppressed experience does not remain passive, but acquires
an independent activity of its own. It is this independence of
activity which I wish to regard as an essential character of
dissociation. The most characteristic example of dissociation is
the fugue in which a person shows behaviour, often of the most
complicated kind, and lasting it may be for considerable periods
of time, of which he is wholly unaware in the normal state.
The fugue usually comes into being owing to the fact that some
unpleasant experience has become unconscious by the unwitting
process of suppression or is tending to pass into the unconscious
through the agency of the witting process of repression. One
day the subject of this suppressed or repressed experience goes
out for a walk and suddenly finds himself in some part of
the town remote from that in which he had been, it seems
to him, only a few minutes before. On looking at his watch he
finds that it is an hour since he left home, though he would
have thought he had only been out a few minutes. On putting
his hand in his pocket he finds two cigars which were certainly
not there when he left home, and on counting his change he
finds that he has one shilling and eightpence less than when he
put his money into his pocket in the morning. On going to
his tobacconist he finds that he had already visited him
that morning, although he had no recollection of the visit, and
had bought three sixpenny cigars, although he was accustomed
to smoke either a pipe or cigarettes. He may also discover,
perhaps a week later, that he had met a friend with whom
he had talked, and may be able to ascertain that the friend
noticed nothing out of the way in his conversation or
demeanour, he himself having no recollection whatever of
the meeting. On piecing the evidence together it would seem
that he had had a fugue in which he had visited a tobacconist
and bought three cigars of which one had been smoked or given
away during the fugue. He had then found his way to the
distant part of the town where he, as we say, came to himself.
The distance he had traversed made it probable that he had

74 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

travelled by tram, thus accounting for the twopence he had
spent in addition to his expenditure at the tobacconist's. The
description I have given is not that of an actual case but
is compounded by putting together incidents from several
of the many fugues which I have had the opportunity of
studying during the war. In such a fugue the dissociation
is complete. On return to the normal state there is no memory
of the behaviour during the fugue or of any conscious
processes which accompanied this behaviour, though these
memories can be recovered in the hypnotic or hypnoidal states
or under other conditions which favour the recall of suppressed
experience.

If we accept the fugue as a typical and characteristic instance
of dissociation, we are at once faced by another problem of
definition. The subject of a fugue is certainly not unconscious.
So far as we know, he is capable of experiencing all the
modifications of consciousness which are open to the mind in its
normal state. We have not at all to do with an example of the
unconscious, but with consciousness cut off or dissociated from
the consciousness of the normal waking life. A person in a
fugue usually behaves in a manner somewhat different from that
of his normal state, and shows what is usually described as
a difference of personality, but the difference may be very
slight. I have myself met one of my own patients in a fugue
without recognising that such was the case. I noticed that his
manner was not quite as usual, but the difference was so slight
that though I knew about his fugues, and had hoped to have the
opportunity of observing him in one, I failed to recognise the
occasion when it came. Slight, however, as the change of
personality may be, it is certainly there. All gradations may
be met between a change so slight as that which I failed to
recognise in my patient, and the pronounced cases of double or
multiple personality which are described in psychological
literature, reaching their climax in the classical case of Miss
Beauchamp.

The existence of independent consciousness which thus shows
itself in the fugue, and in cases of double personality, separates

DISSOCIATION 75

these cases very definitely from those, such as that of my
claustrophobic patient, in which experience becomes unconscious
and, though active, gives no evidence of any independent
conscious existence. It is wholly out of place to speak of
the unconscious or of unconsciousness in the case of a fugue,
and Dr Morton Prince^ has suggested that we shall use the
terms "co-conscious" and "co-consciousness" rather than
"unconscious" and "unconsciousness." These terms are
especially appropriate to the examples of double or multiple
personality such as that of Dr Prince's patient. Miss Beauchamp.
In this case there seems to have been definite co-existence of in-
dependent consciousnesses. One of the personalities was definitely
aware of the consciousness of another personality, the former
being able to perceive and reflect upon the influence of her acts
upon the other personality. In an ordinary fugue we have no
evidence of such co-existence of independent consciousnesses. The
use of the terms " co-conscious " and " co-consciousness " in the
case of the fugue would indicate a decision in a matter of the
utmost difficulty in which it is essential to maintain an open
mind. I do not propose, therefore, to adopt Dr Morton Prince's
terms for the more ordinary cases of dissociation, though I
recognise them as appropriate to the case of "Sally" Beauchamp.
It will, however, be convenient to have a term for such examples
of independent consciousness as characterise the fugue, and for
this purpose I shall speak of "alternate consciousness." It is
possible that during a fugue the normal personality may be
independently conscious, and that the fugue-consciousness may
persist beneath the surface in the normal state, though the two
are so completely dissociated that neither ever becomes accessible
to the other. We have, however, no evidence that this is so,
and till we have such evidence it will be more satisfactory to
speak of alternate consciousness, the reality of which is now
well established.

If we accept the fugue as a characteristic example of dis-
sociation, the question arises whether we should not include in

1 See The Unconscious, New York (1914), p. 249.

76 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

its definition the character of alternate consciousness, and I
believe that we shall best be meeting the needs of the situation
by doing so. I propose therefore to use the term " dissociation,"
not merely for a process and state in which suppressed experience
acquires an independent activity, but shall assume that this
independent activity carries with it independent consciousness.
In some cases in which we have obviously to do with independent
activity as shown by behaviour, it may not be possible to
demonstrate the existence of independent and dissociated con-
sciousness, but I believe it will be convenient to limit the term
"dissociation"" to cases where there is evidence of this in-
dependent consciousness.

I propose now to consider some of the cases of suppression
with which I have dealt in this book and inquire how far
they do or do not bear signs of the independent activity and
independent consciousness which I am taking as the signs of dis-
sociation. In several of the instances which I have taken as my
examples of suppression, especially the definitely organised
suppression which I have supposed to exist in the lower animals,
there is no reason to suppose that there is either independent
activity or independent consciousness. In the case of Man also
there is every reason to suppose that in many instances sup-
pression may be complete, and the suppressed content wholly
free from any kind of independent activity and from any
accompaniment of consciousness. Thus, in the normal healthy
man the special kind of fear which reveals itself in night-terrors,
or nightmares, seems to be wholly suppressed and devoid of any
kind of independent activity. A person may pass through life,
and even through dangers of an extreme kind, without showing
any trace of this kind of fear, though its occurrence in night-
mares or in other pathological states shows that it is there lying
ready to appear in consciousness if the suitable conditions
should arise.

Again, there is no reason to associate any independent activity,
or any form of consciousness, with much of the suppressed
experience of early childhood. The knowledge derived from
psycho-analysis goes to show that this suppressed early

DISSOCIATION 77

experience may have a great effect on character and may play
an important part in determining likes and dislikes and
tendencies to special lines of activity in later life, but we may
regard influences of this kind as due to fusion rather than
suppression or dissociation. The most natural explanation of
these influences is that they are due to fusion between the
suppressed tendencies, or certain parts of them, and the products
of later experience, exactly comparable with the fusion between
protopathic and the later epicritic elements by which the
sensibility of the normal skin is produced.

I assume, therefore, that suppression often exists without any-
thing which we can regard as dissociation, that in many cases
the suppressed content exhibits no form of independent activity
with no evidence that it is accompanied by any form of con-
sciousness. In other cases in which there is definite activity of
the suppressed content, there is no clear evidence of consciousness
accompanying this activity, but yet cut off from the general
body of conscious experience. This seems to be so in the case
of claustrophobia which I have taken as my most characteristic
example of suppression. I shall now consider whether we ought
to regard this disorder as an example of dissociation. The
dreads to which the patient was subject are most naturally-
explained if the memories of his four-year-old experience existed
in a state of suspended animation, always ready to be aroused
whenever the boy or man was brought into contact with
circumstances which resembled those of his experience with the
dog in the narrow passage, circumstances which would tend to
stir up the buried memory. The simplest way of regarding this
case is to suppose that the suppression was not complete, but
that the suppressed experience lay for thirty years so near the
threshold of consciousness that it was capable of being roused
into activity by any conditions resembling those of the events in
which the suppression had its origin. On these occasions all
that reached consciousness was the affective side of the experience
and then only in a more or less vague form. To use a metaphor,
it is as if the activity of the suppressed body of experience is
accompanied by an affective disturbance which boils over on

78 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

certain occasions, so that some of the steam reaches the conscious
level, while the main disturbance still continues to be wholly
cut off from consciousness.

I have now to consider whether we should or should not
include such a state in our definition of dissociation. It is clear
that we have to do in this case with suppression and with
independent activity of the suppressed experience. If we regard
independent activity as the distinguishing mark of dissociation
we should clearly have to do with an example of the process.
If, on the other hand, as I propose, we hold independent
consciousness to be necessary to the definition, we cannot find
any evidence of such independence. In this case we have clear
evidence of consciousness associated with the activity of the
suppressed experience, but this consciousness is clearly linked
with the general body of consciousness of the normal life. So
definitely was it linked therewith in the case of claustrophobia
that it determined the behaviour of the patient in many respects,
and especially in respect to the conditions which he knew from
experience would arouse his dread. Not only was there no
evidence of any dissociated consciousness, but there was clear
evidence that such consciousness as accompanied the activity of
the suppressed experience was associated with the consciousness
of the normal mental life. I propose, therefore, to exclude this
case of claustrophobia, and, of course, with it other similar states,
from the category of dissociation. I believe that this course
could be justified on other grounds. The object of using such
technical terms as " dissociation " is to conduce to clearness of
thought and to assist the classification of psychological and
psycho-pathological states according as they resemble or differ
from one another in their essential nature. A phobia and a
fugue are so unlike one another that it should be comforting to
be relieved of the necessity, which would follow on the ordinary
use of the term " dissociation,*" of regarding both as exemplars
of this process. I shall return to the nature of the phobias later.
I am only concerned here to show why they should be excluded
from th« category of dissociation.

The conclusion to which I am tending is that the definition

DISSOCIATION 79

of dissociation, which will make the term of most service to
psychology and pathology, is one which lays special stress on the
feature of alternate consciousness. The term " dissociation "
will then be used for a process of activity of suppressed experi-
ence in which this activity is accompanied by consciousness so
separated from the general body of consciousness that the
experience of each phase is inaccessible to the other under
ordinary conditions, in which the two phases can only be
brought into relation with one another by means similar
to those by which experience can be recovered from the
unconscious.

Having now, I hope, made clear what I mean by dissociation,
it becomes my task to attempt to fit the process into the bio-
logical scheme which I am formulating in this book. I have to
show that there has been some biological need to account for
the presence of dissociation among the potentialities of human
behaviour. I have given examples of suppression from several
different aspects of animal psychology and have attempted to
show that it is a process essential to the success of many of the
reactions by which animals, even animals very low down in the
scale of development, adapt behaviour to the needs of their
existence. I regard dissociation as one of the modifications
which suppressed experience may undergo, and it is now neces-
sary to inquire whether it is possible to discern any similar
biological significance in this process.

I have already considered ^ the need for suppression which is
created in the amphibian by the complex nature of its life-
history. I have supposed that it is essential to the comfort, if
not to the existence, of the frog that it shall not be disturbed
by the memories of its experiences as a tadpole, and that it is
convenient, if not necessary, that these memories shall be sup-
pressed. Let us now carry our imagination to the two kinds
of existence which enter into the life of the adult amphibian.
The frog has a certain set of experiences which arise out of its
life in the water and another set of experiences which arise out
of its life on dry land. I now suggest that the amphibian has

1 Page 69.

80 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

associated with these two modes of existence two different sets
of memories, dissociated from one another. If the amphibian
when in the water should only be liable to recall experience
associated with this mode of existence and when on dry land
should similarly not be liable to be disturbed by memories of
his aquatic existence, but is only open to memories of a ter-
restrial kind, we should have a perfectly characteristic example
of dissociation and of alternate consciousness amounting to
double personality. If, as there is every reason to believe,
Man in the course of his evolution has passed through such
an amphibian phase, one in which it was necessary that he
should be adapted to two very different kinds of existence,
we seem to have the clue to the presence in his make-up
of the property of dissociation of behaviour and splitting of
consciousness.

I have taken the frog as an instance of an amphibian because
it is one with which we are especially familiar, but the process
of dissociation and the property of alternate consciousness would
be still more necessary to such an amphibian as the newt, which
is for long spaces of time the subject of purely aquatic experience
and then for long periods leads a life upon the ground. In such
an animal, the process of dissociation might be expected to be
even more complete than in an animal, such as the frog, which
passes habitually and quickly from one mode of existence to the
other.

At a later stage of human development we come to a tran-
sition which must clearly have provided another occasion for
dissociation. Whenever the ancestors of Man took to an
arboreal existence, there would have been another opportunity
for the occurrence of dissociation between the experience proper
to life upon the ground and that of the existence in trees. It
seems, however, far more likely that in this case there was no
dissociation. The transitions between the two kinds of existence
would be so habitual that in place of dissociation we might
expect a very full integration of the experience connected with
the two modes of existence, an integration perhaps more com-
plete than any which had been present in consciousness up to

DISSOCIATION 81

this stage in animal development. Professor Elliot Smith has
pointed out ^ how greatly the necessities of an arboreal existence,
with the need for delicate co-ordination of eye and hand, must
have acted as the stimuli to cerebral development. I now
venture to suggest that another motive and stimulus to such
development are to be found in the need for the integration
of experience connected with two different modes of existence in
place of the independence of experience and absence of integra-
tion which I assume to have accompanied the prolonged phase
in which the ancestors of Man were passing from an aquatic to
a terrestrial existence.

It may be worth while to point out a corollary of the
proposition that the process of taking to an arboreal existence
was accompanied by a substitution of fusion and harmonious
integration for the dissociation which had been characteristic
of earlier phases of development. On the one hand, the need
for integration would lead to the formation of many and
complex nervous connections, thus making up the association-
tracts which form so large a part of the neo-pallium. On the
other hand, the need for the delicate co-ordination of move-
ments of eye and hand would, as Elliot Smith has pointed out,
naturally lead to other developments of the kind we call intel-
ligent. Thus, furtherance of the growth of intelligence would
follow even more naturally from the substitution of a process
of integration for an earlier phase in which experiences which
did not readily harmonise were kept in the separate compart-
ments provided by the process of dissociation. If at this point
of Man's development, a process of fusion and integration were
substituted for dissociation as the normal means of dealing with
experiences difficult to reconcile with one another, we seem to
have a most important clue to the vast development which at
this stage led, on the one hand, to the growth of intelligence and
on the other to the growth of the cerebrum. If we assume that
before this point of development it was habitual to keep in
separate compartments bodies of experience such as those arising

^ Presidential Address, Section H, British Association, 1912; Hep. Brit.
^#*.,1912, p. 683.
G

82 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

out of an amphibian existence, we shall not only be provided
with an explanation of the potentialities of dissociation in Man,
but we shall also be enabled the better to understand the great
development of intelligence and of the neo-pallium which is the
distinctive feature of Mankind.

It is one of the principles of psycho-pathology, with which I
shall deal more fully later under the heading of regression, that
in morbid states early instinctive modes of reaction tend to
reappear. If the occurrence of dissociation under morbid con-
ditions is such an example of regression, we are not only enabled
to understand its occurrence, but light is also thrown upon
one of the most important periods in the history of human
development.

I will close this chapter on dissociation by considering its
relation to certain featiires of normal mental process. We are
all familiar with experiences of ordinary life which have much
similarity with dissociation, and especially those in which we
switch off from one occupation to another of a very different
kind, and are in no way disturbed by impulses or memories
proper to the occupation which has been given up in favour of
another. The case differs from one of morbid dissociation in
that the experience of each phase is readily accessible to the
consciousness of the other. The passing from one phase to the
other has not the unwitting character of the morbid process,
but takes place wittingly, and under full control, so that it
can be produced and repeated at will.

This power of switching from one set of interests to another
may perhaps be regarded as a kind of epicritic dissociation in
which Man has utilised the instinctive property of, or tendency
to, dissociation, in which he has brought it under control and
to a large extent graduated it to meet the special needs of the
developed mental life. At the least we seem to have here a
feature of normal mental process, with certain points of resem-
blance to morbid, or, as it may be called, protopathic, dissociation,
which may help us to understand its nature. There is little
doubt that different persons possess the power of keeping their
mental processes in distinct compartments in very different

DISSOCIATION 83

degree, and it would be interesting to know with what other
mental characters this power is correlated.

Another feature of the normal mental life may be mentioned
which probably stands in an even closer relation to dissociation.
All of us in some degree, and many persons in a high degree,
keep their beliefs and thoughts in separate compartments which
have been called " logic-tight compartments." In these cases
each of two sets of beliefs or thoughts is accessible to the other,
but no effort is ever naturally made to bring them into relation
with one another. The special feature of these cases is a failure
of fusion or integration which brings them definitely into rela-
tion with dissociation. The state may be regarded as another
epicritic form of dissociation in which any suppression is of a
very incomplete kind. This form of imperfect integration is of
great importance in psycho-pathology because it shows itself in
a most pronounced form in cases of delusion. In such cases a
system of thoughts, affects, and beliefs may exist definitely
connected with the delusion, the different parts of which are in
harmony with one another. This system co-exists with another
set of thoughts, affects, and beliefs which are of the same order
as those of the rest of the society to which the person belongs.
When this latter system is dominant the person seems to be a
normal member of society, but if anything happens to arouse the
delusion-system, his conduct may be wholly inappropriate to
social needs, and he is regarded as insane, or rather whether
such a person is or is not regarded as insane depends on the
degree in which the delusional system is out of harmony with
the conventions of the society to which he belongs.

I have pointed out that different persons differ in respect to
the degree in which their opinions are subject to logic, and it
has been supposed that similar differences characterise different
races of Mankind, or at least varieties of Mankind differing
in cultures. It has been supposed by the French writer, Levy-
Bruhl, that savages are incapable of integrating their beliefs, and
are so prone to accept ideas which are incompatible with one
another that he has supposed savage Man to be in what he
calls the prelogical stage of development. It is probable that

84 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

the ideas of people of lowly culture are rather more shut off'
from one another by logic-tight compartments than those of the
members, at any rate the more educated members, of a civilised
community, but most of the examples upon which Ldvy-Bruhl
founds his prelogical stage are capable of explanation on other
lines. Many of the ideas and practices which Levy-Bruhl
believes to be logically incompatible with one another are
found to be perfectly logical, sometimes even more logical than
our own ideas and practices, when we understand their real
meaning.^ In other cases, especially in the religious sphere,
ideas are held by many savage peoples which are definitely
incompatible with one another, but in such cases the incompati-
bility seems never to have been questioned. According to the
interpretation of the school of ethnology to which I belong,
these incompatible beliefs belong to different cultural influences,
indigenous or introduced, which have never been harmonised
and integrated. They have been accepted uncritically and in
this respect do not differ from the religious behefs of many a
more civilised people, or at any rate from those of the less
educated members of their societies.

1 See W. H. R. Rivers, "The Primitive Conception of Death," Hibbert
Journal, vol. x. (1912), p. 393.

CHAPTER XI

THE " COMPLEX "

It will be convenient at this stage to consider a term for
a concept which is now widely current in psycho-pathology and
has so caught the general fancy that it is becoming part of
popular language. I propose to consider what we mean when
we speak of a complex. In its original significance, as used by
Jung, the term referred to experience belonging to the uncon-
scious which, though inaccessible to consciousness, is yet capable
of influencing thought and conduct, especially in directions
which may be regarded as pathological.

Bernard Hart, who more than any other English writer
has made the psychology of the unconscious part of general
knowledge, has greatly extended the meaning of the term
and uses it for any " emotionally toned system of ideas " which
determines conscious behaviour, taking the hobby as his special
example, while he also instances political bias as a complex.
During the war the term has come to be used very loosely.
Worries and anxieties arising out of recent and fully conscious
experience have been spoken of as complexes. In fact, the
word is often used in so wide and loose a sense that my
own tendency at present is to avoid it altogether, and this course
will have to be followed in scientific writings unless we can
agree upon some definition which will make the term " complex "
really serviceable as an instrument of thought. I propose now
to do what I can towards the formulation of such a definition.

In the last chapter I attempted to make clear the sense in
which we should use another term, dissociation, which is also
in danger of becoming useless through the inexactness with
which it is employed. I reached the conclusion that the
term " dissociation " will be most useful if it is defined as

85

86 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

the independent activity of suppressed experience accompanied
by alternate consciousness. The first possibility which occurs
to us is that we should connect the term " complex " with
the process of dissociation as so defined. A complex would
then be a body of suppressed experience with an activity
independent of the behaviour of normal life and accompanied
by consciousness dissociated or separated from the consciousness
which accompanies that behaviour.

An alternative is that the term " complex " shall be used
in a wider sense for any body of suppressed tendencies and
experience which shows any form of independent activity.
This usage would certainly come nearer to that at present in
vogue. Used in this wider sense it would be applied to
such experience as that of my claustrophobic patient whose
experience in the passage, together with the accompanying affect,
would be a complex. In my own childish experience the nature
of the " complex " is as yet unknown, but if it should be found
that the suppression of my imagery is due to some one
especially painful event, that event with its associated
experience would then be spoken of as a complex. If it can
be shown that this suppressed experience has had any influence
on my character and mental constitution, this influence would
be said to be due to the complex. In the case of war-
experience the term " complex " would apply to any events which,
having become inaccessible to consciousness, can yet be held
directly responsible for fugues, nightmares, terrors, or other
manifestations of a psycho-neurosis or for minor peculiarities
of a similar order which are not ordinarily regarded as
pathological.

The term " complex " is especially useful where we are
seeking for the explanation of a specific mental manifesta-
tion such as a phobia, a fugue, a specific anxiety, or a specific
feature of a dream. It is distinctly useful to be able to speak
of the complex in such a case in place of having to refer every
time to the body of suppi*essed tendencies together with the
associated experience and affect which are determining the
course of behaviour.

THE ' COMPLEX ' 87

It will have been noted that both the senses in which I have
considered the term "complex" are narrower than that pro-
posed by Bernard Hart. There is no reason to suppose that
political bias has any special relation to suppression or to
dissociation in the sense in which I use the terms. In so far
as our political opinions are determined by underlying preferences
and prejudices, the "political bias" of Bernard Hart, they are
the result of a large number of influences of childhood, youth,
and adult age, many of which are fully conscious, while others
may be determined, at any rate in part, by experience which has
been suppressed. The bias as a whole, however, is a very
complicated affair which in the main is a product, not of
suppression, but of fusion, a fusion between trends of certain
lines of thought and conduct which may or may not be
determined by unconscious experience, together with other
influences, such as those of parents, teachers and friends,
which have never been either suppressed or repressed, but
very much the opposite.

In the broad sense which Hart proposes for " complex," the
term becomes almost identical with the " sentiment " of the
orthodox psychologist. Used in this definite sense, the term
and concept of " sentiment " are among the most recent and
valuable acquisitions of psychology, but in my opinion it will
only tend to confusion of thought to include in one category
sentiments and the bodies of suppressed experience to which I
should like to see the term " complex " limited, if it is going to
be used at all.

It may perhaps help to make clear how I distinguish senti-
ments from complexes if I illustrate by similar products on
the sensori-motor level. Such an experiment as that of Head
shows that certain forms of protopathic experience, such as the
radiation and reference of sensation in space, are suppressed
while other elements are fused with later developed forms of
sensation to make up the normal modes of sensibility of the
skin. Let us consider for a moment what we mean when we
speak of the sensibility for cold. AVe mean that the skin is
endowed with "something'" which, when a body with certain

88 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

physical properties touches the skin, determines both our
experience of cold, and the special kind of behaviour which
is adapted to this experience. What we mean by sensibility
is thus comparable to the " something " in our mental constitu-
tion which determines that when we read in the paper of a
certain event, we experience the special kind of affect and
special tendency to behaviour, which determine the relation
of that event to our political conduct, which help, for instance,
to determine how we shall vote at the next election. This
"something"" which thus determines our feelings and conduct
is what the orthodox psychologist knows as a sentiment.

We have seen that the sensibility of the normal skin is
produced by the process of fusion of different kinds of tendency
and experience. This fusion is a process of a wholly different
order from the suppression by which certain features of early
experience have been put out of activity. The whole process
of development of cutaneous sensibility which is made clear and
intelligible by distinguishing suppression from fusion, and by
defining the proper place and share of each, would be hopelessly
obscured if we confused the two very different processes of
suppression and fusion under one heading. And yet this is
what in my opinion has been done by Bernard Hart when he
includes under the term " complex " the highly complicated
product of fusion, which by other psychologists is called a
sentiment, and the suppressed experience which probably,
indeed certainly, enters into the process of fusion, but only
as one of its elements. Using the terms as I propose, both
complex and sentiment determine thought and conduct, but
differ from each other profoundly in other respects. They
differ first in complexity, the sentiment being far more complex
in its nature than the process which has been denoted according
to this feature. 1 Secondly, to use the special terminology of
this book, the sentiment is a far more epicritic product than

^ It is very unfortunate that the complex should have been so named.
Its two characteristic features are its relation to the unconscious and its
aiFective importance, and a suitable term should have reference to one,
if not to both, of these features.

THE ' COMPLEX ' 89

the complex. The sentiments are features of the mind which
take part in the most finely graduated processes and are con-
nected with discrimination of the most delicate description.
The complex, on the other hand, being the result of suppression
always partakes in some degree of the crude " all-or-none "*
character which we have been led to associate with suppression.
Months or years may pass without its showing any effects at
all and then it may reveal its presence by some profound and
far-reaching disturbance of the mental life.

Lastly, it is not without importance that the sentiment is an
absolutely necessary and constant feature of the normal mental
life. Most of our sentiments come into action daily and influence
the behaviour of every moment of the life of every day. The
complex, on the other hand, in the sense in which I should like
to use the term, has essentially a pathological implication. It
is not only a result of suppression, but the product of independent
activity of the suppressed content, whether accompanied by
alternate consciousness or wholly within the region of the un-
conscious. There is, of course, no hard-and-fast line between
the healthy and the morbid, and it is possible, if not probable,
that the complex will in some cases shade oiF into the sentiment,
but I believe it is useful that pathology shall have its own terms
and concepts. I believe that it will be best to reserve the term
" complex " for products which partake, in some degree at any
rate, of a morbid quality and that nothing but confusion can
result from the inclusion in one category of definitely patho-
logical processes and such absolutely normal and necessary
processes as the sentiments.

CHAPTER XII

SUGGESTION

Until now I have only been considering the relation between
instinct and the unconscious from the standpoint of the in-
dividual. Taking the various forms of instinctive reaction to
danger as my examples, I have illustrated the need for suppression
and the value of the unconscious as means of preserving the life
and the integrity of the individual. I have now to consider the
additional factors which come into action when danger threatens
a group of animals associated together, factors which in the case
of Man will contribute to maintain the cohesion of society.

The instinct which has come into existence in order to
produce and maintain the cohesion of the group is commonly
known as the gregarious or the herd instinct. This is a com-
plicated instinct which, according to the current opinion,^ is
represented in Man by three chief processes according as it is
viewed from the three aspects from which we are accustomed to
regard mental process. The essential function of the gregarious
instinct is that it shall lead all the members of a group to
act together towards the common purpose of furthering the
welfare of the group. On the motor side this common action is
regarded as a process of imitation. The actions of every member
of the group are said to be determined by the " imitation " of
those of some one member of the group, this process of imitation
being especially definite when the group has a definite leader.

Viewed from the side of feeling or affect, the gregarious
instinct is seen as "sympathy," which in its most characteristic
form is the process which produces in every member of the group

1 See W. McDougall, Social Psychology.
90

SUGGESTION 91

any affective state which may arise in one of its number. Here,
again, the sympathy is especially important from the standpoint
of the welfare of the group when the member of the group whose
affect is the object of the sympathy is its leader.

The third aspect from which it is possible, on the lines of
human psychology, to view the gregarious instinct is the cogni-
tive, including within the connotation of this word the cognitive
aspect of sensation. The feature of the instinct which stands
out from this point of view is usually known as "suggestion."
Thus, McDougall defines suggestion as " a process of communi-
cation resulting in the acceptance with conviction of the
communicated proposition in the absence of logically adequate
grounds for its acceptance." ^ If I were to use suggestion as a
term for the cognitive side of the gregarious instinct I should
prefer to define it as the process which enables every member of
the group to intuit what is passing in the minds of the other
members of the group.

The chief object of this chapter is to point out that, though
processes derived from the gregarious instinct may enter into the
composition of conscious states, just as constituents of proto-
pathic sensibility enter into the fully-developed cutaneous
sensibility, they thus lose any individuality they may possess.
When they are not thus fused with other later processes, they
act unwittingly, and are to be numbered among the processes of
the unconscious. When looked at from this point of view it is
convenient to use the term suggestion, not as a name for the
cognitive aspect of the gregarious instinct, but as a comprehensive
term for the whole process whereby one mind acts upon another
unwittingly. From this point of view suggestion can be put
side by side with suppression as one of the processes of instinct.
It is a process or mechanism of instinct rather than part of its
content. Just as I have supposed that the process of suppression
takes place unwittingly and cannot be produced, though it may
be assisted, by witting repression, so do I now suppose that the
process of suggestion works unwittingly and is not primarily set
in action by voluntary process, though an effort of the will can
^ W. McDougall, op. cit., p. 97.

92 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

set in action mental processes which assist suggestion and further
its activity.

The unwitting character of suggestion also holds good of
its three aspects, the motor or effector, the affective, and the
cognitive. Thus, if "imitation" is used as a term for the
motor or effector aspect of the gregarious instinct, it must be
clearly recognised that the imitation is unwitting. It is this
kind of imitation which is especially important in the life of the
infant and in all those reactions upon which depend the special
characters of the collective behaviour of Mankind. It is in this
form that imitation is most effective. Witting imitation can
never attain the completeness and harmony which follow the
action of the instinctive process.

The use of one term for two processes, one witting and the
other unwitting, is unsatisfactory, and another difficulty in the
use of the term "imitation" for the instinctive process is that
this term as ordinarily used applies especially to the person who,
or the animal which, acts in the same manner as another, while
in the unwitting process the attitude of the person whose
actions are copied is just as important and requires denoting as
much as that of the person who copies.

The differences between the witting and unwitting forms
of imitation are so important that there is great danger of
ambiguity and confusion if one term is used for the two processes.
It would be far more satisfactory if a new term were employed
for the unwitting process, and I propose in this book to speak
of " mimesis "" when I refer to it.

In the case of the affective aspect of the gregarious instinct
the current term " sympathy " is more appropriate, for it implies
the reciprocal and unwitting character of the process. It is
generally recognised that, to be effective, sympathy must be
spontaneous and wholly free from any voluntary forcing. It is
the more real and the more effective the more unwittingly it
comes into being.

In the case of the cognitive aspect of imitation the need for
a new term is essential if the term hitherto used for this aspect
is to be employed in a more general sense. If, as I propose,

SUGGESTION 93

the term " suggestion " is to be used for the sum-total of the
processes by which one mind acts upon, or is acted upon by,
another unwittingly, it will be necessary to have another term
for the process by which one person is influenced unwittingly
by any cognitive activity taking place in the mind of another.
I propose to use the term " intuition " in this sense. Intuition
will thus rank with mimesis and sympathy as one of the three
aspects from which it is possible to view the comprehensive
process of suggestion. It may be objected that this nomen-
clature leaves undenoted the cognitive activity which is intuited.
This objection will come from the physician who, when he
uses the term " suggestion "" in a definite sense, usually has
this active aspect in mind. He will object that the kind of
suggestion he knows best is that which takes place in the
consulting-room where he "suggests" and the patient reacts.
From the standpoint of this book the process of the consulting-
room is a specialised and artificial variety of the general process
of suggestion, the artificiality lying in its witting use of a
process which normally takes place unwittingly. If, as is
probable, the physician prefers to continue to use " suggestion "
in this limited sense, it will be necessary for him to find some
other term for the more general process by which one mind acts
upon, or is acted upon by, another unwittingly.

It may be remarked here that the uncertainty, if not
confusion, which is so general concerning the meaning of
suggestion is due to the failure to recognise that it belongs to
a category of mental process widely different from the cognition,
association, imagination, volition, and other concepts derived
from the study of conscious mental states. As soon as we
recognise that suggestion is essentially a process of the
unconscious, and that its different aspects also have this nature,
we have to renounce the clearness of definition which is possible
in the case of the processes and products of consciousness. We
have to be content with a concept which has a certain vagueness
when considered from the purely psychological standpoint,
while still remaining capable of exact use from the standpoint
of biology. In the following argument, therefore, I propose to

94 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

use suggestion with its three constituent processes as a term for
a mechanism of the unconscious, for that aspect of the gregarious
instinct whereby the mind of one member of a group of animals
or human beings acts upon another or others unwittingly, to
produce in both or all a common content, or a content so
similar that both or all act with complete harmony towards
some common end.

Assuming that animals whose common action is thus deter-
mined possess something we call mind, the effect of suggestion
is to produce in all the members of the group a mental content
so similar that all act with complete harmony towards some
common end. There is reason to believe that the harmony so
produced is more complete than is ever produced by the common
possession of an idea or other form of intellectual motive. It is
no great assumption that the more gregarious is a species of
animal, the more perfect is its gregarious instinct. Since Man
is very far from being completely adapted to the gregarious life,
it will follow that the harmony produced by the action of
suggestion in fully gregarious animals is more complete than is
ever produced in Man, either by suggestion or by the presence
in the social group of a common idea or other form of
intellectual motive.

There is reason to believe that this superiority of the un-
witting process of suggestion over intellectual process remains
good among the different varieties of Man. Existing families
of Mankind differ greatly in their degree of gregariousness and
with this there seem to go different degrees in the potency of
suggestion as a means of producing uniformity of social action.
Thus, the Melanesian is distinctly more gregarious than the
average European. His whole social system is on a communistic
basis, and communistic principles work throughout the whole of
his society with a harmony which is only present in certain
aspects of the activity of our own society, and even there the
harmony is less complete than in Melanesia. As an example of
such harmony I give the following experience. When in the
Solomon Islands in 1908 with Mr. A. M. Hocart we spent some
time in a schooner visiting different parts of the island of Vella

SUGGESTION 95

Lavella. Whenever we were going ashore five of the crew
would row us in the whale-boat, four rowing and the fifth taking
the steer-oar. As soon as we announced our intention to go
ashore, five of the crew would at once separate from the rest
and man the boat ; one would go to the steer-oar and the others
to the four thwarts. Never once was there any sign of dis-
agreement or doubt which of the ship's company should man
the boat, nor was there ever any hesitation who should take the
steer-oar, though, at any rate according to our ideas, the cox-
swain had a far easier and more interesting task than the rest.
It is possible that there was some understanding by which the
members of the crew arranged who should undertake the
different kinds of work, but we could discover no evidence what-
ever of any such arrangement. The harmony seems to have
been due to such delicacy of social adjustment that the intention
of five of the members of the erew to man the boat and of one
to take the steer-oar was at once intuited by the rest. Such an
explanation of the harmony is in agreement with many other
aspects of the social behaviour of Melanesian or other lowly
peoples. When studying the warfare of the people of the
Western Solomons I was unable to discover any evidence of
definite leadership. When a boat reached the scene of a head-
hunting foray, there was no regulation who should lead the way.
It seemed as if the first man who got out of the boat or chose
to lead the way was followed without question. Again, in the
councils of such people there is no voting or other means of
taking the opinion of the body. The people seem to recognise
instinctively, using this much misused word in the strict sense,
that some definite line of action shall be taken. Those who
have lived among savage or barbarous peoples in several parts
of the world have related how they have attended native councils
where matters in which they were interested were being dis-
cussed. When after a time the, English observer has found that
the people were discussing some wholly different topic, and has
inquired when they were going to decide the question in which
he was interested, he has been told that it had already been
decided and that they had passed to other business. The

96 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

decision had been made with none of the processes by which
our councils or committees decide disputed points. The mem-
bers of the council have become aware at a certain point that
they are in agreement, and it was not necessary to bring the
agreement explicitly to notice.

I am aware that the explanation of these examples of the
great harmony of social life in savage peoples as due to
suggestion rests upon evidence of doubtful value, and might be
explained on other lines if our knowledge of the people, their
language and behaviour, were more complete. It may be
noticad, however, that this explanation has much to support it
in our own society. The examples I have given are similar to
the so-called process of thought-reading among ourselves.^ It
is noteworthy that these processes are especially exemplified in
the minor everyday behaviour of our community, behaviour
comparable in some measure with the harmony of the boat's
crew which so excited my wonder in Melanesia. A speculative
Melanesian who watched the traffic in the streets of a great
English town would be greatly struck by the harmony of the
passage of people on the pavements in which the rarity of
jostling is to be explained by an immediate intuition of the
movements of others which takes place unwittingly with all the
signs characteristic of instinctive behaviour. In the case of the
roadway, the Melanesian would on inquiry learn the existence of
definite regulations, but they would seem to afford insufficient
explanation of the harmony of the traffic and the rarity of
collisions. These examples are peculiarly appropriate to the
present argument in that they have a definite relation to the
welfare of the group and, at any rate in the case of the roadway,
promote its safety as well as its comfort.

Another example among ourselves of suggestion, in the
sense in which I am using the term, is social tact. This is
of exactly the same order, though on a higher level of behaviour,
as the social adjustments which are necessary in traffic or even

^ I use ''^ thought-reading " as a name for the unwitting transmission of
ideas from person to person in the presence of one another as distinguished
from the problematical telepathy or distant thought-transference.

SUGGESTION 97

in the ordinary intercourse of the home. Tact depends
essentially on processes which take place unwittingly. It is a
process in which one person becomes aware of what is passing
in the mind of another or others, and it is noteworthy that this
tact comes especially into play when the mental content thus
intuited has the affective quality which, according to the
argument of this book, is so strongly associated with
instinctive reactions.

Having made as clear as its nature allows the sense in which
I shall use "suggestion," I can proceed to consider its functions
in relation to the danger-instincts. When a group of animals
react to danger by means of flight it is certainly for the welfare
of each individual that it shall act with the rest, but it is not
so clear that complete uniformity is necessary in this mode of
reaction. It may even be that in some cases individual safety,
as well as the safety of the greatest number, would be promoted
by flight in different directions rather than by the absolute
uniformity which would result from a perfect process of
suggestion. In the reaction by aggression again, absolute
uniformity is not imperative. The safety of the greatest
number may even be promoted if some members of the group
adopt an aggressive attitude while the rest save themselves by
flight.

It is when we come to the reaction by immobility that we
meet with the most imperative need for uniformity of
behaviour. It will, of course, be to the advantage of the
greater number if a few members of the group take to flight
while the rest become motionless, but among those who adopt
the latter reaction, uniformity is essential. If the reaction by
immobility were absent, or even imperfect, in only one member
of the group, it would endanger the safety of the whole. The
factors, such as the high degree of visual sensibility for move-
ment, which make the avoidance of all motion so essential for
the safety of the individual, would be equally necessary for the
safety of the group. The function of suggestion is to ensure
the absolute uniformity which is essential to the welfare of the
group. There is thus an especial reason for the close association

H

98 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

of suggestion with the instinctive reaction to danger by means
of immobility, and for its special potency in this association.

The close association between suggestion and the instinct of
immobility also furnishes a clue to the continued activity, or
potentiality for action, of the suppressed tendencies to other
forms of reaction. If the reaction by immobility fails, it is
essential that it shall be at once replaced by some other mode
of reaction, such as flight or aggression. The potentiality for
one or other of these reactions must be there ready to come at
once into play if the need arises. It is essential that suppression
and the potentiality for full readiness of the suppressed activity
shall go hand in hand. If, therefore, the association between
suggestion and the suppression of the instinct of immobility is
especially close, there will also be an association between
suggestion and the potential activity of suppressed tendencies.
We should expect to find suppressed tendencies to be especially
prone to independent activity when they are derived from,
or connected with, the reaction to danger by means of
immobility. Moreover, the activity of animals who suddenly
replace immobility by another kind of reaction has some
similarity with the process of dissociation. The change from
the reaction by immobility to that of flight is so great that
animals practising the two kinds of reaction might be regarded
as two personalities. One activity, when compared with the
other, has some similarity with a fugue or other example of
dissociation.

In an earlier chapter I have considered how far the " all-or-
none " principle applies to the process of suppression to which
I ascribe so great an importance in relation to instinct. I have
now to inquire whether this principle applies to suggestion
which I regard as the characteristic process of the gregarious
instinct.

It will be evident at once that the examples I have given of
suggestion imply a high degree of delicacy of appreciation of
the states to which an animal or human being reacts, together
with a corresponding graduation of the activity in which the
reaction consists. If we regard suggestion as an instinctive

SUGGESTION 99

process, it becomes necessaiy to give up completely the idea
that the " all-or-none " principle is a character of instinct in
general. The nature of siaggestion shows with certainty that
the principle cannot apply to all the processes or mechanisms
of instinct. When considering suppression from this point of
view it was found that though this process seems originally
to have been characterised by the "all-or-none" principle, its
reactions have ceased to show this character as the process
became adapted to more complex conditions. Until now I have
assumed that this process of adaptation depends upon the
influence of the factors we group together as intelligence. The
fully graded character of suggestion raises the question whether
this process may not provide another means for giving a
discriminative and graded character to suppression, the dis-
crimination and graduation differing from those associated with
intelligence in that they belong to the sphere of instinct and
take place unwittingly.

It is important to note in this connection that suggestion
belongs to an instinct which is concerned with collective as
opposed to individual needs. This suggests that the proto-
pathic forms of instinct characterised by the " all-or-none "
principle are especially concerned with the welfare of the indi-
vidual and that this principle had to be modified as soon as the
collective or social life gave birth to new needs. As soon as it
became necessary to adjust behaviour to that of other members
of a group, the original " all-or-none " reactions had to be
modified in the direction of discrimination and graduation.
The presence in Man of both suggestion and intelligence shows
that the early protopathic forms of instinctive behaviour were
modified in two directions, one leading towards intelligence and
the other towards suggestion and intuition. In Man the former
has become, or perhaps more correctly may be gradually becom-
ing, the more important, but suggestion still remains as a factor
of the greatest potency in determining human behaviour, especi-
ally under certain conditions. In an earlier chapter I have
suggested that the grading mechanism by which the protopathic
reactions of the insect, or other exemplar of pure instinctive

100 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

behaviour, have been graded are of a different order from that
which has been effective in Man, and that it is the business of
the student of insect behaviour to discover the nature of this
grading principle. I have now to suggest that this grading
principle may belong to the order of suggestion. It is note-
worthy that the highest examples of innate discrimination and
graduation occur in animals, such as ants and bees, in which the
social life is especially developed. I now put forward the idea
that we must look to suggestion and intuition for the clues
through which we may hope to understand the nature of the
powers by which the discriminative and graded character of the
innate behaviour of the insect has been produced.

CHAPTER XIII

HYPNOTISM

I HAVE already mentioned hypnotism in this book on more
than one occasion as a means of recalling to. memory suppressed
experience. I have now to consider more fully its relation to
instinct and the unconscious.

I will begin with a brief general account of the nature of
hypnotism. The first point to be noted is its intimate relations
with suggestion. When hypnotism was first studied the general
tendency, as is usual in such cases, was to regard it as a mani-
festation of some new force, and in accordance with the prevalent
conceptions of the day, a force of a physical kind allied to those
which were already known. Misunderstood observations in
which hypnotic manifestations were produced by means of
magnets led to the choice of magnetism as the prototype of the
new force, and animal magnetism was widely used, and is still
sometimes heard, as a term for this state. It was not long,
however, before it was established, chiefly through the work of
the Nancy school, that the chief or only agency by which
hypnotic manifestations are produced is suggestion. Moreover,
one of the most important features of the hypnotic state is the
greatly enhanced suggestibility of the hypnotised person. It is
one of the characteristic features of hypnotism that the recep-
tivity of a hypnotised person towards suggestion is greatly
increased, and there is reason to believe that this increase is
especially great in relation to suggestions given by the
hypnotiser unwittingly.

A second feature of the hypnotic state, which is closely linked
with the heightened suggestibility, is a great increase in sensi-

102 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

tivcness to sensory stimuli, or at least to certain kinds of sensory
stimulus. A hypnotised person may become aware of and
utilise indications given by organs of sense which produce no
effect whatever upon his consciousness in the normal state.

A third feature of hypnotism is that it affords a characteristic
example of suppression. When a person is hypnotised it is
possible to blot out from his memory experience which in the
normal state is directly accessible to consciousness, while, as
already mentioned on more than one occasion, other experience
which is normally inaccessible to consciousness may by means of
hypnotism be brought to the surface. Moreover, any experience
gained during the hypnotic state may become inaccessible to
memory when the hypnotic state comes to an end, and seems to
do so spontaneously unless special suggestions are given that it
shall be remembered. A striking feature of this aspect of the
hypnotic state is the ease with which it is possible to produce
suppression of sensibility. Any sensory surface may be rendered
wholly insensitive to stimuli to which it ordinarily responds. It
is especially striking that this anaesthesia may occur in conjunc-
tion with the heightened sensibility which I have already
mentioned. A hypnotised person may be wholly insensitive to
certain kinds of sensory stimulus and show a vastly exaggerated
receptiveness to others.

In the fourth place hypnotism affords an example of dissocia-
tion. During the hypnotic state in response to suggestion a
person performs acts, it may be of a highly complex kind, of
which he is completely unconscious when the hypnotic state is
over. The hypnotic state, however, differs from a characteristic
attack of dissociation or a fugue in that it may be accompanied
by memories from the ordinary waking state.

Hypnotism is thus not only a means by which it is possible to
tap the unconscious, but through its agency it is possible to
produce at will the two most characteristic mechanisms of the
unconscious, suppression and dissociation, and study them
experimentally. Moreover, hypnotism is closely linked with
suggestion which in the last chapter I have regarded as another
mechanism or process of the unconscious.

HYPNOTISM 103

I have now to consider whether these four characters of
hypnotism allow us to bring it into relation with instinct and
with the general scheme of this book. I Avill begin by consider-
ing whether the views concerning suggestion put forward in the
last chapter help us to understand the very difficult problem of
the nature of h3rpnotism.

In the first place the idea that suggestion is a process of the
unconscious evidently accords with its relation to hypnotism.
It is not so obvious how the phenomena of hypnotism fit in
with the view that suggestion is essentially the expression of the
gregarious instinct. At first sight there seems to be no obvious
relation between hypnotism and the instrument working un-
wittingly by means of which unity of purpose and unity of
action are given to a group or herd of animals. In the form in
which we know it best, hypnotism is an individual and not a
collective process. In the instances which usually come before
our notice one person is hypnotised by another person, and in
general the aim is individual and is directed to affect the health
or character of the person who is hypnotised without any
necessary relation to the society to which he or she belongs.
Collective hypnotism occurs, but it takes a place in our
experience insignificant beside the individual relation.

I believe, however, that the individual character of hypnotism,
in the form in which it is most familiar to us, only masks and
has by no means obliterated its essentially collective character.
Especially instructive from this point of view is the heightened
sensibility to sensory stimuli which we have found to accompany
the heightened suggestibility. For perfect harmony of action
among the members of a group of animals, it is necessary that
they shall divine or intuit how the rest of the group is going to
act before it does so. It will not do to wait until the actions of
the rest are in full swing. It is essential that every member of
the group shall be ready to react with the rest, this readiness
being dependent upon awareness of the minute and almost
imperceptible movements which accompany the impulse
preceding a definite act.

Some degree of a similar process is needed for the success of

104 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

the social reactions of man of which I gave several examples
in the last chapter. If my interpretation of their actions is
right, my Melanesian boatmen must have become aware of the
intended movements of their fellows before there was any
movement sufficiently great to become the object of conscious
attention, and some degree of such intuition is necessary for the
success of the dail}- reactions upon which depends the harmonious
character of the traffic of our crowded streets.

Whether we consider animals or Man, it is natural that
suggestion should be associated with a high degree of sensory
acuity and that the enhanced suggestibility of the hypnotic
state should be accompanied by heightening of the sensibility
to which suggestion owes so much of its peculiar power. The
heightened sensitiveness of the hypnotic state is thus altogether
in accordance with its relation to the gregarious instinct.

This relation is less obvious when we turn to the third
character of the hypnotic state — its connection with suppression.
I have supposed that the process of suppression in its most
complete form is associated with the instinctive reaction to
danger by means of immobility. Moreover, I have tried to
show that unity of action, or rather of inaction, is essential
to the success of this instinct and have therefore put forward
the view that, in this connection at least, suggestion and the
instinct of immobility are intimately associated with one another.
Let us inquire, therefore, whether any connection can be found
between hypnotism and the instinct of immobility.

It has long been recognised that a state resembling hypnotism
may be induced experimentally in animals. A fowl placed in
front of a chalk line will become quite motionless and remain so
for a considerable time. A frog stroked on the back will also
become, and for a time remain, motionless. It has been supposed
that these states depend on the paralysis of fear,^ but the view
more widely taken is that the suppression oi movement is of the
same order as that which can be induced in Man by suggestion
and that the whole process is allied in nature to hypnotism.

^ See especially W. Preyer, Die Kataplexie und der thierische Hypno-
tismus, Jena (1878).

HYPNOTISM 105

If the existence of an instinct of immobility is accepted, it will
involve no great stretch of the imagination to see in these
animal reactions expressions of this instinct. The hypnotic or
quasi-hypnotic manifestations of animals thus furnish an inter-
mediate link between hypnotism and the instinct of immobility.
They may be regarded as manifestations of the instinct of
immobility occurring in the individual animal under the influence
of a human being.

The question which is suggested by these animal reactions is
whether the hypnotism of the human being may not have a
similar connection with the instinct of immobility. It is possible
by means of hypnotism to produce a very large range of sensory
and motor reactions, but it is noteworthy that it seems especially
easy to produce anaesthesias and paralyses, or what is more to
the point, there is a great tendency for these states, and
especially anaesthesias, to occur as the result of unintended and
unwitting suggestion on the part of the hypnotiser. I hope to
deal with this topic later from another point of view. I must
acknowledge that in so far as hypnotism itself is concerned, it
may seem to be stretching the facts to suggest that there is a
special tendency for the manifestations of hypnotism in the
human subject to take the form which would be dictated by the
instinct of immobility, though this form is definite in the allied
behaviour of animals which has been so widely regarded as
hypnotic.

I have now to consider the fourth character of hypnotism, its
exhibition of the process of dissociation. It is one of the dangers
of hypnotism, especially when unskilfully employed, that the
state may come to occur spontaneously, a person passing into the
hypnotic state as the result of some condition which resembles,
or seems to resemble, that by which the state was originally
produced. In this spontaneous hypnotic state a person may
carry out complex actions and behave in a manner wholly
indistinguishable from that of the subject of a fugue. We may
regard hypnotism as a process by means of which it is possible
to produce and study experimentally the process of dissociation.
Moreover, there is little doubt that most of the classical cases of

106 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

multiple personality, such as that of Miss Beauchamp so fully
recorded by Dr. Morton Prince, are largely artificial products of
hypnotism or have had their characters largely determined by
this process.

At this stage it will be useful to sum up the conclusion to
which the argument has led. I have given reason to suppose
that the hypnotic state is a complex blend of four processes ;
(a) suggestion with heightened suggestibility ; (6) heightened
sensibility ; (f) suppression ; and (d) dissociation. Or perhaps,
rather, hypnotism may be viewed from these four different
aspects. Moreover, I have advanced arguments to explain why
there should be this association of processes or aspects. I have
regarded the heightening of suggestibility and of sensibility as
being essentially manifestations of the gregarious instinct,
arising out of the needs of animals as soon as their association
in groups required harmony of purpose and action. I have
supposed that they are additions to, or modifications of, the
earlier process of suppression which had already come into being
as a means of meeting certain individual needs, and I have
explained the connection of suggestion with suppression as due
to the importance of common action in relation to the instinct
of immobility. From this point of view the primary aspect of
hypnotism is its suppression with the accompanying dissociation,
and in the so-called hypnotism of animals there is little more
than this, the only feature pointing to the influence of suggestion
being the fact that the state is produced by the activity of Man.

According to the view here put forward the complex hypnotic
state has arisen through the influence of certain factors which
became connected with the primary states of suppression and
dissociation through gregarious needs, through the needs of
animals when associated together in groups. These factors are
heightened sensibility as a means of reacting immediately to
sensory indications given by other members of the group and
heightened suggestibility as a means of responding immediately
to the more complex states existing in the minds of the other
members of the group. If we put the so-called hypnotism of
animals on one side, hypnotism is a process in which Man has

HYPNOTISM 107

discovered how to utilise the processes of suppression and
dissociation by turning to advantage the power of suggestion.
Hypnotism is an artificial process in which Man has wittingly
utilised a process, or group of processes, which normally take
place unwittingly.

In the last chapter I have put forward the view that suggestion
has been one of the means by which the crude " all-or-none "
reactions of primitive instinct have become subject to the
principle of graduation. If this were the sole graduating
principle, we may suppose that the two more or less conflicting
principles would have long ago reached a modus vivendi, a state
of stable equilibrium in which such a phenomenon as dissociation
could not occur. If, as I have supposed, suggestion forms the
essential controlling factor in such creatures as insects, one may
suppose that in them such stable equilibrium has been attained.
The high degree of adaptation of means to ends in these animals
and the perfection of their social organisation would be results
and aspects of this equilibrium.

In Man, however, suggestion does not exist alone as an in-
strument of discrimination and graduation, but is accompanied,
and even surpassed in efficacy, by the principle of graduation
belonging to the order of intelligence. In the ordinary life of
Man there has been produced a state of fairly stable equilibrium
in which the graduating activity of intelligence is able success-
fully to control instinctive tendencies. From this point of view
we may regard hypnotism as a process in which Man has dis-
covered that he can direct the instinctive process of suggestion
and annul the activity of intelligence, thus giving the mastery
to suggestion with its three aspects of mimesis, sympathy and
intuition. According to this view, the essence of hypnotism is
the annulment of one of the two lines of activity by which the
cruder instinctive processes are brought under subjection, leaving
in full power those other activities which we subsume under the
heading of suggestion.

Those who are acquainted with the subject will have noticed
that I have said nothing about one feature of hypnotism which
must be explained if the view I have put forward is to hold

108 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

good. I refer to the process known as post-hypnotic suggestion.
If a person in the hypnotic state is told to perform a certain act
at a given interval of time after being awakened from the state,
he will do so in spite of the fact that he has no knowledge in
the normal state that he has received the suggestion. He
performs the act at or about the time indicated without know-
ing why he is so acting, though he will often rationalise and
give reasons for an act which, without the knowledge of the
suggestion in the hypnotic state, would appear to be irrational.
We have here a striking example, in the first place, of what
I call unconscious experience, and, in the second place, of the
independent activity of such experience. The hypnotised person
when in the hypnotic state has a definite experience which
becomes inaccessible to his consciousness when he awakes, and
this experience has so definite an independent existence that it
determines conduct of a highly specific kind. The behaviour
has a highly organised and complex character. Not only may
the actions carried out be very complex, but the estimation of
time involved in the operation may be more accurate than the
similar operation carried out wittingly and with full conscious-
ness.

The complexity of the operation raises the questions whether
there is not only independent activity but also independent
consciousness, and whether there may not be true co-conscious-
ness in Morton Prince's sense. We have no direct evidence of
such independent consciousness, but if we accept Morton Prince's
account of such a case as that of Miss Beauchamp, in which
one personality had such independent consciousness that she
was able to act upon and torment another, we should expect
to find other similar examples. It is a question whether
the hypothesis which will best meet the facts of post-hypnotic
suggestion is not one which assumes the co-existence of an
independent system of experience carrying out the post-hypnotic
suggestion. This may be regarded as the germ of the far
more highly organised system which makes up an independent
personality.

Moreover, this hypothesis would naturally lead us to an

HYPNOTISM 109

interpretation of the fugue on similar lines. It would lead us
towards, if not to, the view that in the subject of a fugue the
consciousness of one phase underlies the consciousness of the other
phase, in which case the terms "co-conscious" and "co-conscious-
ness" would be appropriate. Though I regard this hypothesis as
possible and even legitimate, I do not propose to adopt it, but
to continue to speak of the fugue as an example of alternate
consciousness and to reserve "co-consciousness" for cases of
double or multiple personality. When speaking of post-hypnotic
suggestion, I shall be content to regard it as an example of the
independent activity of suppressed experience.

CHAPTER XIV

SLEEP

In the last chapter I have made no reference to an aspect
of hypnotism which is of much importance and must now be
considered, I have described how it is possible in the hypnotic
state to apply the power of suggestion so as to produce acts of
various degrees of complexity as well as the cruder paralyses
and anaesthesias, but I have not mentioned a state which is so
frequently produced by means of hypnotism, or so often follows
its application, that it may be regarded as an almost necessary
part of its nature. Not only is the suggestion to sleep one of
the most frequent measures which are used when it is desired to
produce the hypnotic state, but when this state has been pro-
duced, it is often difficult to distinguish it from normal sleep,
the chief difference being that the time-limit of the sleep may
be determined by the suggestion of the hypnotist and has not
the free character possessed by the customary process of sleep.
We may assume with some confidence that sleep is a state
which is allied to hypnotism, and therefore stands in some
relation to the process of suggestion. This raises the problem
of the nature of sleep, which I must now consider.

Sleep is an aspect of life which has been strangely neglected
by the psychologist. Students of psychology are profoundly
interested in the dreams which occur during sleep and in their
more abnormal varieties, such as nightmares and somnambulism,
but they seem to have been content to regard sleep itself as a
process which belongs to the realm of physiology. Even those
who have come fully to recognise that external stimuli to the
organs of sense or internal visceral disturbances are insufficient
as explanations of the dream, are yet content to refer sleep to

SLEEP 111

such purely physiological causes as alterations of blood-supply
to the brain, accumulation of the toxic products of activity, or
other similar material agencies. They fail to recognise that sleep
is much more than a mere negation of psychological activity,
and that, quite apart from the occurrence of dreams, sleep has
characters of a positive kind which must be fitted into any
scheme of mental happenings which seeks to be consistent and
complete.

I have already mentioned the resemblance of the hypnotic
state to sleep. I have now to consider other points in which
sleep resembles the state which follows the hypnotic sug-
gestion of another person. Several features of sleep have led
students to believe that it is the result of suggestion exerted
by the conditions of time and space with which sleep is
habitually associated. There is no question that such con-
ditions as fatigue within certain limits, warmth, the toxic
influence of the products of respiration, etc., act as agents in
the production of sleep, but they cannot explain the occurrence
of sleep under any conditions of time and space of which
certain persons are capable, or the immediate occurrence of
sleep, even in the absence of sleepiness, which in many people
immediately follows going to bed. In such cases it is customary
to speak of auto-suggestion. This term may seem in some
degree appropriate when applied to the sleep of persons who
are able to sleep at will. In the case of those who sleep imme-
diately after going to bed, on the other hand, we should have
to regard the suggestion as coming from the pillow, the darkness,
the silence, or other habitual feature of the surroundings in
which a person is accustomed to sleep.

The conditions of awaking from sleep point more definitely
to the influence of suggestion. The selective action of certain
conditions of awaking cannot be explained on physiological
lines, but demands some kind of discriminative and selective
activity on the part of the sleeping person. As examples of
such selective activity I may cite the doctor who is awakened
even by the movements of wires which precede the ringing of
his night-bell, while he is undisturbed by the crying of his

112 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

child to whose shghtest sound the mother immediately responds.
Awaking is determined, not by physiological demands, but by
conditions the efficacy of which is determined almost entirely
by predispositions of a psychological kind. We may regard
the conditions which awake a person as suggestions determined
by special systems within the personality of the sleeper. It
may be noted that such awaking stimuli seem to be especially
effective when they stand in a close relation to affective states
of the sleeper. The awakening of the mother at the slightest
sound or movement of her child may be regarded as a reaction
of the parental instinct. The reaction of the doctor to his
night-bell bears a less direct relation to instinctive process, but
in spite of its more complex character can usually be traced to
affective factors connected with instinctive means.

An even closer relation of sleep to suggestion appears in
cases in which a sleeping person responds to the questions or
commands of another person, especially one with whom he is
habitually in intimate relation. A sleeping person may con-
verse with another and may yet be completely unaware of what
he has said and done when he awakes. The absence of memory
is altogether comparable with that which accompanies the suppres-
sion of the post-hypnotic state when no suggestion has been
given that the hypnotic experience shall be remembered.

An interesting point of resemblance between hypnotism and
sleep may be noted here. Probably everyone has at some time
or another experienced how, when sleepless, the difficulty in
sleeping is greatly enhanced if doubt arises in the mind whether
sleep will come. Going to sleep is an act which normally takes
place unwittingly. If we once begin to think whether we are
going to sleep, a state of mind is induced which works strongly
against the occurrence of the sleep so greatly desired. Sleep is
essentially a process which, like forgetting, takes place unwit-
tingly. It is, therefore, interesting to note that those with
much experience in the practice of hypnotism have found that
if a person who wishes to be hypnotised has doubts whether his
wish will be realised, success is definitely prejudiced.^ Instead
^ See A. Forel, Hypnotism, London and New York (1906), p. 67.

SLEEP 113

of falling into the receptive and passive state which forms the
best background for the efforts of the hypnotiser, the doubter
becomes agitated and the hypnotic process fails or is delayed.
Forel remarks that the more frequently and the more energeti-
cally a person endeavours to become passive, the more certainly
will he fail, and he compares this state, not only with sleep,
but also with affective states. Thus, we cannot force ourselves
to become pleased. Pleasure and other affective states must
arrive spontaneously. They come without invitation or con-
scious direction, and resemble in this respect sleep, hypnotism,
and active forgetting.

I have so far considered the relationship of sleep and sugges-
tion. I have now to deal with the relation of sleep to other
processes of the vmconscious. Sleep affords a striking example
of suppression. Not only does the conscious activity of the
waking life disappear, but any experience acquired in sleep is
forgotten, or tends to be forgotten, when we awake. The
sleeping experience which is suppressed may be of the kind I
have already mentioned in which a person may be wholly
unaware of what he had said or done in sleep. Dreams provide
an equally characteristic example of forgetting. One of their
most definite features is the ease with which they are forgotten.
It often happens that we only become aware that we have
dreamed owing to some event of the day which recalls an image
or incident of a dream which has occurred during the preceding
night, or even on some more remote occasion. This has often
raised the question whether sleep is not habitually accompanied
by dreams, only a small proportion of which are remembered.
Whether this be so or not, we can be confident that dream-
experience bulks largely in the content of the unconscious.
We all know that dreams differ greatly in the ease and com-
pleteness with which they are forgotten. The memory of the
special variety, which is known as the nightmare, may be as
vivid and persistent as that of the most poignant and striking
events of the waking life, and all degrees occur between this real-
istic persistence and the complete forgetting of a dream which is
present only for a few moments after awaking. It is significant
I

114 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

that the dream which persists in memory is one which has
been accompanied by a definite affect, especially of a painful
kind.

The process of dissociation is also definitely present in sleep.
This is especially obvious in those dreams which are accompanied
by acts ranging in complexity from the elaborate behaviour of
the sleep-walker to the apparently disjointed utterances of one
who talks in his sleep. The most elaborate of these perform-
ances may be regarded as a pattern of dissociation, but the
difference between it and the slightest movement or utterance
in a dream is one only in degree and not in kind.

Somnambulism is of especial interest as an example of dis-
sociation on account of its very close resemblance to a fugue.
One who is walking in his sleep is carrying out a series of
activities, often of the most varied and complicated kind, which
are wholly independent of the activities of his normal life. In
some cases the sleep-walker is aware of these activities in the
form of a dream when he awakes, but more often any conscious-
ness which may have accompanied the somnambulistic acts
becomes inaccessible as soon as the sleeper awakes. Its recovery
in the hypnotic or hypnoidal states, however, shows that we
have to do with independent consciousness as well as with
independent activity, so that the state answers completely to
my definition of dissociation. There is, in fact, no difference
between a fugue and a somnambulistic attack except that one
occurs in sleep and the other in the waking state.

A point which is of the greatest interest in the light of the
present argument is that the somnambulistic state is much more
frequent than the fugue. In other words, the state of sleep
predisposes to the occurrence of dissociation. Moreover, sleep-
walking is especially frequent in childhood. The sleep of
childhood is especially prone to be disturbed by activities
accompanied by consciousness cut off" from the activities and
consciousness of the ordinary life.

I have supposed dissociation to be an instinctive process. I
regard it as a process necessary for the welfare of some of the
ancestors of Man which still comes into action in Man himself

SLEEP 115

under certain special circumstances. The special tendency of
somnambulism, as a special kind of dissociation, to occur in
childhood accords thoroughly with its instinctive character, for
it is one of the main theses of this book that instinctive reactions
are especially liable to occur, or are liable to occur in an
especially pure form, in childhood. In the same way the
special liability of dissociation, in the form of somnambulism,
to occur in sleep points to the instinctive nature of sleep
already brought into view by its close relation to suppression.

At this stage of the argument I should like to call
attention to two distinct varieties of somnambulism. In one,
with which we have become very familiar during the war,
a sleeper reproduces the activity of some experience, while
in other cases the actions of the sleep-walker have no such
definite relation to one another, but have rather the apparent
inconsequence and incoherence of the dream. If, however, the
somnambulistic behaviour is an acted dream, we should expect
to find it showing varieties of the same kind as those shown by
the dream itself.

If, now, we consider the relation of sleep to the three processes
of suppression, dissociation and suggestion, it is clear that the
primary position belongs to suppression. Sleep is pre-eminently
a process in which certain mental processes are put in abeyance
for the purpose of recuperation and restoration of the sleeper to
full mental as well as bodily efficiency. The dissociation of sleep
is the result of the action of lower activities which are released
by the suppression of the higher controlling processes, while
the enhancement of suggestibility which accompanies sleep is
not a necessary, and may even be only an occasional, feature.

Sleep, therefore, may be regarded as primarily an example
of the instinctive process of suppression coming into action for
the purpose of affording rest to those parts of the mind and
body which, being less organised and less stable than the lower
instinctive processes, are more liable to fatigue and more in
need of the opportunity of rest. Sleep may be regarded as of
essentially the same order as the instinct of immobility, but as
having through the wide scope of its beneficent action become

116 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

an almost universal attribute of animal life. Sleep is, in fact,
an instinct, allied to the instinct of immobility, which, instead
of coming into action only in the presence of danger, is normally
of daily occurrence. When it takes place under the influence of
certain external surroundings, it is no more appropriate to
regard their action as an example of suggestion than it is
appropriate to speak of a danger as " suggesting " the special
kind of behaviour which is dictated by the instinct of immobility.
I do not propose, therefore, to adopt " auto-suggestion '"' as a
term for the process by which external objects induce or help
to induce sleep. Nor is it necessary to use the term for the
cases in which a person sleeps at will, or apparently at will.
This power depends on the ease with which the person can fall
into the passive attitude which forms the best opportunity for
sleep or hypnotism, but there is no reason to connect the power
itself with the process of suggestion which yet undoubtedly
takes a part both in sleep and hypnotism. Because, however,
I exclude from the category of suggestion certain features of
sleep which have frequently been ascribed to it, we must not
blind ourselves to the large part which is taken by suggestion
in sleep. The selective nature of awakening especially brings
into notice features which are closely related to this process.

It is not difficult to see why there should be this relation.
The conditions which induce sleep in the individual will also
induce it in the group, but there is no special reason why going
to sleep should be influenced by factors promoting the welfare
of the group as distinguished from that of the individual.
With waking, however, the case is different. Here it is essential
to the safety of the individual that he shall respond in sleep,
not merely to sounds or movements which threaten danger, but
also to the sounds or movements of the other members of the
group. Moreover, it is necessary that this response shall be
discriminative and selective. If each member of the group
awakened in response to any kind of stimulus, it would conflict
seriously with the recuperation which is the special function of
sleep. It is essential that each species of animal shall react in
sleep, as in the waking life, to those stimuli which indicate danger,

SLEEP 117

and shall not react to stimuli of an indifferent kind. The
power of discrimination and selection which is shown in the
process of awakening in Man may be regarded as the direct
descendant of the similar power which is essential to the safety
of gregarious animals.

Before I leave the subject of sleep, I must consider whether,
and if so to what extent, it is subject to the " all-or-none "
principle. A moment's consideration will show that the
principle does not apply. Sleep is a definitely, and even finely,
graded process. It is often difficult to say whether a person,
including oneself, is or is not, or has or has not been, asleep.
Moreover, the process of waking, as I have just said, implies
the presence of the processes of discrimination and selection.
I have regarded sleep as allied to the instinct of immobility,
but we can now see the essential difference between the two.
If I am right, sleep is an example of the instinctive process of
suppression in which this process has become capable to a very
high degree of being graded and of reacting to delicately-
discriminated and selected stimuli. Since this power of gradation
and selection appear especially in relation to awaking, and since
the process of awaking stands in a close relation to the welfare
of the group, it is no great assumption to suppose that the
grading stands in a definite relation to gregarious needs and to
the process of suggestion by means of which these needs are
satisfied. I suggest, therefore, that sleep is an example of in-
stinctive behaviour in which the process of suppression, originally
subject to the "all-or-none" principle, has become capable of
gradation in a high degree, not through the action of intelligence,
but through the working of the power of suggestion which is
itself an instinctive process of a graded and discriminative kind.
If we are to classify instinctive processes into protopathic and
epicritic varieties, sleep belongs pre-eminently, and in a high
degree, to the latter group.

There is some reason to believe that one phenomenon of
sleep must be excepted from this generalisation, and must be
regarded as an example of the " all-or-none " reaction. I refer
to the nightmare. In this form of dream, the dreamer is

118 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

liable to experience affects of extreme intensity. The fear
which forms its usual content is more intense and is accompanied
by more pronounced physical manifestations than are ever
known in the waking state. We seem to have here a form of
reaction in which the suppressed experience which underlies the
dream reappears with all the force of which it is capable.
While some subjects of psycho-neurosis are liable to intense
reactions of this kind, others whose general history is very
similar show complete suppression of similar experience which
may, however, underlie somnambulistic attacks. The complete-
ness of the suppression in some cases, side by side with the
extremity of affective disturbance in others, suggests that in the
instinctive state to which persons are reduced in psycho-
neurosis, the suppressed experience either manifests itself with all
its available force or undergoes complete suppression, thus
exhibiting a feature which reminds us of the " all-or-none "
reaction.

CHAPTER XV

THE PSYCHO-NEUROSES

The aim of the study set forth in this book is to provide a
foundation for a biological theory of the psycho-neuroses.
Thus far I have been attempting to establish this foundation
and I can now turn to the task of formulating the theory the
stability of which I have been trying to ensure.

According to this theory mental health depends on the
presence of a state of equilibrium between instinctive tendencies
and the forces by which they are controlled. The psycho-
neuroses in general are failures in the maintenance of this
equilibrium. When such a failure occurs, certain processes, some
instinctive and some of the order of intelligence, come into
activity as attempts to redress the balance. The special form
of the psycho-neurosis depends partly on the nature of the
failure and the processes by which it has come about, partly on
the nature of the restorative processes which come into activity,
and partly on the degree of their success. The psycho-neuroses
may be regarded as attempts, successful or unsuccessful, to
restore the balance between instinctive and controlling forces,
attempts to solve the conflict between these warring elements.

Let us first consider the nature of the failure upon which the
psycho-neuroses primarily depend. Theoretically the failure in
balance and the resulting conflict might be produced in two
ways — by increase in the power of the suppressed tendencies or
by weakening of the process by which they are controlled.
There is little question that both factors take a part in the
production of neurosis.^ Thus, the frequency of functional

1 The term " neurosis " is only used here for the sake of brevity. Tlie
distinctions which have been made by many writers between psycho-
neurosis and neurosis have no sound logical basis.

119

120 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

nervous disorders about the time of puberty may be ascribed to
the increased power of tendencies connected with the instinct of
sex. Again, the frequency of neurosis in the recent war has
certainly been due in part to the call made upon instinctive
tendencies which in the usual peaceful character of our modern
civilisation receive no stimulus so that the more adventurous
have to resort to excessive speed, dangerous sports, big game
hunting, and other similar pursuits to excite their danger-
instincts, and give that spice of conflict which redeems the
monotonous calm of our modern life in times of peace.

While increase in the activity of instinctive tendencies thus
plays an important part in the production of neurosis, this part
is, as a rule, overshadowed by the second factor — weakening of
the controlling forces. Both in peace and war the immediate
factor in the production of neurosis is weakening of control by
shock, strain, illness or fatigue. The chief cause of the frequency
of neurosis in the war has been the excessive nature of the
strains to which modern warfare exposes the soldier.

As already mentioned, the special form taken by the psycho-
neurosis is to some extent dependent on the nature of the
conflict and the causes to which failure in this conflict is due.
Thus, the differences between the neuroses of war and those of
civil life are due in large measm-e to differences in the nature of
the instinctive tendencies which have escaped from control. The
relative simplicity of the war-neuroses is due to their origin in
disturbance of the relatively simple instinct of self-preservation,
while the great majority of the neuroses of civil practice depend
on failure of balance between the less simple sexual instinct and
the very complex social forces by which this instinct is normally
controlled.

Factors arising out of the nature of the failure are, however,
of far less influence in determining the form of the neurosis than
are the processes by which the organism attempts to amend the
failure. The form taken by the neurosis depends mainly upon
the natvire of the process by which it is attempted to solve the
conflict between the instinctive tendencies which have escaped
from control, and the forces by which this control has been

THE PSYCHO-NEUROSES 121

exerted. I propose in later chapters to consider some of these
modes of solution in detail. In this chapter I shall deal, and
that only very briefly, with two lines of activity by which
attempts, one successful and the other unsuccessful, are made to
redeem the failure of balance. In both these cases the organism
takes the simple course of attempting to reimpose the state of
suppression in a form more or less complete, by means of which
the instinctive tendency has previously been held in check. In
the successful attempt the neurosis, perhaps only present in an
incipient form, disappears, while in the other case a definite form
of neurosis develops, the special characters of which are
determined in large measure by the process which is put into
action in the attempt to solve the conflict.

Successful Suppression. — I will begin with the mode of
reaction which succeeds in utilising the mechanism of suppres-
sion, the instrument so fully considered in this book, by which
the organism puts out of action tendencies incompatible with
more developed ends. There is good reason to believe that in
many cases suppression is reinstated in a healthy manner, or at
least in a manner which is compatible with health and efficiency.
Thus, a frequent form of the conflict by which the neuroses of
war are produced is that between the re-awakened instinct of
danger with its accompaniment of fear and the ordinary
standard of our social life that fear is disgraceful. There is no
doubt that this conflict has often been solved during the war by
the spontaneous reassertion of the mechanism of suppression so
that the fear and its associated tendencies to certain lines of
behaviour have been again put into abeyance. In such a case,
tendencies which are incompatible with warfare and the military
life are restored to their seclusion in the unconscious by the
process of suppression, taking place in the unwitting manner
which I have supposed to be its characteristic mode of action. I
give an example from a life of profound interest in which this
seems to have happened. In one of his letters from the front
Frederic Keeling mentions ^ that he had never been depressed
since coming out to France except on the third and fourth days
^ Keeling, Letters and Recollections, London (1918), p. 233.

122 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

in hospital, after he had received wounds from a shell-explosion
such as must have given him a severe shock. On these days he
got a fit of funk and dread of the firing-line. Later letters ^
show that the wound and shock left their mark on him, but it is
clear that the manifest fear soon left him. In Keeling's case we
do not know whether the disappearance took place by an un-
witting process of suppression or was assisted by some witting and
conscious process. In many similar cases into which I have been
able to inquire, the disappearance of the fear has been greatly
assisted by measures similar to those by which we treat an
anxiety-state. The subject of the fears has faced the situation
and brought the experience associated therewith into relation
with other experience of his normal mental life. It is possible
that in some cases the suppression may be effected, or at least
assisted, by voluntary repression, in which the subject of the
fears wittingly thrusts out of his consciousness the painful
experience together with the affects and conative tendencies
connected therewith. Whether this mode of solution is ever
successful I do not know. I have not myself met with a case,
but most of my experience has lain with failures to solve the
conflict, and it will need a wider survey than has been possible
to myself before we can discover whether mere witting repres-
sion ever succeeds in producing or helping the suppression
of fear which seems to be the normal state of the healthy adult.

Whatever may be its mechanism, however, it seems certain
that the process of suppression as a means of solving a conflict
may take place in a healthy manner and produce a thoroughly
efficient result.

Anonety- or Repression-Neurosis. — The other case which I
shall consider in this chapter is that in which an unsuccessful
attempt is made to reinstate the suppression by which the
instinctive tendency with its accompanying affect is in health
controlled. As I have already mentioned on more than one
occasion, there is much reason to believe that suppression, being
an instinctive process, normally takes place unwittingly. Though
it is possible that in some cases the attempt wittingly to subdue
1 Ibid., pp. 240, 250, 264.

THE PSYCHO-NEUROSES 123

instinctive tendencies and to banish painful experience associated
therewith may be successful, it stands beyond question that this
process is as a rule wholly unsuccessful. It not merely fails to
still the conflict, but greatly increases its severity. The
conflict from which the neurosis starts tends to produce a
state of general mental discomfort which may range from mere
malaise to definite depression. This discomfort and depression
tend to crystallise round some unpleasant experience, either some
painful or horrible incident, some fault which has been
committed by the sufferer or some misfortune which has come
into his life. In those who suffer thus from the effect of war-
experience, one party in the original conflict is usually the
re-awakened danger-instinct in some form or other with its
accompanying affect of fear, but this is often wholly displaced
by the affect of horror associated with some peculiarly painful
incident of war, or by the affect of shame following some situa-
tion which the sufferer fears that he has failed to meet in a
proper manner. Whether the dominant affect be fear, horror
or shame, the sufferer strives with all his strength to banish it
from his consciousness. The process of witting repression is
often assisted greatly by the occupations and activities of the
day, and may be apparently successful so long as occupation is
able to fill the day and the fatigue it brings leads to sleep at
night. But if sleep fails, the repressed content may acquire
such power as wholly to gain the upper hand, and when sleep
abrogates control, the repressed content finds expression in the
form of painful dreams or nightmares. On these occasions the
painful affect, together with the experience round which it has
crystallised, dominates the mind. The disturbed sleep only
exhausts the sufferer's strength and makes still more unequal the
struggle between the fear, horror or shame, and the forces by
which the attempt is made to subdue the ever-rising storm.
The sufferer may throw himself into still greater activity or may
attempt to drown the conflict by excesses of various kinds, but
only succeeds in still further sapping his strength till some
comparatively trivial shock, illness or wound, removes him from
the possibilities of such attempts to solve the conflict. He

124 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

becomes the victim of the fully-developed state, formerly called
neurasthenia, but now, following Freud, more generally known as
anxiety-neurosis from the special exaggerated anxiety, the Angst
of the German language, which forms one of its most striking
and characteristic symptoms.^

The process of witting repression plays so large a part in the
development of this state that it might well be styled repression-
neurosis, and if our pathological classification is to be founded
on aetiology, as all such classifications should, I am coming to
believe more and more that repression-neurosis is the proper
term, for this mode of denotation has reference to the aetiological
process upon which many of its chief manifestations depend.
The state is essentially one in which the normal processes of
integration and suppression have failed, in which the attempt to
use wittingly a process, which, if it is to be successful, should be
unwitting, has only magnified the conflict in which the morbid
state has had its origin.

In speaking of repression and suppression as processes by
which it is attempted to solve conflicts between instinctive and
controlling forces I have so far referred only to their characters
as respectively witting or unwitting. I can now consider the
matter from another aspect. I have dealt fully in this book
with the instinctive character of suppression and have regarded
it as itself a process belonging to instinct. I have now to
consider more fully the nature of repression. It may be noted,
in the first place, that repression is a process of which its
subject is fully aware. In its most characteristic form it is
definitely under his control, and is even, to a certain extent,
capable of having its degree discriminated and its strength
graduated. In the terminology often used in this book, it is an
epicritic rather than a protopathic process, or, to use the
language of orthodox psychology, it is a process which belongs
to the order of intelligence as opposed to suppression which I
hold to be definitely instinctive. In accordance with this

^ For a more detailed account of the genesis and nature of this form of
neurosis, see Functional Nerve Disorder, edited by H. Crichton Miller,
London (1920), pp. 89-98.

THE PSYCHO-NEUROSES 125

intelligent character the patient is not merely aware of the
conflict, but both the factors in the original conflict and the
various symptoms which the conflict produces tend to become
the subject of rationalisation, and to act as the nuclei of morbid
intellectual processes, of the nature of delusions but differing
therefrom in their being open to criticism and capable of being
removed by knowledge and appeals to intelligence. This
character of anxiety- or repression-neurosis has two very
important results. One of these is the painful or unpleasant
nature of the process. In several other forms of solution, and
especially in that to be considered in the next chapter, in which
the solution is on instinctive lines, there may be little or no
mental discomfort, but anxiety- or repression-neurosis is a state
in which mental depression is always present and is often both
deep and intense. Consciousness tends to be filled with
thoughts of a painful kind which either centre round the
factors in the original conflict, or have their basis in the
unpleasant nature of the symptoms in which the conflict finds
expression, while other events which provide ground for grief,
worry or apprehension produce these manifestations in
exaggerated form.

The other result is more satisfactory. It is that the state is
peculiarly amenable to treatment based on factors of an
intelligent order. The patient is able to examine for himself
many of the processes, such as repression and rationalisation,
upon which his disorder depends, and through his power of
criticism and witting control is able to influence these processes
and thus do much to abolish their malign influence and set him-
self upon the path of recovery. The essential feature of
anxiety- or repression-neurosis is that it is not only due to
a conflict between instinct and intelligence, but that the
subject of the morbid state is able wittingly to act upon the
factors which enter into this conflict.

Before I close this chapter I should like to point out one
feature of anxiety- or repression-neurosis which helps us to
understand the relation between repression and suppression.
Painful experience which has been repressed and is yet capable

126 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

of recall without any special difficulty is able to produce night-
mares and other morbid symptoms which may in other cases
depend on the activity of experience which has been suppressed.
Repression and suppression seem here to run into one another.
One possibility may be suggested for this close relation and for
the failure of repression as a means of solving a conflict between
instinctive tendencies and the forces by which they are
controlled. I regard suppression as an instinctive process. As
an instinctive process it is natural that it should be especially
potent and effective in childhood, and should become less potent
and effective with advancing years. Moreover, if suppression
be an instinctive process, it is natural that it should occur
unwittingly, and should be less successful if an attempt is made
to put it into action wittingly. The symptoms which follow
repression, and seem to be directly due to it, may be ascribed to
the failure in the adult of a process which takes place naturally
and without any special conflict in childhood. Anxiety- or
repression-neurosis may be regarded as an unavailing attempt to
solve a conflict by using, in an ineffective manner, a process
which is only efficacious when it is exerted instinctively.

CHAPTER XVI

HYSTERIA OR SUBSTITUTION-NEUROSIS

In the last chapter I have considered two modes of solving
the conflict between instinctive tendencies and controlling forces
which furnishes the basis of the psycho-neuroses. In each case
the mode of solution, which is successful in one case and unsuc-
cessful in the other, is an attempt to reinstate the suppression
which had previously existed in health. In other forms of
neurosis the solution is attempted on different lines, and in
this chapter I shall deal with the case in which the organism
seeks to escape from the conflict by substituting another form
of instinctive reaction for that which has been brought into
activity, or which tends to be brought into activity, by the
conditions which have acted as the immediate precursors of
his disorder. This mode of solution is one in which the sufferer
regains happiness and comfort, if not health, by the occurrence
of symptoms which enable him to escape from the conflict in
place of facing it. The form of neurosis to which I refer is
that usually known as hysteria. As this term is ordinarily
used it applies to a very large and varied group of manifesta-
tions of which paralyses, contractures and anaesthesias are
among the most frequent and characteristic. These physical
manifestations have been regarded by Freud as due to the
conversion of the energy engendered by conflict, and in con-
sequence he has proposed " conversion-neurosis " as a term for
the state. This term is now widely used and seems to be in
many respects appropriate, but I hope to bring the subject
into line with the biological scheme put forward in this book
in such a way as to suggest a more appropriate term.

127

128 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

I will begin by referring to the chief manifestations of the
process by which the conflict is solved or the solution attempted.
I will at first limit my attention to the form which the disorder
assumes when it occurs as the result of the accidents of war.
Among the most frequent results of shock and strain in war
are paralyses, often accompanied by contractures and anaesthe-
sias. The paralj'sis may attack almost any part of the body,
but paralysis of speech is especially frequent, while the
anaesthesias may affect not only the skin, but also the special
senses of sight and hearing, and less frequently of taste and
smell. All these occurrences have the common feature that
they unfit their subject for further participation in warfare,
and thus form a solution of the conflict between the instinctive
tendencies connected with danger and the various controlling
factors which may be subsumed under the general heading
of duty.

Paralysis and anaesthesia may be regarded as crude reactions
by means of which a person is protected from danger. It has
been objected to this view that when these states occur on
the battlefield, they do not protect, but may even increase the
danger by producing conditions incompatible with the activi-
ties which form Man's normal reaction to danger. To this
objection there are two answers. One is that in the vast
majority of cases these protective reactions do not occur on
the field of battle, but it may be a few days, it may be months,
after the shock, wound, or other event of which they are the
sequel. When they occur in this manner they fulfil in great
perfection the protective purpose which is the special function
of the danger-instincts.

Sometimes, however, these disabilities immediately follow
some shock or strain and occur on the field of battle. It then
becomes necessary to find some other answer to the objection
that these reactions which I suppose to be instinctive fail of
their protective purpose, or at the least are but ill-adapted to
this purpose. This is one of the problems which will have
to be settled by any scheme of explanation which can be
regarded as satisfactory. I shall begin the study of the subject

HYSTERIA OR SUBSTITUTION-NEUROSIS 129

by considering the relation of the state characterised by the
occurrence of these paralyses and anaesthesias to the processes
of suppression, dissociation and suggestion.

One prominent manifestation affords a most definite example
of suppression. Anaesthesia is one of the most frequent accom-
paniments of hysteria. Insensitiveness of the skin ranging
from mere blunting to complete loss of all sensibility is a very
general symptom and loss of hearing or vision often occurs.
The paralyses may also be regarded as examples of suppression,
the character of suppression being especially obvious when the
paralysis affects the organs df speech, but it is really quite as
definite in a monoplegia or an astasia. Equally striking is the
suppression of aff^ect. In the most characteristic form of
hysteria, as it occurs in warfare, there is no anxiety or
depression. The patient is relatively or positively happy. He
is unaware of any relation between his apparently physical dis-
ability and any of the dangers of warfare preceding the event
which acted as the antecedent of his illness. He is content
to regard his illness as the natural result of the shock or
injury after which the paralysis or other hysterical manifesta-
tion developed. If we regard hysteria as a solution of the
conflict between instinctive tendencies and controlling forces,
we must regard the state as one in which there is suppression
of the affect accompanying the instinctive tendencies, while in
many cases there is suppression of all memory of the events
in which the morbid state had its origin. That there is such
suppression of affect is strongly supported by a frequent con-
sequence of curing the paralysis or other physical manifestation.
In many cases, especially where the disappearance of the morbid
symptom raises the probability that the patient will again
have to tak^ part in warfare, a definite state of anxiety and
depression takes the place of the physical disability.

Several of the most characteristic manifestations of hysteria
can thus be regarded as results of the process of suppression.
The paralyses and anaesthesias are characteristic examples of
this process, while the contractures are due to the overaction
of certain mechanisms which takes place when the activity

180 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

of other mechanisms has been suppressed. In dealing with
hypnotism I suggested that the suppression of motility and
sensibility which are so characteristic of this state might be
regarded as manifestations, highly modified it is true, of the
instinct of immobility, and it is evident that such a conclusion
holds still more naturally of the suppression of hysteria. In
the case of hypnotism we do not know of any direct connec-
tion between its exhibition of suppression and the presence of
danger, but in the case of the similar suppressions of the
hysteria of warfare this connection is definite. The paralyses
and anaesthesias of this state may%e regarded as partial mani-
festations of a process which, if it were complete, would produce
immobility and insensibility of the whole body. According to
this view the paralysis and anaesthesia of hysteria are modifica-
tions of one of the most definite of the various instinctive
processes by which animals react to danger.

The view that hysterical symptoms are modified forms of
the instinct of immobility has been reached by attending only
to one aspect of hysteria, viz., the production of certain of its
symptoms by the process of suppression. It is now necessary
to attend to other aspects of the disease, and especially to its
intimate connection with suggestion. According to current
views suggestion is the most prominent agency in the produc-
tion of hysteria, and I myself have laid such stress on this
feature that I have proposed " suggestion-neurosis " as a term
for the state. ^

Moreover, hysteria is undoubtedly accompanied by greatly
enhanced suggestibility, and it is therefore natural to regard
this suggestibility as an important, if not essential, factor in
the production of the state. I have attempted to show that
an important factor in the production of the hysteria of war
is the enhanced suggestibility which results from military
training.^ One of the chief purposes of military training is to
enable the individual soldier to act immediately and auto-
matically to command so as to ensure unity of purpose and
action in the section, platoon, company or other group of
1 See p. 223. « See p. 217.

HYSTERIA OR SUBSTITUTION-NEUROSIS 131

which the individual is a member. The success of such a
training depends upon the utilisation of instinctive tendencies
promoting unity within the group, and since the chief of these
agencies is suggestion, the result is enhancement of suggesti-
bility. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that any theory
of hysteria shall take into account its close connection with
suggestion and suggestibility.

In this connection it will be useful to consider a characteristic
feature of hysteria, viz., its mimetic character. According to
the definition of suggestion employed in this book, mimesis is a
special aspect of the more general process of suggestion, the
term being used for the motor or effector side of the process
whereby one animal or person influences another unwittingly.
The tendency of the hysteric to exhibit symptoms similar to
those of other persons in his environment is thus thoroughly
in accord with the close relation between hysteria and suggestion.
It would seem as if the chief difference between hysteria and
hypnotism is that, while in hypnotism the manifestations are
due to the suggestion of another person, they are in the case of
hysteria the result of the unwitting process of mimesis which
forms one aspect of suggestion.

When considering hysteria in relation to suppression I was
led to regard the disease as a modification of the instinctive
reaction to danger by means of immobility. It is now necessary
to consider through what means the original instinctive process
has been modified. According to the views put forward in this
book, the primitive instincts subject to the " all-or-none "
principle have been modified in two directions and by two
different agencies, one intelligence and the other suggestion.
We have seen that anxiety- or repression-neurosis, at any rate in
some of its forms, is due to conflict between the primitive
instinctive tendencies and factors based largely or altogether on
intelligence. Intelligence may be regarded as a modifying
principle, highly successful in the usual calm of our modern
civilisation, which has broken down as the result of the excessive
strains and shocks of modern warfare. I have now to suggest
that hysteria is the result of the abrogation of the modifying

182 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

principle based on intelligence, leaving in full power the other
and more or less opposed principle of suggestion.

Let us now consider in more detail whether there are any
reasons why suggestion should be so prominent in the production
of hysterical manifestations, and whether its activity is able to
explain some of the more characteristic features of the hysteria
of warfare. Warfare is essentially a collective form of activity.
As I have already pointed out, military training is especially
directed towards the perfection of collective activity and towards
the consequent increase of suggestibility which is essential to
the success of the gregarious instinct. There are thus definite
factors in warfare which tend to produce the predominance of
suggestion and assist the abrogation of the more intelligent
forms of reaction which are so prominent in the production of
repression-neurosis. As I have pointed out elsewhere,^ hysteria
tends to occur especially in the private soldier, and repression-
neurosis in the officer. I have explained this, partly by the
greater intelligence and broader education of the officer, partly
by the fact that it is the private soldier whose suggestibility is
especially enhanced by military training and his military duties,
while the training and duties of the officer are directed more to
the development of initiative and independence.

If now we turn to the symptoms which are especially promi-
nent in the hysteria of warfare, we find that some of these can
be referred definitely to the protective end which I suppose to
be the essential function of hysteria. One of the most frequent
features of the hysteria of warfare is mutism. A soldier who
has been buried or otherwise disabled by a shell-explosion will
emerge from his experience with complete absence of all power
of speech, which may continue for months or even years. Let
us consider how the prominence and frequency of this symptom
can be connected with the view that the protective function of
hysteria is connected with the gregarious instinct.

It will be remembered that when describing the reaction to
danger by means of flight, I mentioned the cry as one of its
manifestations, and I assigned to this cry the function of warning

1 See p. 207.

HYSTERIA OR SUBSTITUTION-NEUROSIS 133

the other members of the group. It would seem as if the
individual reaction by flight has become closely associated with
a mode of reaction, by means of which the individual warns the
rest of the group of the danger from which he is himself reacting
instinctively by means of flight. The cry may be regarded as a
feature of the flight-instinct arising out of the gregarious habit.
If, however, a group of animals should adopt the reaction to
danger by means of immobility, the cry would be wholly out of
place. If only one of the herd or other group were to utter
the warning cry which belongs to the instinct of flight, it would
wholly destroy the virtue and success of the alternative instinct
of immobility upon which the group is now dependent for its
safety. If a group of animals is to adopt successfully the
instinct of immobility, it is not only essential that all tendencies
to the movements of flight shall be suppressed; it is just as
essential that every one of its members shall suppress the
warning cry which serves so useful a purpose on other occasions.
If, therefore, hysteria be primarily a variant of the instinct of
immobility, it is natural that one of its earliest, if not its
earliest, need should be the suppression of the cry or other
sound which tends to occur in response to danger. I suggest,
therefore, that the mutism of war-hysteria is primarily connected
with the collective aspect of the instinct of immobility. When
it persists, as it often does, after removal from immediate danger,
this is because it provides a means of protection from further
participation in danger, and is therefore utilised, not consciously,
but in that unwitting manner which is characteristic of
instinctive forms of behaviour.

In those rare cases in which paralysis of a limb, or even of all
limbs, occurs on the field of battle, and thus prevents the
movements by which the soldier would normally escape from
danger, it is necessary to suppose that the reaction is due to the
coming into play of an instinctive form of behaviour, which is ill-
adapted to the special conditions by which it has been produced.
It may be regarded as an incomplete, and therefore unsuccessful,
adoption of an instinctive form of reaction to danger. It is
obvious that, if in such a case the reaction of immobility were

134 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

complete, it might be successful as a means of simulating death,
and the whole reaction of immobility may be, and often has
been, supposed to have this end. Where the immobility is
only partial, therefore, we may regard it as an incomplete form
of reaction which if it were complete would serve a useful
purpose.

I have now considered the role in hysteria of the instinctive
processes of suppression and suggestion. I have regarded the
state as primarily one of suppression, as a means of promoting
safety, which has been greatly modified through the process of
suggestion coming into action through gregarious needs. I
have now to consider its relation to another instinctive process
— that of dissociation. According to the customary method of
using the concept of dissociation, hysteria is a manifestation of
this process. It is customary, at any rate in this country, to
speak of the hysterical symptoms as the result of dissociation.
It is therefore necessary to consider this point, and to inquire
how far the hysterical state accords with the definition of
dissociation adopted in this book.

If dissociation implied only the independent activity of
suppressed experience, there might be some justification for the
idea it underlies the paralyses and anaesthesias of hysteria. If
we regarded these states as positive phenomena, we might look
on them as the results of the activity of suppressed experience.
But even here the position would not be altogether satisfactory,
for we should be driven to regard the process of suppression to
which the paralyses and anaesthesias are due as itself a mode of
activity of the suppressed experience. If we hold independent
consciousness to be a necessary part of the concept of dissociation,
hysteria fails to answer to the definition, for there is no evidence
of such independent consciousness as exists in the fugue. In the
absence of evidence of alternate consciousness, it is doubtful
whether anything is gained by bringing hysteria within the
category of dissociation at any rate so far as paralyses and
anaesthesias are concerned.

I propose, therefore, to exclude dissociation from the connota-
tion of hysteria, and to regard this state in its primary form as a

HYSTERIA OR SUBSTITUTION-NEUROSIS 135

product of the two processes of suppression and suggestion. I
have already pointed out its close relation to hypnotism, from
which it differs in being unaccompanied by independent con-
sciousness, thus bringing it still nearer than the hypnotic state
to the instinctive reaction to danger by means of immobility.
I have pointed out that the paralyses and anaesthesias, which are
the most characteristic manifestations of hysteria, may be
regarded as localised manifestations of the suppression of the
instinct of immobility, of which sleep and hypnotism are other
forms. According to this view the symptoms of hysteria are
due to the substitution, in an imperfect form, of an ancient
instinctive reaction in place of other forms of reaction to danger.
If this way of regarding the matter were accepted, the term
" substitution-neurosis " would become an appropriate and
convenient term for the "hysteria" of general usage or the
"conversion-neurosis" of Freud.

I have so far treated hysteria, or substitution-neurosis as we
know it through the effects of warfare. The theory of this
state which I have put forward differs so proformdly from that
generally held that I cannot abstain from considering how far it
can be utilised to explain the hysteria of civil practice.

According to my view hysteria is primarily due to the
activity of a danger-instinct, to the coming into action of an
instinct whose primary function is protection from danger. I
have now to consider whether the hysteria of civil practice can
also be referred to danger, or whether it is the result of the
transference of the reaction from a connection with the danger-
instincts to some other instinct. My own experience of civil
practice is too small to enable me to deal adequately with this
problem, and I must leave it to those with more knowledge
to discover how far this form of hysteria can be led back to an
origin in the awakening of the danger-instinct.

Even if some cases of hysteria in civil life can be referred to
onslaughts on the danger-instincts, there can be little doubt
that factors connected with sex take a most important part
in the aetiology of this state. I can only here deal with the
matter very briefly, and will begin by considering a fact which

136 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

must be explained by any theory of hysteria, but of which
current explanations are not satisfactory. It is necessary to
explain why hysteria in civil life affects women to so far greater
an extent than men. The idea that only women are affected has
long been given up, but the experience of war has shown how very
prone men are to succumb to hysteria when the suitable con-
ditions arise, viz., conditions which make too great a demand on
their danger-instincts. We have to discover why hysteria should
be so frequent in women, and so rare in men, under the ordinary
conditions of civil life. I have already mentioned the rarity of
severe demands on the danger-instincts in the ordinary routine
of our modern civilisation. In so doing I see now that I
was thinking only of the male element in the population.
Women are always liable to dangers in connection with child-
birth to which men are not exposed, while the danger-element,
real or imaginary, is more pronounced in them than in the male
in connection with coitus. That the greater prominence of danger
with the consequent tendency to awaken fear should be
potentially present in connection with the normal functions of
women seems to afford a definite motive for the more frequent
occurrence in them of a form of neurosis which, according to the
view here put forward, is due to the occurrence, though in
modified form, of a definite mode of reaction to danger.

One difficulty for my view of the nature of hysteria is
so important that I cannot pass it over in silence. One of the
symptoms which has always been regarded as a characteristic
manifestation of the hysteria of civil practice is the occurrence of
convulsive seizures which are sometimes with difficulty to be
distinguished from epilepsy, and share with that disease the
exhibition of movements, often of a very violent kind. Such
seizures are, of course, wholly incompatible with the purpose in
which I suppose hysteria to have had its origin, and they must
raise serious doubts concerning the validity of my hypothesis
that hysteria is connected with the instinctive reaction to
danger by means of immobility. Other manifestations, such as
the globus hystericus and the violent emotional expression
so frequently associated with the current concept of hysteria,

HYSTERIA OR SUBSTITUTION-NEUROSIS 137

would also be wholly out of place in a state which has the origin
I suppose.

In considering this difficulty I must first point out that
in my experience, and I believe the experience is general,
convulsive seizures of the kind which are known in the hysteria
of civil practice are of exceptional occurrence in the hysteria of
warfare. The seizures called " fits " which occur in this state
are usually different from those of civil practice. The patient lies
motionless and silent, and in a state quite consistent with a
relation to the instinct of immobility. The stupors and
cataleptic states which so frequently occur immediately after
the shocks of warfare are also, I need hardly say, completely in
harmony with the view that the hysteria of warfare is an
expression of this instinct.

The convulsive seizures which stood out so prominently in the
concept of hysteria held before the war must, however, be
accounted for if the hypothesis I am putting forward is to
explain all the facts. I can only regard the difference between
the two forms of hysteria as dependent upon the modification
which the primary process has undergone in the course of its
utilisation in the interests of another instinct. Although 1
suppose that many of the manifestations of civilian hysteria can
be referred to demands upon the danger- instincts, I have
assumed that in general this state depends on disturbances
of the sexual instinct. It will be necessary to inquire whether
the convulsive seizures, globus hystericus, and emotional attacks
do not occur especially in cases which can be definitely referred
to a sexual cause. Owing to my own ignorance of civilian
hysteria I can only raise this possibility and leave its
investigation to others.

I venture, however, to suggest that it would conduce to
clearness of thought, and to successful practice, if two distinct
varieties of hysteria were recognised, the two differing in the
nature of their aetiology. It may then become apparent that
two very different concepts have been confused under the
heading of hysteria. Here, as is the rule in psychological
medicine, intermediate cases will occur, in which convulsive

138 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

seizures are associated with paralysis, contractures and anaes-
thesias. It seems possible that the two concepts will turn out
to be as capable of distinction from one another as most of the
other concepts of psychological medicine where shading and
gradations are peculiarly liable to occur owing to the great
complexity and intimate inter-relations of the psychical
processes concerned.

I should like at this stage to point out an important
difference between the psycho-neuroses of civil life and those
which follow the events of warfare, which has a definite bearing
on the possibility I have just raised. The instinctive tendencies
which manifest themselves in the psycho-neuroses fall into two
definite classes. One class is composed of the tendencies which
in a state of nature would promote the happiness of the
individual or the crude necessities of the race, but are in conflict
with the traditional standards of thought and conduct of the
society to which the individual belongs. The other class
of tendencies have a protective character. Their function is to
produce immediate pain or unpleasant affect as a means of
warning against and avoiding danger. In the psycho-neuroses
of warfare the second group of tendencies are predominantly or
even exclusively involved, while, if we accept the position that
the psycho-neuroses of civil life depend mainly upon disturb-
ances of the sexual instinct, they will involve tendencies of the
first class. This difference is so great and far-reaching that it
is amply sufficient to account for the different natures of
the two kinds of psycho-neurosis. It would alone go far
to justify the separation of the two forms of disorder in a
scientific classification.

CHAPTER XVII

OTHER MODES OF SOLUTION

In the last two chapters I have considered three of the more
important means by which the human organism attempts to
solve the conflict between re-aroused instinctive tendencies and
the forces by which they are normally controlled. I have con-
sidered the healthy solution by the reinstatement of suppression,
the ineffectual attempt at solution by witting repression, and
the solution in which a modification of an ancient form of
reaction to danger is substituted for that which is the more
natural mode of response in Man.

Dissociation. — I can consider other modes of solution more
briefly. The occurrence of definite dissociation with altered
personality may be regarded as an attempt at solution, especially
when it takes the form of the fugue with its independent
activity and its independent consciousness. Sometimes the
fugue is combined with an anxiety-state, in which case the
attempt at solution by means of dissociation has been ineffectual,
but in other cases the fugue may be the chief or only manifesta-
tion of the conflict, the patient being otherwise healthy and
happy except in so far as he is disturbed by the possibilities
which are always open to the subject of a fugue. In such a
case the conflict finds expression in an occasional escape into
another life, a life which is in effect that of another person shut
off from all memory of the conditions upon which the conflict
depends.

The Phobia. — In another mode of solution a conflict is solved
by a process in which painful experience is suppressed, but yet
maintains the potentiality for activity whenever conditions arise
which resemble those of the experience which has been sup-

139

140 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

pressed. The various phobias in which the suppressed experience
finds expression are of a kind which makes this mode of solution
unsatisfactory if the conditions which re-arouse the dreads are
h'able to be frequently encountered, but if they are of exceptional
occurrence it is possible for the subject of a phobia to lead a
normal and comfortable life, though there is always the possi-
bility that his life may take a course which will expose him to
conditions which arouse the phobia and make the solution
altogether ineffectual. Thus, the sufferer from claustrophobia
who has been so often mentioned in this book was but little
disturbed by his dread in his life at home, but it played a large
part in the production of an anxiety-neurosis when his work
in France during the war exposed him to conditions which
brought his phobia into activity. Similarly, the subject of a
snake-phobia may be hardly disturbed by it in his own home,
but the disorder may take a very serious tui-n if circumstances
oblige him to live in a country where snakes abound.
* According to Freud many phobias are due to the transference
of a conflict from an object by which fear was originally aroused
to that which forms the subject of the dread. If this view be
right, we have an excellent example of a solution which com-
pletely disguises from the patient the real nature of his trouble.
The original fear is objectified in the snake or the rat through
a process of symbolisation similar to that by which similar fears
find expression in the dream.

A somewhat similar, though far less satisfactory, attempt at
solution is presented by a case recorded in Appendix III in
which a subject of war-neurosis suffered from sudden attacks
of intense depression, in the intervals of which he was relatively
healthy and cheerful. There was no evidence that these attacks
of depression were aroused by any conditions similar to those
of the experience he was repressing, but the case bears some
resemblance to a phobia in that the repressed experience only
found occasional expression and left the patient more or less
comfortable in the intervals.

Compulsion-Neurosvi. — Another mode of solution of the conflict
between awakened instinctive tendencies and controlling forces

OTHER MODES OF SOLUTION 141

is by the performance of meaningless acts such as counting,
touching things, arranging objects of the environment in certain
ways, etc. These acts have a compelling character, and failure
to carry them out produces intense discomfort, while their
unimpeded performance makes the life of their subject com-
paratively happy and calm so long as the acts to which he
is compelled are not obvious to others and do not come into
conflict with ordinary social standards. Many persons perform
these compulsive acts in such a manner that they do not attract
anyone's notice, and they are often regarded by the subjects
themselves as natural and normal, so that they do not come
under the notice of the physician, but when they are associated
with other morbid manifestations, or are of a kind which
conflict with social standards of conduct, the state is known
as compulsion-neurosis, and the compulsions form a frequent
featiu-e of the state formerly, and still often, known as psych-
asthenia. In many cases it is possible to discover that these
compulsive acts go back to some definite experience, usually of
childhood, which has been suppressed, and it may be possible
to ascertain that their special features have been determined by
the nature of the forgotten experience. The compulsive acts
seem, however, in many cases to be only subsidiary and com-
paratively unimportant features of the original experience. In
these cases they may be regarded as more or less symbolic
expressions of the activity of the suppressed experience. In
some cases the symbolism is very near the original tendency or
impulse. Thus, one of my patients had a compulsion to cut
himself, which was satisfied as soon as he had drawn blood.
This compulsion followed definite thoughts of, and impulses to,
suicide, following the suicide of his company-commander, and
cutting himself was a kind of symbolic act which gave relief.
In this case there was no suppression, but the thoughts and
impulses out of which the compulsion developed were clearly
present in consciousness and memory.

Rationalisation. — This is a process by which the solution
of a conflict is frequently attempted. As already mentioned,
this process enters largely into the composition of anxiety- or

142 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

repression-neurosis, but it may form the most prominent feature
of a psycho-neurosis, and, as we shall see presently, it is the
leading feature of one of the most clearly-defined psychoses.
The process of rationalisation often plays a large part in the
production of states, as means of escape from conflict, which,
being more compatible with health, can hardly be included
under either head.

It is hardly surprising that the process of rationalisation
should often centre round the relation of the patient to medicine,
the social institution which has to do with disease. In searching
for something by means of which to explain his troubles, the
patient is apt to fix upon the advice and measures given or
recommended by his physician or physicians. He argues more
or less correctly that if his troubles had been taken in time and
corrected when they were slight, the task of getting well would
have been comparatively easy. He concludes that his illness
is due in the main to mistakes made by his medical advisers,
who allowed the faulty trends to remain in activity or even
enhanced their evil effects by the measures they recommended.
Since the advice and measures which are thus held to blame
come in the majority of cases from practitioners of the orthodox
art of medicine, this mode of solving the conflict often takes
the form of a violent reaction against the medical profession.
In this situation the patient is liable to become the prey
of quackery, or he may become a disciple of one or other of
the systems which, at any rate until lately, have recognised
more adequately than orthodox medicine the principles of
psycho-therapy. Such a movement as Christian Science owes
its success, partly to its recognition of certain truths which
physicians have been slow to learn, partly to its providing a
nucleus for the rationalisations by which patients are so often
apt to explain their morbid state. If at the same time the
new doctrines give the opportunity for wide application and
proselytism, the patient will be provided with an interest in
life, the absence of which may have previously formed one of
the conditions of his illness. The success of Christian Science,
the New Thought, and other similar ciilts is due in the first

OTHER MODES OF SOLUTION 143

place to the materialism of orthodox medicine and its failure
to recognise the vast importance of the mental element in
disease, but these movements would never have attained their
success if they had not furnished the basis for systems of
rationalisation by means of which sufferers from psycho-neurosis
have been enabled to escape fi-om the conflicts to which their
troubles were in the first place due.

Hypochondriasis. — In some cases the patient may solve his
conflict in a manner more painful to himself by becoming
unduly interested in the various pains and discomforts of his
morbid state. His absorption in these allows him to escape
from the deeper conflicts to which the symptoms upon which
he dwells so insistingly are ultimately due. He becomes a
hypochondriac, and such hypochondriasis is only one of the
many means by which the process of rationalisation enables
escape from conflict.

Alcohol and Psycho-neurosis. — Another frequent mode of
attempting to solve a conflict is by taking alcohol or some
other drug. Alcohol produces its effects by removing or
lowering the efficiency of the highest levels of mental activity.
Where, as in some cases, it appears to increase mental accom-
plishment, this is almost certainly due to removal of inhibiting
forces, such as anxiety, which interfere with success. Its more
noxious effects are directly due to weakening of control, and,
probably without exception, the altered behaviour which follows
the taking of excessive amounts of alcohol can be traced to the
overaction of instinctive or other early tendencies normally kept
under control by the higher levels of mental activity.

It is a striking feature of anxiety-neurosis that its subjects
are especially liable to have their behaviour influenced by
alcohol. This altered behaviour can be explained by the more
complete abrogation of controlling factors already weakened by
the pathological process producing the neurosis. The more
morbid effects of alcohol fit easily into the scheme of the relation
between instinctive and controlling forces which I have put
forward in this book.

Another interest of alcohol in relation to our subject is that it

144 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

and other substances which inhibit the higher controlling levels
are frequently used in the attempt to still the conflict between
instinctive tendencies and controlling forces. The immediate
success which follows their use is due to the removal or lessening
of the anxiety and depression which are among the first
indications of the anxiety state, thus making possible the
proper performance of duties which are being prejudiced by this
anxiety and depression. The failure which sooner or later
follows the attempt to solve a conflict by resort to alcohol is due
to the fact that the injui'ious action of this substance only
reinforces the weakening influence of strain and fatigue, while it
may set up the habit which we call dipsomania. The nature of
this process is now so fully recognised by those with special
experience that modem treatment depends on making the
patient understand the nature and history of his trouble. By
solving the original conflict in some other manner scope is given
for the breaking of the habit which has been the outcome of the
crude solution attempted by the sufferer.

Paranoia. — I have so far dealt only with the psycho-neuroses
and I must now briefly consider the psychoses or insanities
as attempts to solve conflicts between instinctive tendencies
and the forces by which they are normally controlled. One
of the most characteristic of the modes of solution of this
order is paranoia. In this disease, which often seems to start
from a state of inferiority, real or supposed, the sufferer enters
upon an elaborate process of rationalisation, partly to explain
his inferiority, partly to still the conflicts to which certain forms
of inferiority render their subjects peculiarly liable. The usual
course of such a paranoia is from suspicions and forebodings
arising out of inferiority to explanations which tend towards
delusions of grandeur. The course of the disorder appears to be
that the rationalisations, developed by the subject to explain his
inferiority, become so intimately connected Avith the affective
basis of his trouble that they attain a reality and effectiveness
which greatly relieve, or even wholly remove, the painfulness
of the conflict. The state produced furnishes a solution of
the conflict which seems wholly satisfactory to the patient

OTHER MODES OF SOLUTION 145

himself. In the case of paranoia the results of the rationalisation
are so out of harmony with the ideals and traditions of the
society to which the sufferer belongs that they are called
delusions, and if the delusions lead to conduct incompatible with
social standards, their subject is called insane. If, on the other
hand, the process of rationalisation produces beliefs in the sufferer
which differ from those of the majority of his fellows, intellect-
ually rather than morally or socially, and lead to behaviour
which is not obviously out of harmony with the general
standards of conduct of the community, we call the product of
rationalisation a fad or a crank. Beliefs of this kind furnish
a vast number of gradations which pass insensibly from states
which everyone would regard as healthy and normal to others
not differing appreciably from paranoia in so far as their
psychological, as distinguished from their social, character is
concerned. The crank and the paranoiac may be regarded as
two definite types of person who have resorted to rationalisa-
tion in the attempt to solve the conflict between instinctive
tendencies and social forces.

Dementia Proecox. — Another frequent method by which it is
attempted to solve, or rather to escape from, a conflict, is by
means of day-dreams in which the subject of the conflict fancies
all kinds of situation in which he is playing a part different from
that in which he is, in fact, placed by his conflict. When this
mode of attempted solution is adopted by persons with low
powers of resistance, it is apt to produce the definite hallu-
cinatory and delusional states which make some of the chief
forms of dementia prascox. The occurrence of this mode of
solution, as a means of escaping from the conflicts aroused by
warfare, has not only produced a vast number of cases which
conform to the generally accepted class of dementia pra?cox, but
cases have been frequent in which this mode of solution has
produced minor degrees of a similar disorder, which would have
been called dementia praecox without hesitation in civil practice,
but which have run a course very different from that civil
experience would have led one to expect. In these forms of
insanity, as in paranoia, there is often some inferiority, real or

L

146 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

imaginary, which puts the subject of the conflict at a dis-
advantage in relation to his fellows.

Manic States. — In some cases the conflict is so severe, or the
resistive power of the organism so slight, that the mental
balance breaks down completely. The older psychiatry regarded
such a complete breakdown, which it labelled acute mania, as the
expression of a mere disorderly jumble of disintegrated mental
process, but if we look on the whole situation as a means of
reacting to the conflict between suppressed instinctive tendencies
and controlling forces, it becomes a question whether the acute
psychosis, with all its apparent disorder, is not merely the
expression of a victory of the instinctive forces running riot
after their escape from a lifelong period of suppression and
control. There is little question that if we knew the complete
life-history of a person suffering from acute mania, his ravings,
which, without this knowledge, seem to be mere incoherence,
would be found to have a sense, though one disguised by
symbolism as well as by disorder of expression and omission
of many of the links by which the associations would normally
be expressed. The view that a psychosis of this kind is due to
the complete abrogation of the control, which is normally
exerted over the lower instinctive tendencies, is rendered
probable by the study of the exaltation and excitement which
make up its milder forms. All gradations may be seen between
the apparently meaningless ravings of acute mania and such
mild examples of exaltation as convert an ordinarily subdued
and reticent person into a talkative and excitable busybody,
who in such a state reveals thoughts and tendencies of thought
which in health he would not allow himself to entertain.

All the gradations of mania may be regarded as merely
different degrees of expression of modes of thought and behaviour
which, owing to their incompatibility with social traditions and
ethical standards, are in health subdued and suppressed. It
may be noted that a case of acute mania provides a natural
means of psycho-analysis in which all kinds of suppressed
experience and tendencies come to the surface spontaneously.
It fails in general to be capable of utilisation in diagnosis or

OTHER MODES OF SOLUTION 147

treatment, partly because it often goes too deep and reveals
tendencies which would only become intelligible if we knew the
intermediate steps in the process by which the tendencies came
under control ; partly because the patient is unable to provide
the clues which would enable the physician to piece together the
disjointed fragments which find their way to the surface.

CHAPTER XVIIl

REGRESSION

In dealing with the various means by which the human
organism seeks to solve the conflict between instinctive tenden-
cies and the forces by which they are controlled, I have so far
been considering the psycho-neuroses only as examples of failure
of equilibrium and of various modes of attempting to redress
the balance. In this chapter I propose to treat the psycho-
neuroses from another point of view and see how far they may
be regarded as examples of regression, as processes which enable
us to study the general course of mental development on the
assumption that in disease the organism tends to retrace the
steps through which it has passed in its development. This
aspect of disease is one to which special attention was paid by
Hughlings Jackson, whose " devolution "" corresponds closely
with the " regression " of present-day students of nervous and
mental disorder.

I will begin by considering the modes of solution considered
in the last three chapters as examples of regression. I have
regarded hysteria as a state dependent upon the coming into
activity, in a modified form, of a mode of reaction which dates
back to a very early stage of animal development. If I am
right in looking upon this morbid state as due to the substitu-
tion of the instinct of immobility for other forms of reaction
to dangerous or unpleasant situations, we have in it not merely
an example of regression, but of regression to a very primitive
form of reaction. There will be not merely regression to a
character of the infancy ot the individual, but to a character
which must go very far back in the process of development by
which Man has become what he is.

REGRESSION 149

The mimetic nature of hysteria provides another characteristic
indication of regression. The mimesis of hysteria may be regarded
as a throw-back, partly to the dramatic character of the activity
of early life, partly to the mimetic aspect of the activity of the
gregarious instinct.^ According to the view put forward in this
book hysteria depends on the recrudescence of a very early form
of reaction to danger modified by factors arising out of gregarious
needs, and both the original activity and the force by which it
is modified provide characteristic examples of regression.

In anxiety- or repression-neurosis the regression is less
complete, but since in this case the regressive features are of a
kind with which we are acquainted in the individual life, the
process is more obvious and presents a feature which is now
widely recognised. One of the most striking features of this
regression is presented by the strength and urgency of emo-
tional reactions. Expressions of affective activity which are
frequent in infancy, but have been brought under complete
control in later life, are apt to reassert themselves in the state of
anxiety-neurosis. Some of the most frequent and distressing
symptoms of this state are due to the reawakening of these
affective reactions. In slight cases the change may be limited
to irritability and undue liability to lose the temper, while in
more severe cases the patient may with difficulty restrain him-
self from violence on slight provocation. There is little doubt
that this regression to states in which the primitive emotional
impulses have escaped from control has been a definite factor in
producing the increase in the frequency of crimes of violence
which exists at the present time. In another direction the
regression may show itself in great increase of the tendency to
give way to grief. One of the most trying of the symptoms of
the anxiety-neurosis following warfare is the liability to give
way to grief on occasions which would not have moved at all
in health, and here the regression to a character of infancy is
obvious. In this case it is not so nmch that emotions occur
in greater strength, but they are accompanied by a mode of
expression, natm-al in childhood, to the control of which the
^ See also p. 235

150 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

influence of parents, teachers and tradition is directed from the
earliest years.

A striking manifestation of regression is to be found in
dreams. The nightmares of anxiety-neurosis are of exactly the
same order as the night-terrors which are so frequent in child-
hood. In many cases which have come under my own observation
they have even been exact reproductions of these childhood
states. Thus, one of my patients after an aeroplane crash had
dreams in which a Chinaman figured prominently. He remem-
bered having been frightened by a recurrent dream in childhood
in which the Chinaman appeared in exactly the same surround-
ings as those of the adult dream, and similar examples of
regression to the dreams and night-terrors of childhood are
frequent. The terrifying animals which appear so often in the
nightmares of war-neurosis may be regarded as the result of
regression to a character especially frequent in the dreams
of children.

Another frequent feature of anxiety-neurosis may be an
example of regression to a more deeply-seated instinct. One of
the most frequent symptoms of war-neurosis is a desire for solitude
and inability to mix in the usual way with one''s fellows. In many
cases this may be explained by feelings of shame which are apt
to trouble sufferers from neurosis as the result of their failure to
understand that their excessive reactions or other troubles are
the natural results of their morbid state and give no real ground
for self-reproach. Often, however, it would seem that the desire
for solitude and inability to mix with others cannot be explained
by such conscious process, but is an instinctive reaction of the
same kind as that which leads animals, when ill, to withdraw
from their fellows in order to die in solitude. This view may
be regarded as fanciful, but the desire for solitude in sufferers
from war-neurosis is often so strong and so devoid of rational
grounds that I am inclined to regard it as an example of
regression to an instinctive reaction dating far back in the
history of the race.

Compulsion-neurosis affords an excellent example of regres-
sion. There is reason to believe that the acts which are

REGRESSION 151

especially prone to be carried out compulsively in this state
are frequent in childhood. When they become insistent in
adult life, this is only an outcrop of a mode of reaction which
is characteristic of infantile mentality.

There is little doubt also that the failure to appreciate reality
which is so frequent in psychoses, and also occurs in anxiety-
neurosis, is another example of regression. Children often,
if not always, pass through a stage of development in which
they fail to distinguish the products of their imagination
from the features of the real world in which they find them-
selves. There must be a definite stage of mental development
in which the child is learning to distinguish imagination from
reality, and there can be little doubt that this stage must be
accompanied by some degree of the doubt and discomfort which
so often occur as features of the psychoses and psycho-neuroses.
I have seen cases in which the regression in childhood in this
respect has been very definite. I have seen more than one
soldier with a history of having been very imaginative in child-
hood, when they had amused their relatives by tales of the
wonderful adventures in which they had taicen part. There
had always been some difficulty in distinguishing between
imagination and reality, and when they began to suffer from
war-strain, this failure became pronounced and they laid them-
selves open to serious trouble by relating adventures in which
they had taken an honourable and distinguished part for which
there was no foundation. As in the case of other mental
anomalies, all gradations may be met between such a regression
and cases of pathological lying and swindling in which the
person affected has never learnt properly to distinguish imagi-
nation from reality and has utilised this imperfection for the
satisfaction of his instinctive tendencies.

The most characteristic form of dementia praecox may be
regarded as another example of regression in which the sufferer
gives way to day-dreams as a means of escape from conflict.
The day-dreams which in this state pass insensibly into definite
hallucinatory and delusional states may be regarded as regressions
to the fancies which are so habitual in childhood.

152 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

Lastly, mania may be regarded as an example ot regression
to a still more primitive state, but one in which the regression
is accompanied by such disorder and disintegration as to make
this feature less obvious than in the milder forms of psychosis
and in the psycho-neuroses.

It is an interesting question how far the process of suppression
which has been found to be of such fundamental importance in
psycho-neurosis can be regarded as an example of regression.
In this book I have regarded the process of suppression as one
which goes far back in the history of the animal kingdom, and
corresponding with this antiquity I have regarded it as a process
which is especially apt to come into action in the infancy of the
human being. There is reason to believe that suppression is
especially liable to occur, and when it occurs to be complete,
or relatively complete, in the first few years of life. All the
characters of anxiety-neurosis, on the other hand, are most
satisfactorily explained as due to the attempt to put wittingly
into activity in adult life a process which normally takes place
unwittingly and instinctively in the first few years of life.
Cases in which suppression occurs in adult life may be regarded
as examples of regression in which an instinctive process char-
acteristic of infancy persists in its capacity for activity in later
years. It may be objected that I have supposed the reinstate-
ment of suppression to be the normal way in which a temporary
failure of balance is redressed, and if this is held to be an
example of regression, we shall have to accept the situation that
a regressive process need not necessarily be pathological, or
rather, that in order to get rid of a pathological state, the
organism sometimes utilises with success in adult life a process
which is especially liable to occur in infancy. When suppres-
sion occurs in adult life it more frequently happens that the
suppressed experience preserves an independent activity either
with or without independent consciousness, and such cases may
more fitly be regarded as examples of regression. I have
suggested that this independence of activity, and the occurrence
of independent consciousness, have come down from an ancestral
stage of development when a change was taking place in the

REGRESSION 153

environment, and if there be anything in this suggestion, the
independent activity of suppressed experience and the process of
dissociation would also be examples of regression.

Regression and the ^^ all-or-none "" principle. — If the psycho-
neuroses are to be looked upon as examples of regression, we
should expect them to show definite signs of the " all-or-none "
reaction. According to the view put forward in the chapter on
"the Nature of Instinct," the " all-or-none " character is the
sign of the earlier and cruder forms of instinct which serve the
immediate needs of the individual, especially such as manifest
themselves in the presence of danger. We should, therefore,
expect to find reactions conforming to this type in those
varieties of neurosis which depend upon reawakening of the
danger-instincts. Thus, if " hysteria "" is primarily due to the
substitution of the reaction to danger by means of immobility
for other forms of reaction, we should expect to find that its
svmptoms would have the "all-or-none" character, for the
reaction by immobility is one for the success of which in its
original form this principle is essential. It must be noted,
however, that I do not suppose "hysteria" to be a simple
manifestation of the reaction to danger by immobility, but that
the original instinctive reaction has been greatly modified by
needs arising out of the gregarious habit. In other words, I
suppose the symptoms of hysteria to be manifestations of the
instinct of immobility greatly modified by suggestion, and since
suggestion is a graded and discriminative process, we should not
expect to find that hysteria would show the "all-or-none"
character in a pure form. Nevertheless, in some of the features
of hysteria the " all-or-none " character is distinctly present.
Thus, the symptom of mutism involves not merely suppression
of utterances which stand in some relation to the shock or strain
by which the disability has been produced, but it extends to the
whole of speech. In order to wipe out manifestations of speech
which stand in a relation to the needs by which the mutism has
been produced, it is necessary to suppress all expressions of the
organ of speech, even those of the most useful and pleasant
kind. In general, however, it must be acknowledged that the

154 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

" all-or-none " principle appears only exceptionally in hysteria,
and that the morbid process is largely subject to the processes
of discrimination and graduation. According to the scheme of
this book the slightness of the activity of the principle indicates
how greatly the original instinct, which I suppose to underlie
the disease, has been influenced and modified by later changes
arising out of gregarious needs. We may fitly regard hysteria
as dependent on a process whereby the organism, in response to
gregarious needs, has utilised an old instinctive form of reaction,
but while so utilising it has, at the same time, modified it
greatly in so far as the features of graduation and discrimination
are concerned. According to the view put forward in Chapter XV
anxiety- or repression-neurosis is due to the ineffective action
of the instinctive process of suppression, the ineffectiveness being
due to the witting character of the process in which it is
employed. We should, in consequence, not expect to find this
morbid state exhibiting the " all-or-none " principle in any
pronounced degree. The excessive emotional reactions of this
disease do, indeed, show the "all-or-none" character and are
wholly out of relation to the conditions which call them forth,
and this want of relation between cause and effect runs through
many features of the behaviour of those suffering from repression-
neurosis. But there is no one symptom which can be regarded
as a pure example of the " all-or-none " principle, at any rate
in the waking state. In sleep, however, the principle is more
potent as might indeed be expected, since sleep, by removing
the higher controlling factors, will allow any instinctive mani-
festations to appear in the form natural to them. Thus, the
nightmare clearly exemplifies the " all-or-none " principle. This
state is characterised by an excess of emotion and emotional
reaction. The affect, whether of fear, horror or grief, may be
altogether out of proportion to the incident of the dream, which
is its immediate occasion, and the emotion occurs with a force
and urgency which are never experienced, even in the most acute
emotional situations of the waking life. In dealing with sleep
in Chapter XIV it was found that the normal process is clearly
subject to the principle of graduation, but in the sleep accom-

REGRESSION 155

panying pathological states such as repression-neurosis, instinctive
tendencies with their affective accompaniments are apt to show the
working of the "all-or-none" principle in an especially pure form.
The process of dissociation is especially interesting and
instructive in connection with regression and the " all-or-none "
principle. I have considered in Chapter X the relation between
the pathological process of dissociation, such as is manifested in
the fugue, and several phenomena of the normal mental life.
One of the chief differences between the pathological and the
normal process is the greater completeness of the barrier between
systems of dissociated experience in the pathological examples,
and this greater completeness seems to bear a definite relation
to the " all-or-none "" principle. Thus, in a definite fugue the
suppression is complete. There is no graduation of memory so
that certain incidents of the fugue are remembered and others
forgotten, but the memory of experience gained during the
fugue is lost as a whole. In the examples taken from the
normal life, which were compared with the fugue, there is no
such completeness of separation, and there is a power of choice
between what shall and what shall not be recalled which is
wholly absent in the fugue. Thus, if I switch off' my attention
from one set of interests and turn it to another, I do not thereby
exclude the former from memory, but elements of the first set
are readily capable of recall if they should come into associative
relation with any of the second set of interests. I have spoken
of the two kinds of dissociation as protopathic and epicritic
respectively, and the protopathic form shows, at any rate in
certain respects, the " all-or-none " character which belongs in
general to protopathic manifestations. The "all-or-none"
character is also present in the dissociation which exists in
insanity between a delusional system and the experience which
is in harmony with the beliefs of the society to which the deluded
person belongs. It is a definite character of a delusional system
that it does not admit of compromise. The subject of a
delusional system when under its influence is wholly dominated
by it and excludes from attention everything in his environment
which conflicts with the system.

CHAPTER XIX

SUBLIMATION

I HAVE SO far considered only the conflicts arising out of the
activity of instinctive tendencies as agencies in the production
of pathological states or of states, such as hypnotism, which lie
outside the ordinary lines of human activity. I cannot leave
the subject without som6 indication of the part which these
conflicts may take in some of the more useful and beautiful
aspects of life. Hitherto we have considered the solution of
conflicts by such crude means as paralysis, delusion or crank, but
if properly directed the conflict may have a very different
outcome.

The main purpose of this book has been to consider the
success and failure of suppression as a means of dealing with
instinctive tendencies out of harmony with the needs of social
life. I have said nothing of a process which not only forms one
of the chief therapeutic agencies by means of which we try to
meet the failures of suppression, but is one which underlies
success in all the higher accomplishments of life, especially in
art, science, and religion. In this process, which is called
sublimation, the energy arising out of conflict is diverted from
some channel which leads in an asocial or antisocial direction,
and turned into one leading to an end connected with the higher
ideals of society.

We are accustomed to think of sublimation as a process of a
more or less artificial kind, by which the physician directs the
energy of a conflict into a channel more healthy and benefi-
cent than that it has taken under the influence of those natiu-al
forces we denote collectively by the term "disease." We are
accustomed to speak of this therapeutic process as re-education,

156

SUBLIMATIO 157

and this is a most appropriate term, for it is essentially of the
same order as the process of education in childhood which
consists, or should consist, in the direction of innate or instinctive
tendencies towards an end in harmony with the highest good
of the society of which the child is to be an active member.
Childhood is one long conflict between individual instinctive
tendencies and the social traditions and ideals of society.
Whether the outcome of this conflict is to be a genius or a
paranoiac ; a criminal or a philanthropist ; a good citizen or a
wastrel ; depends in some measure, we do not yet know with
any degree of exactness in what measure, on education, on the
direction which is given by the environment, material, psycho-
logical and social, to the energy engendered in the conflicts
made necessary by the highly complex character of the past
history of our race.

To some of those who have been studying, during the last few
years, the nervous and mental havoc produced by the ravages of
warfare, one great interest lies in the light which this study has
thrown on the process of education. Through our work we
have been led to see how great a part is taken in the formation
of character by influences, especially those of early childhood,
which do not lie on the surface but are embedded in the
unconscious strata of the mind.

In concluding this book I should like to suggest the possibility
that the unconscious may have a still wider scope. Many lines
of evidence are converging to show that all great accomplish-
ment in human endeavour depends on processes which go on
outside those regions of the mind of the activity of which we
are clearly conscious. There is reason to believe thab the
processes which underlie all great work in art, literature, or
science, take place unconsciously, or at least unwittingly. It is
an interesting question to ask whence comes the energy of which
this work is the expression. There are two chief possibilities ;
one, that it is derived from the instinctive tendencies which,
through the action of controlling forces, fail to find their normal
outlet ; the other, that the energy so arising is increased in
amount through the conflict between controlled and controlling

158 INSTINCT AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

forces. Many pathological facts, and especially the general
diminution of bodily energy accompanying so many forms of
psycho-neurosis, point to the truth of the second alternative.
Whatever be the source of the energy, however, we can be
confident that by the process of sublimation the lines upon
which it is expended take a special course, and in such case it is
not easy to place any limit to its activity. We do not know
how high the goal that it may reach.

We have, I think, reason to believe that the person who has
attained perfection of balance in the control of his instinctive
tendencies, in whom the processes of suppression and sublimation
have become wholly effective, may thereby become completely
adapted to his environment and attain a highly peaceful and
stable existence. Such existence is not, however, the condition
of exceptional accomplishment, for which there would seem to
be necessary a certain degree of instability of the unconscious
and subconscious strata of the mind which form the scene of the
conflict between instinctive tendencies and the forces by which
they are controlled. During the last few years we have been
driven to attend to the instability produced by the conditions of
war in its role as the producer of disease. Now that the struggle
is over, I believe that we may look to this instability as the
source of energy from which we may expect great accomplish-
ments in art and science. It may be also that, through this
instability, new strength will be given to those movements
which under the most varied guise express the deep craving for
religion which seems to be universal among Mankind.

APPENDIX I

FREUD'S PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS ^

The usual course of scientific progress has been well exempli-
fied, though perhaps in an exaggerated form, by the history of
the theory of the unconscious put forward by Sigmund Freud,
of Vienna. Few scientific theories escape the fate of being
pushed by their advocates beyond the positions which they are
fitted to hold, with the result that, failing to falfil the expecta-
tions thus aroused, their merits are under-estimated or they are
even thrust into the limbo reserved for dead hypotheses, only to
be rescued therefrom by some later generation. If we are to
trust the contemporary medical literature of Great Britain, this
fate is now in store for Freud's theory of the unconscious. His
views, or perhaps rather their applications, have stirred up such
a hotbed of prejudice and misunderstanding that their undoubted
merits are in serious danger of being obscured, or even wholly
lost to view, in the conflict produced by the extravagance of
Freud's adherents and the rancour of their opponents. This
paper is an attempt to deal with the subject dispassionately
from the point of view of one who has only temporarily been
drawn by current events into the neighbourhood of the maelstrom
of medical controversy.

The first point which may be noted is that Freud's theory of
the unconscious is of far wider application than the perusal of
recent medical literature would suggest. It is true that Freud
is a physician and that he was led to his theory of the uncon-
scious by the study of disease, but his theory is one which

^ A paper read at a meeting of the Edinburgh Pathological Club,
March 7, 1917 i published in the Lancet, June 16, 1917.

159

160 APPENDIX I

concerns a universal problem of psychology. If it is true, it
must be taken into account, not only by the physician, but by
the teacher, the politician, the moralist, the sociologist,^ and
every other worker who is concerned with the study of human
conduct. Not only does the medical controversialist fail to
recognise that he is dealing only with one corner of the subject,
but too often he looks on the whole matter entirely from the
so-called practical standpoint and judges a theory of universal
interest by the consequences which follow the application of the
theory in the hands of the more extravagant of its adherents.
It is possible, even probable, that the practical application of
Freud's theory of the unconscious in the domain of medicine
may come to be held as one of its least important aspects, and
that it is in other branches of human activity that its import-
ance will in future be greatest. I may perhaps mention here
that my own belief in the value of Freud's theory of the un-
conscious as a guide to the better understanding of human
conduct is not so much based on my clinical experience as
on general observation of human behaviour, on evidence
provided by the experience of my friends, and most of all
on the observation of my own mental activity, waking and
sleeping.

In the mixture of invective and witticism which may pass for
a serious contribution to the subject in the medical literature of
this country, an objection frequently put forward is that in
postulating unconscious mental states Freud is putting together
incompatible and contradictory ideas. One possible course is
that those who make this objection should see whether it is not
possible to enlarge their conception of the mind, but to those
who find this impossible a way out of the difficulty may be
suggested. It would be an advantage if, instead of speaking of
unconscious mental states, we were to speak of unconscious
experience. Everyone would acknowledge that adult human
beings have been the subjects of a vast body of experience of
which they have no manifest memory, which does not enter into
their manifest consciousness. Everyone would, I think, also be
^ Cf. Sociological Review (1916), ix. 11.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 161

prepared to acknowledge that this body of unconscious experi-
ence influences our thoughts and actions, our feelings and
sentiments. When we speak of such unconscious experience, we
are keeping within the realm of obvious fact, although we are
ignoring the problem concerned with the form in which the
experience exists. Whether this unconscious experience is, or is
not, to be included within the connotation of mind is largely
verbal and depends on the definition of mind which we adopt.
Since the science of psychology has until lately been almost
exclusively concerned with problems of definition and descrip-
tion, it is natural that such a concept as that of Freud should
meet with opposition, because it does not fit immediately into
current systems of definition. The matter will perhaps become
clearer if we consider the closely related body of experience
which we term heredity. This term is only the name we have
adopted for ancestral experience. When we discuss whether
a given phenomenon, such as a morbid mental state, is due to
heredity, what we are really discussing is how far the morbid
state is the consequence of the experience of the ancestors of the
patient. There have been those, such as Hering and Samuel
Butler, who have extended the connotation of a psychological
term so as to include this ancestral experience, and have regarded
heredity as a species of memory. According to the more gener-
ally accepted usage this vast body of unconscious experience is
not thought of as a whole in psychological terms. There are,
however, certain elements in this ancestral experience which
psychologists have singled out from the rest and have termed
instincts, and they are agreed in holding that instincts form
part of the subject-matter of psychology. If such unconscious
elements derived from ancestral experience are by universal
assent included within the scope of the mind, it is difficult to
understand how it is possible to exclude unconscious experience
acquired in the lifetime of the individual. It would be
humorous, if it were not pathetic, that many of those who object
most strongly to Freud's views concerning the role of unconscious
individual experience in the production of abnormal bodily and
mental states should be loudest in the appreciation of the part

162 APPENDIX I

taken by that ancestral experience for which they use the term,
too often the shibboleth, heredity.

Far more important than the largely verbal question, whether
the unconscious influences which mould our conduct are or are
not to be regarded as constituents of the mind, is the question
concerning that which distinguishes Freud's theory of the uncon-
scious from other theories which deal with this subject. A
favourite statement concerning Freud's theory is that its funda-
mental idea is mental conflict. Standing out prominently in
the system of Freud is the idea of conflict between the mental
tendencies of the individual and the traditional code of conduct
prescribed by the society to which the individual belongs. This
conflict, however, was fully recognised by psychologists long
before Freud. If this idea were the chief characteristic of his
theory, no great claim for novelty or originality could be
advanced. If a writer were to point to conflict as characteristic
of human society, few would regard the proposition as either
profound or especially illuminating, and the idea of mental
conflict is in much the same case. The feature which makes
Freud's theory noteworthy is his scheme of the nature of the
opponents in the conflict, and of the mechanism by which the
conflict is conducted.

Another concept characteristic of Freud's psychology is that of
dissociation, but here again the idea is older than Freud, and
forms part of systems of psychology very different from his.
The special merit of Freud's theory in this respect is that it
provides a psychological theory of dissociation, of the factors
upon which it depends, and of the processes by which its effects
can be overcome.

There is much to be said for a view which would regard as
a distinctive feature of Freud's system his theory of forgetting.
According to the views long current in psychology, forgetting is
a passive process which stands in no special need of explanation.
According to these older views, experience is remembered in so
far as it is frequently repeated and according as it is interesting
and arouses emotion, pleasant or unpleasant. It has been fre-
quently recognised, however, that it is forgetting rather than

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 163

remembering which needs explanation. It is, perhaps, the
greatest merit of Freud's theory that it provides us with such
an explanation. According to Freud, forgetting — and especi-
ally the forgetting of unpleasant experience — is not a passive
but an active process, one in which such experience is thrust
out of consciousness and kept under control by a mechanism
which by a metaphorical simile Freud has termed the censorship.
This censorship is supposed to act as a constant guard, only
allowing the suppressed experience to reach consciousness in sleep,
hypnotism, and automatic or other states in which the normal
control of the censorship is removed or weakened. Even when
the censorship thus permits the suppressed experience to become
manifest, the experience is often only allowed to show itself in
an indirect and often symbolic manner. It is this belief in a
process of active suppression of unpleasant experience which is
the special characteristic of Freud's theory of the unconscious,
and it is his doctrine of the part taken by such suppressed experi-
ence in the production of bodily and mental disorder which is
the leading feature of his theory in its relation to medicine.
According to Freud many morbid mental states and many
bodily states dependent on mental disturbance are due to a
conflict between bodies of suppressed experience, now usually
called " complexes," and the general personality of the sufferer.

Still more important than nomenclature or theoretical basis
as a cause of prej udice and misunderstanding has been the stress
which Freud and his followers have laid upon sexual experience
as the material of morbid complexes. In his theory Freud
uses the term "sexual" with a far wider connotation than is
customary, using it to comprise anything which is either directly
or indirectly connected with the process of reproduction, the
cruder aspects of sex being distinguished as "genital." Many of
his followers, however, have become engrossed with the cruder
side of sexual life, and in some this absorption has gone to such
lengths that sexual, if not genital, implications are scented
in every thought, waking or sleeping, of the patients who
come under their care. To a certain extent this excess is a
reaction from the timidity and prudery of the great mass of

164 APPENDIX I

the medical profession in relation to sexual matters, and is a
protest against the ignorance of this side of life which so
often exists. The mistake which is now being made by many
is to regard this excess as a necessary part of the Freudian
scheme instead of an unfortunate excrescence. There are even
those who are so obsessed by the sexual aspect of Freud's
pyschology that they regard sexuality as its basic principle^
and have fallen into a state of mind which wholly blinds them
to its merits.

It is a wonderful turn of fate that just as Freud's theory of
the unconscious and the method of psycho-analysis founded
upon it should be so hotly discussed, there should have occurred
events which have produced on an enormous scale just those
conditions of paralysis and contracture, phobia and obsession,
which the theory was especially designed to explain. Fate
would seem to have presented us at the present time with an
unexampled opportunity to test the truth of Freud's theory of
the unconscious, at any rate in so far as it is concerned with the
part taken by sexual factors in the production of mental and
functional nervous disorder. In my own experience, cases
arising out of the war which illustrate the Freudian theory of
sexuality directly and obviously have been few and far between.
Since the army at the present time would seem to be fairly
representative of the whole male population of the country,
this failure to discover to any great extent the cases with which
the literature of the Freudian school abounds might well be
regarded as significant. If my experience is a trustworthy
sample, it would seem as if the problem was already well on the
way towards settlement.

There are, however, certain features of the situation which
must be taken into account before we should accept this con-
clusion. First, it must be noted that, while the proportion of
the population from which cases of war-strain are now being
drawn is very large, it is not wholly representative, but has
been selected, though in a very rough manner, by the medical

1 Sec, for an example, Brit. Med. Journ., 1916, ii, p. 897.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 165

examination preliminary to enlistment. There is some reason
to think that many persons who would be likely to support the
Freudian point of view, have for one reason or another escaped
inclusion in the army, or if they have joined are given work
which does not expose them to the more severe shocks and
strains of warfare. Another and more important reservation
depends on the fact that warfare tends to produce states of
anxiety and apprehension so deep-seated and far-reaching that
they obscure causes of a different kind. Cases arising out of
the war do not for this reason furnish satisfactory material
whereby to test the truth of the Freudian position. Persons
who break down under the strains of ordinaiy life, in whom
other states are not hidden by the overpowering emotional con-
ditions arising out of modern warfare, provide material which
shows far more readily the influence of unconscious factors of
the kind which are held to be so important by Freud and his
school. Even when these reservations are taken into account,
however, there remains little to support the Freudian
position in the form in which it is usually presented to us by
its advocates. We now have abundant evidence that those
forms of paralysis and contracture, phobia and obsession, which
are regarded by Freud and his disciples as pre-eminently the
result of suppressed sexual tendencies, occur freely in persons
whose sexual life seems to be wholly normal and commonplace,
who seem to have been unusuallj^ free from those sexual repres-
sions which are so frequent in modern civilisation, especially
among the more leisured classes of the community. It is, of
course, obvious that the evidence in this direction, being nega-
tive, cannot be conclusive. The point is that while we have
over and over again abundant evidence that pathological
nervous and mental states are due, it would seem directly, to
the strains and shocks of warfare, there is, in my experience,
singularly little evidence to show that, even indirectly and as a
subsidiary factor, any part has been taken in the process of
causation by conflicts arising out of the activity of suppressed
sexual complexes. Certainly, if results are any guide, the
morbid states disappear without any such complexes having

166 APPENDIX I

been brought to the surface, while in othfer cases the morbid
states persist in spite of the discovery of definite complexes,
sexual or otherwise, going back to times long before the war.

The denial of the validity of Freud's theory of the unconscious
in the form currently held by its adherents, as the means of
explaining nervous and mental disorders, is, however, something
very different from the denial of the validity of this theory
altogether. While in my experience instances of the kind
which abound in the Freudian literature are rarely met with
among the cases arising out of the war, there is hardly a case
which this theory does not help us the better to understand —
not a day of clinical experience in which Freud's theory may
not be of direct practical use in diagnosis and treatment. The
terrifying dreams, the sudden gusts of depression or restlessness,
the cases of altered personality amounting often to definite
fugues, which are among the most characteristic results of the
present war, receive by far their most natural explanation as
the result of war experience, which by some pathological process,
often assisted later by conscious activity on the part of the
patient, has been either suppressed or is in process of undergoing
changes which will lead sooner or later to this result. While
the results of warfare provide little evidence in favour of the
production of functional nervous disorders by the activity of
suppressed sexual complexes, I believe that they will be found
to provide abundant evidence in favour of the validity of
Freud's theory of forgetting, which in the earlier part of this
paper I have regarded as the most striking and characteristic
feature of his psychology.

I do not attempt to deal generally with the practical conse-
quences which must follow, if we accept the view that many of
the symptoms which follow the strains and shocks of warfare
depend on the suppression of painful experience. I am content
now to point out one consequence if we accept the position that
certain symptoms of war-strain depend on the activity of sup-
pressed experiences arising directly out of the war. I believe
that I am stating the orthodox view of the medical profession,
I am certainly expressing that of the man in the street, if I say

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 167

that the forgetting of unpleasant experience is held to be the
obvious and natural line of procedure. The advice given takes
such forms as : " Put it out of your mind," " Trj- not to think
of it." Moreover, if the advice is not successful and the solitude
of the night allows the painful thoughts to force themselves on
the attention of the patient, hypnotic drugs, hypiioidal sugges-
tion, or perhaps even definite hypnotism, are employed to assist
the process of driving the painful thoughts below the threshold
of consciousness. When hypnotism or hypnoidal suggestion
is employed, there is definite danger of producing just
those states of dissociation which it should be our most vital
duty to avoid, while it is a moot question whether the employ-
ment of hypnotic drugs does not tend to produce the same
effect though in a different and more gradual way.

If the view I have put forward has any validity the proper
line of conduct should be the direct opposite of that which is
usually taken. Instead of advising repression and assisting it
by drugs, suggestion, or hypnotism, we should lead the patient
resolutely to face the situation provided by his painful ex-
perience. We should point out to him that such experience as
that of which he has been the subject can never be thrust wholly
out of his life, though it may be possible to put it out of sight
and cover it up so that it may seem to have been abolished.
His experience should be talked over in all its bearings. Its
good side should be emphasised, for it is characteristic of the
painful experience of warfare that it usually has a good or even
a noble side, which in his condition of misery the patient does
not see at all, or greatly under-estimates. By such conversation
an emotional experience, which is perhaps tending to become
dissociated, may be intellectualised and brought into harmony
with the rest of the mental life, or in more technical language,
integrated with the normal personality of the sufferer. As a
matter of practical experience the relief afforded to a patient
by the process of talking over his painful experience, and by
the discussion how he can readjust his life to the new con-
ditions, usually gives immediate relief and may be followed by
great improvement or even rapid disappearance of his chief

168 APPENDIX I

symptoms. It is in grave cases in which the painful experience
of warfare has come to persons of somewhat neuropathic
tendency, liable to the occurrence of dissociation, that this line
of treatment is especially useful, but in slighter cases and more
normal subjects there is much to be said for encouraging the
patient to become familiar with his painful experience instead
of treating it by the process of taboo, surrounding it, and
assisting the tendency of the patient to surround it, with a halo
of mystery. What is rather needed is the encouragement of
that kind of familiarity which breeds indifference, if not
contempt.

I have only dealt superficially with some of the misunder-
standing in which Freud''s theory of the unconscious has been
enveloped, especially in this country, while briefly considering
the place which this theory seems destined to take in relation
to the vast mass of clinical experience which modern warfare is
providing. I must conclude by considering in the most general
manner what I hold to be the value of Freud's theory to
medicine. Freud's theory of the unconscious should appeal to
the physician in that it provides him with a definite working
scheme of influences, which he has long known to be active in
the causation of mental disorders and of the bodily disorders
which are traceable to mental factors. The modern conception
of such disorders is that they are not merely the result of some
shock or strain, but are the outcome of the whole life-history of
those who suffer, that they are the result of the totality of the
individual experience of the patient as well as of that ancestral
experience which we call heredity. Of this ancestral experience,
and to a large extent of the individual experience, everyone will
acknowledge that it is not accessible to the manifest conscious-
ness of the patient and cannot be learnt from him by the
ordinary methods of obtaining the history of the patient and
his illness. The great merit of Freud is that he has provided us
with a theory of the mechanism by which this experience, not
readily and directly accessible to consciousness, produces its
effects, while he and his followers have devised clinical methods
by which these hidden factors in the causation of disease may be

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 169

brought to light. For the physician who is not content to
walk in the old ruts when in the presence of the greatest
afflictions which can befall mankind, Freud has provided a
working scheme of diagnosis and therapeutics to aid him in his
attempts to discover the causes of mental disorder and to find
means by which it may be remedied. My own standpoint is
that Freud's psychology of the unconscious provides a consistent
working hypothesis to aid us in our attempts to discover the
role of unconscious experience in the production of disease. To
me it is only such an hypothesis designed, like all hypotheses,
to stimulate inquiry and help us in our practice, while we are
groping our way towards the truth concerning the nature of
mental disorder. We can be confident that the scheme as it
stands before us now is only the partial truth and will suffer
many modifications with further research, but that it takes us some
way in the direction of the truth seems to me certain. If this
value of Freud's theory were only a probability, or even only a
possibility, are we justified in ignoring it as an instrument for
the better understanding of disorders of which at present we
know so little .'' Are we to reject a helping hand with con-
tumely because it sometimes leads us to discover unpleasant
aspects of human nature and because it comes from Vienna ?

APPENDIX II

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA!

The case I am about to record is that of a medical man,
aged thirty-one, who from childhood has suffered from a dread
of being in an enclosed space, and especially of being under
conditions which would interfere with his speedy escape into
the open.

When I saw him first his earliest memory of this dread went
back to the time when at the age of six he slept with his elder
brother in what is known in Scotland as a box-bed. The bed
stood in a recess with doors which could be closed so as to give
the appearance of a sitting-room. The child slept on the inner
side of the bed next to the wall, and he still vividly remembers
his fear and the desire to get out of bed, which he did not
satisfy for fear of waking his brother. He would lie in a state
of terror, wondering if he would be able to get out if the need
arose.

His next memory bearing on his phobia is of being taken to
see some men descending the shaft of a coal-pit. There came
to him at once the fear that were he going down something
might happen to prevent his getting out. He remembers that
whenever in childhood he was taken for a journey by train he
dreaded the tunnels, and if by chance the train stopped in a
tunnel he feared that there might be an accident and that he
would not be able to get out. This fear of tunnels became
worse as he grew older. He wotdd not travel by the tube-
railway, and remembers his horror when on one occasion he had
to do so. When he began to go to the theatre or other
^ Published in the Lancet, August 18, 1917.
170

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA 171

crowded building he was always troubled unless he was near the
door, and he was never happy unless he could see a clear and
speedy mode of exit. As long as he can remember he has felt
an intense sympathy whenever he has read of prisoners being
confined in a narrow cell, and he has always been greatly
disturbed by tales of burial alive.

He was always nervous and excitable as a child and suffered
from night-terrors. He has been liable, as long as he can
remember, to worry without knowing why. When about
twelve years old he began to stammer, ascribing its onset to
the imitation of a school-fellow. It soon passed off, but ever
since he has been liable to stammer when out of health.

During boyhood he had occasional attacks of sleeplessness,
loss of appetite, and inability to work. When about twenty-
two years of age he decided to go in for medicine, and while
reading for the Preliminary had an attack of this kind more
severe than usual, which prevented his working for some time.
A similar attack during the second year of his medical studies
made him fear that he would have to give up medicine, but the
leisure of a vacation restored him, and he completed his medical
course. While serving as house-surgeon he again broke down
in health, but managed to finish his period of office, and then
did very light work for nine months.

About six years ago, while a medical student, he heard of a
German, whom I will call A., who received patients into his
house in order to cure them of stammering and other nervous
ailments. He stayed with him for two weeks, the treatment
consisting mainly of a variety of suggestion in which the
patients were told to relax their muscles and concentrate their
minds on the qualities they desired to attain. A. had recently
become acquainted with the work of Freud, and had visited
Vienna in order to learn something of his methods. Some time
later the patient again put himself under the care of A. in
order to undergo a course of psycho-analysis. The analyst in
this case does not appear to have been acquainted with the
method of free association, and after an imsuccessful attempt
to carry out a series of word-associations the process of psycho-

172 APPENDIX II

analysis resolved itself into an inquiry into dreams. In com-
pany with others the patient was instructed about Freud
and his views. He was told that the cause of his trouble
certainly lay in some forgotten experience of childhood of a
sexual nature. When he related his dreams they were invari-
ably interpreted by means of symbolism of a sexual character.
Thus, if he had dreamed of water, he was told that this indi-
cated a wish for sexual intercourse. It is a striking feature of
the process of examination and treatment to which the patient
was subjected that it failed to discover the special dread of
closed spaces from which he suffered. At this time he had
not realised that his dread was exceptional or was capable of
treatment. He had supposed that everyone objected to con-
ditions which were so trying to himself, and it was only on
account of his stammering and his general nervousness that he
had sought treatment. Consequently he told A. nothing about
his dread and the process of " analysis " failed to detect it. Not
only did the treatment lead the mind of the patient exclusively
in a sexual direction, but it also failed to discover or remedy
the claustrophobia.

This process of so-called psycho-analysis had no result which
satisfied the patient. On the contrary, after two months of it
his sleep became so disturbed and his general condition so much
the worse that he gave up the treatment and returned home.
Nevertheless, he was left with the firm conviction, which he
retained till he came under my care, that the root of his
troubles lay in some forgotten sexual experience. This belief
was so strong that he continued to search out for himself some
forgotten experience of this kind, but without success, and
shortly before the outbreak of the war he was thinking of
going to Vienna to consult Freud and find whether the master
himself might not succeed in discovering the lost memory.

The outbreak of the war interfered with this plan. At that
time the patient was still suffering from the effects of his
breakdown when a house-surgeon, but as soon as he had re-
covered sufficiently he joined the R.A.M.C. and went to France.
When he reached the front he had to live and work in dug-

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA 173

outs and was at once troubled by the dread of the limited
space, and especially by the fear that he might not be able to
get out if anything happened. His dread was greatly stimu-
lated on his first day in a dug-out when, on asking the use of
a spade and shovel, he was told that they were to be used in
case he was buried. It was only when he found others living
and working in comfort in dug-outs that for the first time he
realised the exceptional nature of his dread, and recognised
that he was the subject of an abnormal condition. After two
attacks of trench-fever his dread was greatly accentuated and
increased to such an extent as to make his life almost unen-
durable. He slept so badly that he had recourse to hypnotics
and often spent a large part of the night walking about the
trenches rather than remain in his dug-out. His health be-
came so impaired that he was advised by his coramanding-ofUcer
to consult the A.D.M.S., who sent him into hospital. He was
there treated by rest and was given paraldehyde every night.
He was told to keep his thoughts from war-experience and
to dwell exclusively on pleasant topics such as beautiful scenei'y.

After three weeks in hospital in France he was sent to
London where he was again treated by rest and hypnotics.
When he came under my care he had been sleeping very badly
in spite of the hypnotics. He had been having terrifying
dreams of warfare from which he would awake sweating pro-
fusely and think that he was dying. These dreams had become
less frequent but still occurred. He stammered very badly and
was often depressed and restless. He found it difficult to read
anything which required a mental effort and complained that
his memory was defective, especially for recent occurrences. He
had occasional frontal headache and suffered from pain and
discomfort after food, which he ascribed to the pai'alde-
hyde he had taken, and he was liable to alternating con-
stipation and diarrhoea. His deep reflexes were somewhat
exaggerated.

In obtaining his history I learnt about his interest in Freud,
and about the previous attempts to remedy his condition by
means of psycho-analysis. It was only when I explained to

174 APPENDIX II

him my views concerning the exaggerated interest in sex shown
by Freud and his disciples that he learnt for the first time that
forgotten experience of other than a sexual kind might take a
part in the production of nervous states. It was agreed that
" psycho-analysis " should be given a fresh trial from this point
of view.

The next interview was devoted to a full inquiry into his
previous experience in analysis, the results of which have already
been given. As a preliminary to the following sitting I asked
him to remember as fully as possible any dreams he might have
in the interval, and to record any memories which came into his
mind while thinking over the dreams. He was instructed to
come to me at once if he had any dreams of interest. A few
days later he dreamed of being in France, and of being chased
by someone into a deep hole in which his pursuer killed a
rabbit in place of himself, and threw it into a pond covered
with scum. The rabbit came to life again, and was swimming
in the pond when a girl tried to kill it with a poleaxe, but only
succeeded in making a gash in its back with the sharper end.
The patient told her to kill it with the blunt limb and awoke.
In the dream the rabbit was regarded as a ferocious animal
which the patient feared would get away, and this fear
continued for some time after he awoke.

While thinking over the dream in bed immediately
after awaking, there came into the patient's mind an in-
cident which had occurred soon after he had gone to
live in the house with the box-bed. At this time his
brother kept pet rabbits, and in order to annoy his brother
after a quarrel the patient had struck one of the rabbits
on the head and it had become unconscious. The brother
became angry and was proceeding to " hammer "" the patient
when the rabbit came to life again. The incident had made a
great impression at the time, but so far as the patient knew
he had not thought of it since he was a boy. While telling
me the dream on the following day another incident from the
same period came into his mind. Near the house was a pond,
and shortly after the incident with the rabbit the patient saw

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA 175

three boys trying to drown a dog. They threw it into the
■water with a brick tied round its neck, but as the animal was
still able to swim the boys threw stones at it, injuring its eyes
and mouth till it sank. Here again the patient had not
thought of the incident for years, though he remembered that
he could not visit the pond later without fear. This recol-
lection was followed by another which occurred a year or two
later. He and two other boys tried to drown a cat in a bucket
at the house of one of the boys, but the animal was so strong that
they could hardly keep it in. The patient remembered that he
experienced definite fear at the thought that the animal would
escape.

In the light of the incident which came to mind later the
prominence of animals in these recollections of childhood may
have been significant, and all the incidents are more or less
connected with the emotion of fear, but they did not seem at
the time to have any relation to the phobia. It is especially
noteworthy that they were not thought by the patient himself to
be significant as was the case with the recollection which occurred
later. They were, however, very useful in convincing the
patient of the possibility of recalling forgotten incidents of
childhood, and showing him that incidents other than those
of a sexual nature might be recalled. They suggested that the
method he was following might, if persevered in, lead to
memories more obviously related to his symptoms.

Three nights later he had another dream. As he lay in
bed thinking over the dream, there came into his mind an
incident dating back to three or four years of age which had
so greatly affected him at the time that it now seemed to the
patient almost incredible that it could ever have gone out
of his mind, and yet it had so completely gone from his mani-
fest memory that attempts prolonged over years had failed to
resuscitate it. The incident was of a kind which convinced
him at once that the long-sought memory had been found.
Unfortunately his interest in the regained memory was so
great that the dream which had suggested it was completely
forgotten and all attempts to recall it were unavailing.

176 APPENDIX II

The incident which he remembered was a visit to an old
rag-and-bone merchant who lived near the house which his
parents then occupied. This old man was in the habit of giving
boys a halfpenny when they took to him anything of value.
The child had found something and had taken it alone to the
house of the old man. He had been admitted through a dark
narrow passage from which he entered the house by a turning
about half-way along the passage. At the end of the passage
was a brown spaniel. Having received his reward, the child
came out alone to find the door shut. He was too small to
open the door, and the dog at the other end of the passage
began to growl. The child was terrified. His state of terror
came back to him vividly as the incident returned to his mind
after all the years of oblivion in which it had lain. The
influence which the incident made on his mind is shown by his
recollection that ever afterwards he was afraid to pass the house
of the old man, and if forced to do so, always kept to the
opposite side of the street.

Ten days later the patient dreamed that he visited Edinburgh
for the purpose of taking the Diploma in Psychological Medicine.
As he lay in bed thinking over his dream and its possible ante-
cedents, he found that he was saying to himself over and over
again the name " McCann." He could not at first remember
that he knew anyone so called, but it suddenly flashed on his
mind that it was the name of the old rag-and-bone merchant in
whose house he had been terrified.

One thing was needed to make the story complete. It seemed
possible that these thoughts, recalled in consequence of thinking
over dreams, might be purely fictitious. It might be that in
his intense desire to find some experience of childhood which
would explain his dread, the patient might have dreamed, or
thought of, purely imaginary incidents which had been mistaken
for real memories. Luckily the patient's parents are still alive,
and on inquiry from them it was learnt that an old rag-and-bone
merchant had lived in the neighbourhood in such a house as the
patient remembered and that his name was McCann. Until
they were told some twenty-seven years later they had no idea

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA 177

that their child knew anything of the old man or had ever
entered his house.

I propose first to consider this case in so far as it affords
evidence concerning the forgetting of unpleasant experience and
the possibility of recalling such experience to manifest memory.
It is well to distinguish this problem from the quite separate
problems how far such forgotten experience acts as the basis
of morbid states and how far the recalling of the forgotten
experience to manifest consciousness is of value therapeutically.

The main facts of the case from the first of these three points
of view is that by following a certain procedure there came back
to the patient a memory from early childhood which had, so far
as he knew, been completely absent from his manifest conscious-
ness for about twenty-seven years. It had been so completely
forgotten that even six years devoted to research into his
infantile memories had failed to recall it. If it had not been
for the independent confirmation of his parents the whole
memory might have been dismissed as fictitious, but their
evidence makes it clear that we have to do with the revival
of a genuine memory.

It will be well here to consider the conditions which led to
the recovery of this long-forgotten incident. The facts that
it should have eluded observation although diligently sought for
six years, and that it should have come so readily to light at a
later time, suggest that there was something faulty in the
process by which the search had been conducted before the
patient came under my care. We may inquire why his previous
attempts to discover the memory had failed when they suc-
ceeded so rapidly as soon as the subject was approached by a
different method.

One cause of failure is undoubtedly to be found in the previous
turning of the patient's thoughts exclusively in the direction
of sex. He had been assured that the memory to be revived
would be concerned with sexual experience. All his endeavours
had been devoted to the end of finding such an experience.
We could hardly have a better example of the obstruction
placed in the path of knowledge by the exclusive preoccupation

178 APPENDIX II

of the Freudian school with the problem of sex. In dealing
with this subject on another occasion ^ I have dwelt on the part
taken by the exaggerated, if not morbid, interest in sex in
producing the widespread prejudice against Freud's psychology
which undoubtedly exists. The case I now record shows that
the evil goes much deeper, and that the exclusive interest in sex
may actually obstruct the discovery of an infantile experience
which furnishes as good an example as could be desired of
unconscious experience and of the possibility of recalling it to
manifest memory.

A second, and perhaps more important, cause of failure is that
until the patient came under my care his attention had not
been especially directed to his claustrophobia. It was only
when he recognised that his fear of being in a dug-out in France
was not shared by others that he realised the specific character
of his dread. It was only when he came under my care that
for the first time the process of analysis started from and centred
round the dread of closed spaces. Throughout all our conversa-
tions the attention of the patient was turned in this direction,
thus leading the dream-thoughts to occupy themselves with
this topic until they reached and brought to the surface the
memory which had lain dormant for twenty-seven years. The
case well shows that the process of analysis by which forgotten
experience is laid bare is not a loose method of examination
which may start anywhere and be carried on anyhow, but, if it
is to be successful, must be based on definite principles. It
must start from some special symptom or other experience, and
must be conducted with a definite relation to the experience it
is desired to reach.

The previous failure of the patient to recover his infantile
experience is to be explained, partly by the exclusively sexual
direction of his interest, partly by the process of examination
and inquiry having failed to start from the dread of closed
spaces to which the infantile experience has so obvious a rela-
tion. A problem which remains for consideration is whether
the later success was merely due to these two faults having been

1 See p. 163.

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA 179

remedied, or whether there was any positive virtue in the special
method which was then employed. This method is essentially
that of free association as understood by Freud — the method
of " abstraction "" of Morton Prince — but starting from the
incidents of a dream and carried out during the time imme-
diately following the dream. In my own experience I have
found this time especially favourable for the recovery of
memories, the state of half-wakefulness seeming to be especially
favourable to the freedom of association. The employment of
free association under these conditions must, except under very
special circumstances, be conducted in the main by the patient
himself. The physician helps in the process by leading the
waking thoughts of the patient in a direction calculated to
arouse the desired experience, and he may also, as in the present
case, help to elicit memories other than those which are recalled
immediately after the dream, but the method is only suited
to intelligent and well-instructed patients.

Thus far I have dealt only with the evidence provided by
this case of claustrophobia in favour of the reality of uncon-
scious experience and with the means by which it may again
come to form part of the system of fully conscious memories.
I have now to consider how far this case supports the contention
that the forgetting of such experience acts as the basis of patho-
logical states. In the case before us the pathological state is a
definite example of a phobia. The problem for decision is
whether the specific dread from which the patient suffered for
so many years is the direct product of the forgotten experience
of his childhood. The whole character of the infantile experi-
ence is one well calculated to produce such a fear as that from
which the patient had so long suffered. The situation of a
small child of four in a dark narrow passage with a strange
growling dog as his sole companion is certainly one we might
well expect to produce a lasting impression. The infantile
experience accounts for the special feature of the claustrophobia
that it is not so much a closed space itself which the patient
dreads, but it is the fear that he may not be able to escape
which especially haunts his mind. The inability of the child

180 APPENDIX II

of four to open the door leading him from darkness and danger
into light and safety seems to have been perpetuated in the
special character of the claustrophobia afflicting the man of
thirty. Throughout his life it has been when he sees no way
of escape, whether at a distance from an exit, in a tunnel, or
tube-railway, that the dread comes upon him, and when he went
to France it was more especially the fear of being buried in his
dug-out which drove him to leave conditions usually regarded
as those of comparative safety to wander in the more dangerous
trenches. This close correspondence between the infantile ex-
perience and the dread of later life can leave little doubt that
the two are definitely related to one another, and that the
infantile experience was the primary condition of the claustro-
phobia. It would seem probable that the phobia was accentuated
and fixed later by his experience at the age of six, when night
after night he lay in the box-bed, fearing to show any signs
of fear owing to the presence of his brother. The process seems
to have been one in which the great potentialities of an infantile
impression were developed and fixed so that the emotional con-
dition associated with the experience of the infant came to form
part of the constitution of the boy and man. It is possibly
owing to this later experience that the dread which was to
occupy and often master the mind of the patient for nearly
thirty years had as its object the narrow space rather than the
dog which was the more immediate cause of the child's terror.
So far as the patient remembers he has never had any fear of
dogs, but it is possible that there was a period when the dread
of the child was also directed to the animal, and that it was
only the later and long-continued terror at the age of six which
transferred the dread so completely to the other chief element
of the earlier experience.

Another problem for consideration is how far his case
supports Freud's special theory of "repression"^ and active
forgetting. What is needed here is some definite explanation
of the process by which the acute and fully conscious terror of
the child became converted into forgotten experience which was
^ " Suppression " according to the terminology of this book.

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA 181

only restored to manifest consciousness after many years. What
can have been the nature of the process by which the fully
conscious and vivid terror of the infant of four was converted
into something unknown and unsuspected, working in sub-
terranean fashion to reproduce a vague state of dread or terror
whenever the patient was exposed to conditions similar to those
of his infantile experience ? This topic belongs to the most
difficult and obscure department of the subject. In the case of
adults there is reason to believe that the process of active
forgetting or suppression may in some cases take place more or
less suddenly as the result of a shock or during a period of
unconsciousness or delirium. On the other hand, it may be the
result of a long-continued process of witting or half-witting
exclusion from attention. It is difficult to imagine the latter
kind of process taking place in a child of four or five. It seemed
possible that it was the result of an illness in which the for-
getting was assisted by some condition which produced an
obvious modification of consciousness. I therefore asked my
patient to make inquiries into the history of his early illnesses.
He found that when between two and three years of age he had
an attack of scarlet fever, so severe that the doctor despaired of
his recovery. Between five and six he had enteric fever, which
does not seem to have been especially severe. When about six
or seven years old he had an abscess in the shoulder which lasted
some months. Later he had pleurisy and was delirious, and
there was again for a time little hope of his recovery. This was
followed by an abscess in the foot which took some months to
heal. The patient thus had a succession of severe illnesses both
before and after the incident which seemed to have determined
his claustrophobia. The scarlet fever may have so weakened
his health as to make him susceptible to suppression or to
enhance an innate susceptibility in this direction, while one
of the later illnesses may have provided an opportunity for
conditions which would assist the process of suppression itself.

I have now considered how far we can accept this case as
evidence for the reality of unconscious experience and for the
view that such experience is the basis of the pathological state

182 APPENDIX II

of claustrophobia. There still remains the question how far the
case supports the contention of Freud that the bringing of
unconscious experience to light is of therapeutical value. Two
problems should be carefully distinguished. It is one problem
whether the restoration of a forgotten experience to manifest
memory relieves nervous morbid states, and it is a different
problem to discover through what processes the " cure "" works.

As regards the first problem, there is no doubt that the
recovery of the forgotten experience of my patient had a great
effect on his state. A few days after recalling the memory he
sat without disturbance in the middle of a crowded picture-
house under conditions which for years before would have given
him the most serious discomfort and dread. The patient him-
self was so confident that he wished me to lock him in some
subterranean chamber of the hospital, but I need hardly say
that I declined to put him to any such heroic test. He has
since travelled in the tube-railway with no discomfort whatever,
so that the ordinary conditions which had brought his phobia
into activity for many years no longer have this effect. He has
even been down a coal-mine, when he went for more than a mile
along narrow underground passages, the mere thought of which
would once have made him shrink in horror. A striking sequel
of the recovery of his infantile memory is that terrifying dreams
of being imable to escape from enclosed spaces from which he
formerly suffered now trouble him no longer, and he had a
dream, in which he found himself in a narrow cell in the
company of a bloodhound, and was amazed in the dream that
he should be so happy and comfortable in this situation.

The effect on the other symptoms from which he was suffering
as the result of his war experience has been less satisfactory.
His stammering improved to some extent, and still more striking
than any objective improvement was the disappearance of a
dread of stammering which had been a constant source of trouble
since coming home from France. He became able to take
plenty of physical and mental exercise, but he continued to
sleep badly and be troubled by disturbing dreams of warfare.
The continuance of these symptoms, however, is certainly due

A CASE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA 183

to the fact that though his claustrophobia had formed the
starting-point of his general war-neurosis, the neurosis was kept
active by other forms of anxiety.

In connection with his broken sleep and disturbing dreams of
warfare one point may be considered. In entering upon the
line of treatment which I have described in this paper I hesitated
whether I was justified in possibly adding to his other causes of
loss of sleep by asking him to attend to and think over his
dreams. The progress of the case speedily removed any appre-
hensions of this kind. After his infantile memories had been
discovered he continued to be interested in his dreams and their
analysis, but did not find that the process interfered with his
sleep. Even while on the search for forgotten memories he did
not attempt any analysis of that class of dream, dealing with
scenes of war, which especially disturbed his sleep.

The last problem I have to consider is concerned with the
agency by which the recovery of the lost memory has so greatly
relieved the claustrophobia of the patient. According to the
older views of Freud and his disciples the raising of suppressed
experience to the surface is in itself sufficient to bring about the
disappearance of morbid states, and this curative action is often
cited as evidence in favour of the general theory of suppression.
The case before us might well be regarded as striking evidence
in favour of their view. The recollection of the incident of his
childhood has been followed by the disappearance of the dread
which has been with him for so many years. It might seem at
first sight evident that this disappearance has been the direct
result of the reintegi'ation of the forgotten and suppressed
experience with his ordinary personality. Another possibility
must, however, be considered.

The whole procedure of psycho-analysis is calculated to bring
into play the agencies of faith and suggestion. Thus, the
patient had been assured from his first attempt at psycho-
analysis that the recovery of a forgotten experience of childhood
would effect a cure. It was evident when he came under my
care that in spite of previous failure his mind was still dominated
by the belief that if the right experience could be found he

184 APPENDIX II

would recover. When the memory of the passage and the dog
came back to him his mind was filled with a sense of comfort as
regards his illness such as he had not known for years.

I did nothing to enhance his confidence in the Freudian
interpretation of the process by which the recovery of a lost
memory produces a cure, but in spite of my own scepticism
concerning the mechanism of recovery, I was careful to say
nothing which would have disturbed his faith. This faith was
so great that it cannot be excluded as a factor in the thera-
peutic success of the revival of the forgotten experience. His
case has one feature, however, which suggests, if it cannot be
said to prove, that the recovery of the memory rather than the
influence of faith and suggestion was the essential agent in
producing the disappearance of his dread. For years the patient
had believed that the recovery of the right memory would cure
his stammering and get rid of his general nervousness. For
reasons already considered, his faith had not had the state of
claustrophobia as its object. Nevertheless, it was this symptom
which was so greatly relieved, though we cannot yet say that it
has been wholly cured. ^ The stammering and general nervous-
ness, on the other hand, which had throughout been the special
objects round which his faith was working, though altered for
the good, have been relieved in far less degree. The argument
is not conclusive, because the direction of the patient's attention
towards his claustrophobia, which was an essential element of
my treatment, may have acted as an instrument by means of
which the agencies of faith and suggestion already working in
the patient's mind were turned towards his claustrophobia.

^ This was written in 1917. The patient has remained till the present
time (May 1920) wholly free from any dread of confined space^ and we can
now say with some confidence that this morbid state was " cured " by the
procedure adopted.

APPENDIX III

THE REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE i

I DO not attempt to deal in this paper with the whole
problem of the part taken by repression in the production and
maintenance of the war-neuroses. Repression is so closely
bound up with the pathology and treatment of these states
that the full consideration of its role would amount to a
complete study of neurosis in relation to the war.

It is necessary at the outset to consider an ambiguity in the
use of the term " repression " as it is now used by writers on
the pathology of the mind and nervous system. The term is
currently used in two senses which should be carefully dis-
tinguished from one another. It is used for the process whereby
a person endeavours to thrust out of his memory some part of
his mental content, and it is also used for the state which
ensues when, either through this process or by some other
means, part of the mental content has become inaccessible to
manifest consciousness. In the second sense the word is used
for a state which corresponds closely with that known as dis-
sociation,^ but it is useful to distinguish mere inaccessibility to
memory from the special kind of separation from the rest of
the mental content which is denoted by the term dissociation.
The state of inaccessibility may therefore be called " suppres-
sion"" in distinction from the process of repression. In this
paper I use " repression " for the active or voluntary process by

^ Read at a meeting of the Section of Psychiatry, Royal Society of
Medicine, December 4, 1917 ; published in the Proceedings of the Royal
Society of Medicijie, 1918, vol. xi. (Section of Psychiatry), pp. 1-17- See
also Lancet, vol. 194 (1918), p. 173.

^ Tljis term is used here in a wider sense than that adopted in this book.

185

186 APPENDIX III

which it is attempted to remove some part of the mental con-
tent out of the field of attention with the aim of making it
inaccessible to memory and producing the state of suppression-
Using the word in this sense, repression is not in itself a
pathological process, nor is it necessarily the cause of patho-
logical states. On the contrary, it is a necessary element in
education and in all social progress. It is not repression in
itself which is harmful, but repression under conditions in
which it fails to adapt the individual to his environment.

It is in times of special stress that these failures of adapta-
tion are especially liable to occur, and it is not difficult to
see why disorders due to this lack of adaptation should be so
frequent at the present time. There are few, if any, aspects of
life in which repression plays so prominent and so necessary
a part as in the preparation for war. The training of a soldier
is designed to adapt him to act calmly and methodically in the
presence of events naturally calculated to arouse disturbing
emotions. His training should be such that the energy arising
out of these emotions is partly damped by familiarity, partly
diverted into other channels. The most important feature of the
present war in its relation to the production of neurosis is that
the training in repression normally spread over years has had to
be carried out in short spaces of time, while those thus incom-
pletely trained have had to face strains such as have never
previously been known in the history of mankind. Small
wonder that the failures of adaptation should have been so
numerous and so severe.

I do not now propose to consider this primary and funda-
mental problem of the part played by repression in the original
production of the war-neuroses. The process of repression does
not cease when some shock or strain has removed the soldier
from the scene of warfare, but it may take an active part in the
maintenance of the neurosis. New symptoms often arise in
hospital or at home which are not the immediate and necessary
consequence of war experience, but are due to repression of
painful memories and thoughts, or of unpleasant affective
states arising out of reflection concerning this experience. It

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 187

is with the repression of the hospital and of the home rather
than with the repression of the trenches that I deal in this
paper. I propose to illustrate by a few sample cases some of
the effects which may be produced by repression and the line
of action by which these effects may be remedied. I hope to
show that many of the most trying and distressing symptoms
from which the subjects of war-neurosis suffer are not the neces-
sary result of the strain and shocks to which they have been
exposed in warfare, but are due to the attempt to banish
from the mind distressing memories of warfare or painful
affective states which have come into being as the result of
their war experience.

Everyone who has had to treat cases of war-neurosis, and
especially that form of neurosis dependent on anxiety, must
have been faced by the problem what advice to give concerning
the attitude the patient should adopt towards his war experi-
ence. It is natural to thrust aside painful memories just as
it is natural to avoid dangerous or horrible scenes in actuality.
This natural tendency to banish the distressing or the
horrible is especially pronounced in those whose powers of
resistance have been lowered by the long-continued strains of
trench life, the shock of shell explosion, or other catastrophe
of warfare. Even if patients were left to themselves, most
would naturally strive to forget distressing memories and
thoughts. They are, however, very far from being left to
themselves, the natural tendency to repress being in my ex-
perience almost universally fostered by their relatives and
friends, as well as by their medical advisers. Even when
patients have themselves realised the impossibility of forgetting
their war experiences and have recognised the hopeless and
enervating character of the treatment by repression, they are
often induced to attempt the task in obedience to medical
orders. The advice which has usually been given to my
patients in other hospitals is that they should endeavour to
banish all thoughts of war from their minds. In some cases
all conversation between patients, or with visitors, about the
war is strictly forbidden, and the patients are instructed to lead

188 APPENDIX III

their thoughts to other topics, to beautiful scenery and other
pleasant aspects of experience.

To a certain extent this policy is perfectly sound. Nothing
annoys a nervous patient more than the continual inquiries of
his relatives and friends about his experiences at the Front, not
only because it awakens painful memories, but also because of
the obvious futility of most of the questions and the hopeless-
ness of bringing the realities home to his hearers. Moreover,
the assemblage together in a hospital of a number of men with
little in common except their war experiences, naturally leads
their conversation far too frequently to this topic, and even
among those whose memories are not especially distressing it
tends to enhance the state for which the term " fed up "" seems
to be the universal designation.

It is, however, one thing that those who are suffering from
the shocks and strains of warfare should dwell continually on
their war experience or be subjected to importunate inquiries ;
it is quite another matter to attempt to banish such experience
from their minds altogether. The cases I am about to record
illustrate the evil influence of this latter course of action and
the good effects which follow its cessation.

The first case is that of a young officer who was sent home
from France on account of a wound received just as he was
extricating himself from a mass of earth in which he had been
buried. When he reached hospital in England he was nervous
and suffered from disturbed sleep and loss of appetite. When
his wound had healed he was sent home on leave, where his
nervous symptoms became more pronounced so that at his next
board his leave was extended. He was for a time an out-
patient at a London hospital and was then sent to a con-
valescent home in the country. Here he continued to sleep
badly, with disturbing dreams of warfare, and became very
anxious about himself and his prospects of recovery. Thinking
he might improve if he rejoined his battalion, he made so light
of his condition at his next medical board that he was on the
point of being returned to duty when special inquiries about
his sleep led to his being sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 189

for further observation and treatment. On admission he
reported that it always took him long to get to sleep at night
and that when he succeeded he had vivid dreams of warfare.
He could not sleep without a light in his room, because
in the dark his attention was attracted by every sound.
He had been advised by everyone he had consulted, whether
medical or lay, that he ought to banish all unpleasant and
disturbing thoughts from his mind. He had been occupying
himself for every hour of the day in order to follow this advice
and had succeeded in restraining his memories and anxieties
during the day, but as soon as he went to bed they would
crowd upon him and race through his mind hour after hour, so
that every night he dreaded to go to bed.

When he had recounted his symptoms and told me about his
method of de ding with his disturbing thoughts, I asked him to
tell me candidly his own opinion concerning the possibility of
keeping these obtrusive visitors from his mind. He said at
once that it was obvious to him that memories such as those
he had brought with him from the war could never be for-
gotten. Nevertheless, since he had been told by everyone that
it was his duty to forget them, he had done his utmost in this
direction. I then told the patient my own views concerning
the nature and treatment of his state. I agreed with him that
such memories could not be expected to disappear from the
mind and advised him no longer to try to banish them, but
that he should see whether it was not possible to make them
into tolerable, if not even pleasant, companions instead of evil
influences which forced themselves upon his mind whenever the
silence and inactivity of the night came round. The possibility
of such a line of treatment had never previously occurred to
him, but my plan seemed reasonable and he promised to give
it a trial. We talked about his war experiences and his
anxieties, and following this he had the best night he had had
for five months. During the following week he had a good
deal of difficulty in sleeping, but his sleeplessness no longer had
the painful and distressing quality which had been previously
given to it by the intrusion of painful thoughts of warfare.

190 APPENDIX III

In so far as unpleasant thoughts came to him these were con-
cerned with domestic anxieties rather than with the memories
of war, and even these no longer gave rise to the dread which
had previously troubled him. His general health improved ;
his power of sleeping gradually increased and he was able after
a time to return to duty, not in the hope that this duty might
help him to forget, but with some degree of confidence that he
was really fit for it.

The case I have just narrated is a straightforward example
of anxiety-neurosis which made no real progress as long as the
patient tried to keep out of his mind the painful memories and
anxieties which had been aroused in his mind by reflection on
his past experience, his present state and the chance of his fitness
for duty in the future. When in place of running away from
these unpleasant thoughts he faced them boldly and allowed
his mind to dwell upon them in the day, they no longer raced
through his mind at night and disturbed his sleep by terrifying
dreams of warfare.

The next case is that of an officer whose burial as the result
of a shell-explosion had been followed by symptoms pointing
to some degree of cerebral concussion. In spite of severe
headache, vomiting and disorder of micturition, he remained
on duty for more than two months. He then collapsed alto-
gether after a very trying experience in which he had gone out
to seek a fellow officer and had found his body blown into
pieces with head and limbs lying separated from the trunk.
From that time he had been haunted at night by the vision
of his dead and mutilated friend. When he slept he had
nightmares in which his friend appeared, sometimes as he had
seen him mangled on the field, sometimes in the still more
terrifying aspect of one whose limbs and features had been
eaten away by leprosy. The mutilated or leprous officer of
the dream would come nearer and nearer until the patient
suddenly awoke pouring with sweat and in a state of the
utmost terror. He dreaded to go to sleep, and spent each
day looking forward in painful anticipation of the night. He
had been advised to keep all thoughts of the war from his

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 191

mind, but the experience which recurred so often at night was
so insistent that he could not keep it wholly from his thoughts,
much as he tried to do so. Nevertheless, there is no question
but that he was striving by day to dispel memories only to
bring them upon him with redoubled force and horror when
he slept.

The problem before me in this case was to find some aspect
of the painful experience which would allow the patient to
dwell upon it in such a way as to relieve its horrible and
terrifying character. The aspect to which I drew his attention
was that the mangled state of the body of his friend was
conclusive evidence that he had been killed outright, and had
been spared the prolonged suffering which is too often the
fate of those who sustain mortal wouads. He brightened at
once, and said that this aspect of the case had never occurred to
him, nor had it been suggested by any of those to whom he
had previously related his story. He saw at once that this was
an aspect of his experience upon which he could allow his
thoughts to dwell. He said he would no longer attempt to
banish thoughts and memories of his friend from his mind, but
would think of the pain and suffering he had been spared.
For several nights he had no dreams at all, and then came a
night in which he dreamt that he went out into No Man's Land
to seek his friend, and saw his mangled body just as in other
dreams, but without the horror which had always previously
been present. He knelt beside his friend to save for the
relatives any objects of value which were upon the body, a
pious duty he had fulfilled in the actual scene, and as he was
taking off* the Sam Browne belt he woke, with none of the
horror and terror of the past, but weeping gently, feeling only
grief for the loss of a friend. Some nights later he had another
dream in which he met his friend, still mangled, but no longer
terrifying. They talked together, and the patient told the
history of his illness and how he was now able to speak to
him in comfort and without horror or undue distress. Once
only during his stay in hospital did he again experience horror
in connection with any dream of his friend. During the few

192 APPENDIX III

days following his discharge from hospital the dream recurred
once or twice with some degree of its former terrifying quality,
but in his last report to me he had only had one unpleasant
dream with a different content, and was regaining his normal
health and strength.

In the two cases I have described there can be little question
that the most distressing symptoms were being produced or kept
in activity by reason of repression. The cessation of the repres-
sion was followed by the disappearance of the most distressing
symptoms, and great improvement in the general health. It is
not always, however, that the line of treatment adopted in
these cases is so successful. Sometimes the experience which
a patient is striving to forget is so utterly horrible or disgust-
ing, so wholly free from any redeeming feature which can be
used as a means of readjusting the attention, that it is difficult
or impossible to find an aspect which will make its contemplation
endurable. Such a case is that of a young officer who was flung
down by the explosion of a shell so that his face struck the
distended abdomen of a German several days dead, the impact
of his fall rupturing the swollen corpse. Before he lost con-
sciousness the patient had clearly realised his situation, and
knew that the substance which filled his mouth and produced
the most horrible sensations of taste and smell was derived from
the decomposed entrails of an enemy. When he came to him-
self he vomited profusely, and was much shaken, but " carried
on'' for several days, vomiting frequently, and haunted by
persistent images of taste and smell.

When he came under my care, several months later, suffering
from horrible dreams, in which the events I have narrated were
faithfully reproduced, he was striving by every means in his
power to keep the disgusting and painful memory from his
mind. His only period of relief had occurred when he had
gone into the country, far from all that could remind him of
the war. This experience, combined with the horrible nature
of his memory and images, not only made it difficult for him to
discontinue the repression, but also made me hesitate to advise
this measure with any confidence. During his stay in hospital

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 193

the dream became less frequent and less terrible, but it still
recurred, and it was thought best that he should leave the
Army and seek the conditions which had previously given him
relief.

A more frequent cause of failure or slight extent of improve-
ment is met with in cases in which the repression has been
allowed to continue for so long that it has become a habit.
Such a case is that of an officer above the average age who,
while looking at the destruction wrought by a shell explosion,
lost consciousness, probably as the result of a shock caused by
a second shell. He was so ill in France that he could tell little
about his state there. When admitted to hospital in England
he had lost power and sensation in his legs, and was suffering
from severe headache, sleeplessness and terrifying dreams. He
was treated by hypnotism and hypnotic drugs, and was advised
neither to read the papers nor talk with anyone about the war.
After being about two months in hospital he was given three
months' leave. On going home he was so disturbed by remarks
about the war that he left his relatives and buried himself in
the heart of the country, where he saw no one, read no papers,
and resolutely kept his mind from all thoughts of war. With
the aid of aspirin and bromides he slept better and had less
headache, but when at the end of his period of leave he appeared
before a medical board and the President asked a question about
the trenches, he broke down completely and wept. He was
given another two months' leave, and again repaired to the
country to continue the treatment by isolation and repression.
This went on until the order that all officers must be in hospital
or on duty led to his being sent to an inland watering-place,
where no inquiries were made about his anxieties or memories,
but he was treated by baths, electricity and massage. He
rapidly became worse ; his sleep, which had improved, became
as bad as ever, and he was transferred to Craiglockhart War
Hospital. He was then very emaciated, with a constant ex-
pression of anxiety and dread. His legs were still weak, and he
was able to take very little exercise or apply his mind or any
time. His chief complaint was of sleeplessness and frequent

194 APPENDIX III

dreams in which war scenes were reproduced, while all kinds of
distressing thoughts connected with the war would crowd into
his mind as he was trying to get to sleep.

He was advised to give up the practice of repression, to read
the papers, talk occasionally about the war, and gradually
accustom himself to thinking of, and hearing about, war ex-
perience. He did so, but in a half-hearted manner, being
convinced that the ideal treatment was that he had so long
followed. He was reluctant to admit that the success of a
mode of treatment which led him to break down and weep
when the war was mentioned was of a very superficial kind.
Nevertheless, he improved distinctly and slept better. The
reproduction of scenes of war in his dreams became less frequent,
and were replaced by images the material of which was provided
by scenes of home-life. He became able to read the papers
without disturbance, but was loth to acknowledge that his
improvement was connected with this ability to face thoughts
of war, saying that he had been as well when following his own
treatment by isolation, and he evidently believed that he would
have recovered if he had not been taken from his retreat and
sent into hospital. It soon became obvious that the patient
would be of no further service in the Army, and he relinquished
his commission.

I cite this case not so much as an example of failure, or
relative failure, of the treatment by removal of repression, for
it is probable that such relaxation of repression as occurred was
a definite factor in his improvement. I cite it rather as an
example of the state produced by long-continued repression and
of the difficulties which arise when the repression has had such
apparent success as to make the patient believe in it.

In the cases I have just narrated there was no evidence that
the process of repression had produced a state either of suppres-
sion or dissociation. The memories of the painful experience
were at hand ready to be recalled or even to obtrude themselves
upon consciousness at any moment. A state in which repressed
elements of the mental content find their expression in dreams
may perhaps be regarded as the first step towards suppression

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 195

or dissociation, but if so, it forms a very eai'ly stage of the
process.

There is no question that some people are more liable to
become the subjects of dissociation or splitting of consciousness
than others. In some persons there is probably an innate
tendency in this direction ; in others the liability arises through
some shock or illness ; while other persons become especially
susceptible as the result of having been hypnotised.

Not only do shock and illness produce a liability to suppres-
sion, but these factors may also act as its immediate precursors
and exciting causes. How far the process of voluntary repression
can produce this state is more doubtful. It is probable that it
only has this effect in persons who are especially prone to
the occurrence of suppression. The great frequency of the
process of voluntary repression in cases of war-neurosis might
be expected to provide us with definite evidence on this head
and there is little doubt that such evidence is present. As an
example I may cite the case of a young officer who had done
well in France until he had been deprived of consciousness by a
shell explosion. The next thing he remembered was being con-
ducted by his servant towards the base, thoroughly broken
down. On admission into hospital he suffered from fearful
headaches and had hardly any sleep, and when he slept he had
terrifying dreams of warfare. When he came under my care
two months later his chief complaint was that whereas ordinarily
he felt cheerful and keen on life, there would come upon him at
times, with absolute suddenness, the most terrible depression,
a state of a kind absolutely different from an ordinary fit of
" the blues,"" having a quality which he could only describe as
" something quite on its own."

For some time he had no attack and seemed as if he had not
a care in the world. Ten days after admission he came to me
one evening, pale and with a tense anxious expression which
wholly altered his appearance. A few minutes earlier he had
been writing a letter in his usual mood, when there descended
upon him a state of deep depression and despair which seemed
to have no reason. He had had a pleasant and not too tiring

196 APPENDIX III

afternoon on some neighbouring hills, and there was nothing in
the letter he was writing which could be supposed to have
suggested anything painful or depressing. As we talked the
depression cleared off and in about ten minutes he was nearly
himself again. He had no further attack of depression for nine
days, and then one afternoon, as he was standing looking idly
from a window, there suddenly descended upon him the state of
horrible dread. I happened to be away from the hospital and
he had to fight it out alone. The attack was more severe than
usual and lasted for several hours. It was so severe that he
believed he would have shot himself if his revolver had been
accessible. On my return to the hospital some hours after the
onset of the attack he was better, but still looked pale and
anxious. His state of reasonless dread had passed into one of
depression and anxiety natural to one who recognises that he
has been through an experience which has put his life in danger
and is liable to recur.

The gusts of depression to which this patient was subject
were of the kind which I was then inclined to ascribe to the
hidden working of some forgotten yet active experience, and it
seemed natural at first to think of some incident during the
time which elapsed between the shell explosion which deprived
him of consciousness and the moment when he came to himself
walking back from the trenches. I considered whether this was
not a case in which the lost memory might be recovered by
means of hypnotism, but in the presence of the definite tendency
to dissociation I did not like to employ this means of diagnosis,
and less drastic methods of recovering any forgotten incident
were without avail.

It occurred to me that the soldier who was accompanying the
patient on his walk from the trenches might be able to supply a
clue to some lost memory. While waiting for an answer to this
inquiry I discovered that behind his apparent cheerfulness at
ordinary times the patient was the subject of grave apprehen-
sions about his fitness for further service in France, which he
was not allowing himself to entertain owing to the idea that
such thoughts were equivalent to cowardice, or might at any

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 197

rate be so interpreted by others. It became evident that he
had been practising a systematic process of repression of these
thoughts and apprehensions, and the question arose whether
this repression might not be the source of his attacks of
depression rather than some forgotten experience. The patient
had already become familiar with the idea that his gusts of
depression might be due to the activity of some submerged
experience and it was only necessary to consider whether we had
not hitherto mistaken the repressed object. Disagreeable as
was the situation in which he found himself, I advised him that
it was one which it was best to face, and that it was of no avail
to pretend that it did not exist. I pointed out that this
procedure might produce some discomfort and unhappiness, but
that it was far better to suffer so than continue in a course
whereby painful thoughts were pushed into hidden recesses of
his mind, only to accumulate such force as to make them well
up and produce attacks of depression so severe as to put his life
in danger from suicide. He agreed to face the situation and no
longer to continue his attempt to banish his apprehensions.
From this time he had only one transient attack of morbid
depression following a minor surgical operation. He became
less cheerful generally and his state acquired more closely the
usual characters of anxiety-neurosis, and this was so persistent
that he was finally passed by a medical board as unfit for
military service.

In the cases I have recorded, the elements of the mental
content which were the object of repression were chiefly dis-
tressing memories. In the case just quoted painful anticipations
were prominent, and probably had a place among the objects of
repression in other cases. Many other kinds of mental experience
may be similarly repressed. Thus, after one of my patients
had for long baffled all attempts to discover the source of his
trouble, it finally appeared that he was attempting to banish
from his mind feelings of shame due to his having broken down.
Great improvement rapidly followed a line of action in which
he faced this shame and thereby came to see how little cause
there was for this emotion. In another case an officer had

198 APPENDIX III

carried the repression of grief concerning the general loss of life
and happiness through the war to the point of suppression, the
suppressed emotion finding vent in attacks of weeping, which
came on suddenly with no apparent cause. In this case the
treatment was less successful, and I cite it only to illustrate the
variety of experience which may become the object of repression.

I will conclude my record by a brief account of a case which
is interesting in that it might well have occurred in civil
practice, A young officer after more than two years' service
had failed to get to France, in spite of his urgent desires in
that direction. Repeated disappointments in this respect, com-
bined with anxieties connected with his work, had led to the
development of a state in which he suffered from troubled sleep,
with attacks of somnambulism by night and " fainting fits " by
day. Some time after he came under my care I found that,
acting under the advice of every doctor he had met, he had
been systematically thrusting all thought of his work out of his
mind, with the result that when he went to bed battalion orders
and other features of his work as an adjutant raced in endless
succession through his mind and kept him from sleeping. I
advised him to think of his work by day, even to plan what he
would do when he returned to his military duties. The trouble-
some night-thoughts soon went ; he rapidly improved and re-
turned to duty. When last he wrote his hopes of general
service had at last been realised.

In the cases recorded in this paper the patients had been
repressing certain painful elements of their mental content.
They had been deliberately practising what we must regard as
a definite course of treatment, in nearly every case adopted on
medical advice, in which they were either deliberately thrusting
certain unpleasant memories or thoughts from their minds or
were occupying every moment of the day in some activity in
order that these thoughts might not come into the focus of
attention. At the same time they were suffering from certain
highly distressing symptoms which disappeared or altered in
character when the process of repression ceased. Moreover, the
symptoms by which they had been troubled were such as receive

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 199

a natural, if not obvious, explanation as the result of the repres-
sion they had been practising. If unpleasant thoughts are
voluntarily repressed during the day, it is natural that they
should rise into activity when the control of the waking state is
removed by sleep or'is weakened in the state which precedes and
follows sleep and occupies its intervals. If the painful thoughts
have been kept from the attention throughout the day by means
of occupation, it is again natural that they should come into
activity when the silence and isolation of the night make
occupation no longer possible. It seems as if the thoughts
repressed by day assume a painful quality when they come to
the surface at night far more intense than is ever attained if
they are allowed to occupy the attention during the day. It is
as if the process of repression keeps the painful memories or
thoughts under a kind of pressure during the day, accumulating
such energy by the time night comes that they race through
the mind with abnormal speed and violence when the patient is
wakeful, or take the most vivid and painful forms when expressed
by the imagery of dreams.

When such distressing, if not terrible, symptoms disappear
or alter in character as soon as repression ceases, it is natural
to conclude that the two processes stand to one another in the
relation of cause and effect, but so great is the complexity
of the conditions with which we are dealing in the medicine
of the mind that it is necessary to consider certain alternative
explanations.

The disappearance or improvement of symptoms on the
cessation of voluntary repression may be regarded as due to the
action of one form of the principle of catharsis. This term is
generally used for the agency which is operative when a suppressed
or dissociated body of experience is brought to the surface so
that it again becomes reintegrated with the ordinary personality.
It is no great step from this to the mode of action recorded in
this paper, in which experience on its way towards suppression
has undergone a similar, though necessarily less extensive, process
of reintegration.

There is, however, another form of catharsis which may have

200 APPENDIX III

been operative in some of the cases I have described. It often
happens in cases of war-neurosis, as in neurosis in general, that
the sufferers do not suppress their painful thoughts, but brood
over them constantly until their experience assumes vastly
exaggerated and often distorted importance and significance.
In such cases the greatest relief is afforded by the mere com-
munication of these troubles to another. This form of catharsis
may have been operative in relation to certain kinds of experi-
ence in some of my cases, and this complicates our estimation
of the therapeutic value of the cessation of repression. I have,
however, carefully chosen for record on this occasion cases in
which the second form of catharsis, if present at all, formed an
agency altogether subsidiary to that afforded by the cessation
of repression.

Another complicating factor which may have entered into
the therapeutic process in some of the cases is re-education
This certainly came into play in the case of the patient who
had the terrifying dreams of his mangled friend. In his case
the cessation of repression was accompanied by the direction of
the attention of the patient to an aspect of his painful memories
which he had hitherto completely ignored. The process by
which his attention was thus directed to a neglected aspect of
his experience introduced a factor which must be distinguished
from the removal of repression itself. The two processes are
intimately associated, for it was largely, if not altogether, the
new view of his experience which made it possible for the patient
to dwell upon his painful memories. In some of the other
cases this factor of re-education undoubtedly played a part, not
merely in making possible the cessation of repression, but also
in helping the patient to adjust himself to the situation
with which he was faced, thus contributing positively to the
recovery or improvement which followed the cessation of
repression.

A more difficult and more contentious problem arises when
we consider how far the success which attended the cessation of
repression may have been, wholly or in part, due to faith and
suggestion. Here, as in every branch of therapeutics, whether

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 201

it be treatment by drugs, diet, baths, electricity, persuasion,
re-education or psycho-analysis, we come up against the difficulty
raised by the pervasive and subtle influence of these agencies
working behind the scenes. In the subject before us, as in every
other kind of medical treatment, we have to consider whether
the changes which occurred may have been due, not to the agency
which lay on the surface and was the motive of the treatment,
but at any rate, in part, to the influence, so difficult to exclude,
of faith and suggestion. In my later work I have come to
believe so thoroughly in the injm'ious action of repression, and
have acquired so lively a faith in the efficacy of my mode of
treatment, that this agency cannot be excluded as a factor in
any success I may have. In my earlier work, however, I certainly
had no such faith, and advised the discontinuance of repression
with the utmost diffidence. Faith on the part of the patient
may, however, be present even when the physician is diffident.
It is of more importance that several of the patients had been
under my care for some time without improvement until it was
discovered that they were repressing painful experience. It was
only when the repression ceased that improvement began.

Definite evidence against the influence of suggestion is pro-
vided by the case in which the dream of the mangled friend
came to lose its horror, this state being replaced by the far
more bearable emotion of grief. The change which followed
the cessation of repression in this case could not have been
suggested by me, for its possibility had not, so far as I am aware,
entered my mind. So far as suggestions, witting or unwitting,
were given, these would have had the form that the nightmares
would cease altogether, and the change in the affective character
of the dream, not having been anticipated by myself, can hardly
have been communicated to the patient. It is, of course,
possible that my own belief in the improvement which would
follow the adoption of my advice acted in a general manner by
bringing the agencies of faith and suggestion into action, but
these agencies can hardly have produced the specific and definite
form which the improvement took. In other of the cases I
have recorded, faith and suggestion probably played some part,

202 APPENDIX III

that of the officer with the sudden and overwhelming attacks
of depression being especially open to the possibility of these
influences.

Such complicating factors as I have just considered can no
more be excluded in this than in any other branch of thera-
peutics, but I am confident that their part is small beside that
due to stopping a course of action whereby patients were striving
to carry out an impossible task. In some cases faith and sugges-
tion, re-education and sharing troubles with another, undoubtedly
form the chief agents in the removal or amendment of the
symptoms of neurosis, but in the cases I have recorded there
can be little doubt that they contributed only in a minor degree
to the success which attended the giving up of repression.

Before I conclude, a few words must be said about an aspect
of my subject to which I have not so far referred. When
treating officers or men suffering from war-neurosis, we have
not only to think of the restoration of the patient to health, we
have also to consider the question of fitness for military service.
It is necessary to consider briefly the relation of the prescription
of repression to this aspect of military medical practice.

When I find that a soldier is definitely practising repression,
I am accustomed to ask him what he thinks is likely to happen
if one who has sedulously kept his mind from all thoughts of
war, or from special memories of warfare, should be confronted
with the reality, or even with such continual reminders of its
existence as must inevitably accompany any form of military
service at home. If, as often happens in the case of officers,
the patient is keenly anxious to remain in the Army, the question
at once brings home to him the futility of the course of action
he has been pursuing. The deliberate and systematic repression
of all thoughts and memories of war by a soldier can have but
one result when he is again faced by the realities of warfare.

Several of the officers whose cases I have described or
mentioned in this paper were enabled to return to some form
of military duty with a degree of success very unlikely if they
had persisted in the process of repression. In other cases,
either because the repression had been so long continued or for

REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 203

some other reason, return to military duty was deemed inex-
pedient. Except in one of these cases, no other result could
have been expected with any form of treatment. The exception
to which I refer is that of the patient who had the sudden
attacks of reasonless depression. This officer had a healthy
appearance, and would have made light of his disabilities at a
Medical Board. He would certainly have been returned to
duty and sent to France. The result of my line of treatment
was to produce a state of anxiety which led to his leaving the
Army. This result, however, is far more satisfactory than
that which would have followed his return to active service, for
he would inevitably have broken down luider the first stress of
warfare, and might have produced some disaster by failure in a
critical situation or lowered the morale of his unit by committing
suicide.

In conclusion, I must again mention a point to which refer-
ence was made at the beginning of this paper. Because I
advocate the facing of painful memories, and deprecate the
ostrich-like policy of attempting to banish them from the mind,
it must not be thought that I recommend the concentration of
the thoughts on such memories. On the contrary, in my opinion
it is just as harmful to dwell persistently upon painful memories
or anticipations, and brood upon feelings of regret and shame,
as to attempt to banish them wholly from the mind. It is
necessary to be explicit on this matter when dealing with patients.
In a recent case in which I neglected to do so, the absence of
any improvement led me to inquire into the patient's method
of following my advice, and I found that, thinking he could not
have too much of a good thing, he had substituted for the
system of repression he had followed before coming under my
care, one in which he spent the whole day talking, reading, and
thinking of war. He even spent the interval between dinner
and going to bed in reading a book dealing with warfare.

There are also some victims of neurosis, especially the very
young, for whom the horrors of warfare seem to have a peculiar
fascination, so that when the opportunity presents itself they
cannot refrain from talking by the hour about war experiences.

204 APPENDIX III

although they know quite well that it is bad for them to do so.
Here, as in so many other aspects of the treatment of neurosis, we
have to steer a middle course. Just as we prescribe moderation
in exercise, moderation at work and play, moderation in eating,
drinking, and smoking, so is moderation necessary in talking,
reading, and thinking about war experience. Moreover, we
must not be content merely to advise our patients to give up
repression, we must help them by every means in our power to
put this advice into practice. We must show them how to
overcome the difficulties which are put in their way by enfeebled
volition, and by the distortion of their experience due to its
having for long been seen exclusively from some one point of
view. It is only by a process of prolonged re-education that
it becomes possible for the patient to give up the practice of
repressing war experience.

APPENDIX IV

WAR-NEUROSIS AND MILITARY TRAINING ^

Discussions concerning the causation of the war-neuroses
usually deal with two main topics. Either they consider the
predisposition to nervous disorder of those who have broken
down under the shocks and strains of warfare, or they are con-
cerned with the relative shares taken by physical and mental
factors as the immediate antecedents of these failures. In con-
nection with the first topic, various writers have discussed the
part taken by congenital or acquired tendencies to nervous or
mental instability as shown either by family history or by the
occmrrence of nervous troubles before joining the army. Under
the second heading have been considered especially the part
taken by exhaustion, concussion or emotional shock as the
immediate precursors of a nervous or mental collapse, or by
conditions of strain and anxiety which have lowered the resist-
ance of the soldier to the shock or illness which was the im-
mediate antecedent of his failure.

These tw^o topics do not exhaust the causes of war-neurosis.
Between the time that a man joins the army and that at which
he breaks down, he passes through a special experience, very
different from that of any form of civilian life. He is first
subjected to a special training, and when this training has
reached a certain degree of perfection he meets another set of
experiences, perhaps even more remote from those of civil life,
in which he has to perform the military duties he has learned
during his training.

Two separate problems must be distinguished : one, the rela-
tion of military training and the nature of military duties to

' A report to the Medical Research Committee, London. Published in
Mental Hygiene, vol. ii, No. A, pp. 513-533, October 1918.

205

206 APPENDIX IV

the occurrence of neurosis ; the other, the part taken by these
factors in determining the special form which the neurosis takes.
There is Httle question that one of the chief causes of the
great prevalence of nervous disorders in the war is that vast
numbers of men have been called upon to endure hardships and
dangers of unprecedented severity with a quite insufficient
training. There is equally little doubt that the special nature
of the duties involved in trench warfare has taken a large part
in determining the great frequency of neurosis.

It is not, however, the purpose of this report to deal with the
problem of the part taken by military training and military
duties in the causation of neurosis in general. Its aim is to
deal only with the second of the two problems stated above.
For this purpose it is necessary to consider briefly the varieties
of war-neurosis, the main headings under which the almost
infinite variety of its symptoms can be classified.

Excluding from the category of neurosis cases of simple
exhaustion or concussion and disorders of circulation or diges-
tion due to infection, and excluding also definite psychoses,
cases of war-neurosis fall into three main groups, though inter-
mediate and mixed examples are of frequent occurrence.

The first group comprises cases in which the disorder finds
expression in some definite physical form, such as paralysis,
mutism, contracture, blindness, deafness, or other anaesthesia.
The characteristic common to all these symptoms is that they
are such as can be readily produced in hypnotism or other state
in which suggestion is especially potent. I propose later to
consider how far the considerations to be brought forward in
this report help us towards a satisfactory nomenclature. In
the meantime I shall be content to speak of this group as
hysteria, the term by which it was generally known before the
war and one which, in spite of its unsatisfactory character, is
still widely used.

The second group consists of cases in which the disorder shows
itself especially in lack of physical and mental energy, in dis-
orders of sleep and of the circulatory, digestive, and urogenital
systems. On the mental side there is usually depression, rest-

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 207

lessness, irritability and enfeeblement of memory, and on the
physical side tremors, tics, or disorders of speech. This group
is usually known as neurasthenia in this country, but in this
case I shall anticipate the results of my later discussion and
speak of it by the term anxiety-neurosis.

The third group, with which I shall have little to do in this
report, is characterised by the definitely psychical form of its
manifestations. This group comprises a number of different
varieties. In some cases the most obvious symptom is mental
instability and restlessness with alternations of depression and
excitement or exaltation, similar to those of manic-depressive
insanity. In other cases there are morbid impulses of various
kinds, including those towards suicide or homicide. In some
the chief symptoms are obsessions or phobias, while others
suffer from hallucinations or delusions. The special feature of
all these cases is that the symptoms resemble in kind those of
the definite psychoses, but have neither the severity nor the
fixity which makes the seclusion of the patient or any legal
restriction in the management of his affairs necessary.

There is no evidence that the psycho-neuroses of the third
group are especially liable to affect either officers or men, but
the other two groups show a remarkable difference in this
respect which I propose to take as my guide in the treatment
of the subject. The group which I have provisionally labelled
hysteria is especially apt to aff*ect the private soldier. Pure
cases of this kind are rare among officers who, as a rule, only
suffer from this form of disorder as complications of states of
anxiety, or when there is some definite, physical injury to act
as a continuous source of suggestion. Anxiety-neurosis is not
similarly limited to officers, but affects them more frequently,
and usually more profoundly, than the private soldier.

I propose to take this difference in the incidence of the two
chief forms of neurosis as a clue to the better understanding of
the nature of these states. I hope to show that this difference
can be largely explained by differences in the character and
effects of military training and military duties. For this pur-
pose it will be necessary first to state the general theory of the

208 APPENDIX IV

neuroses of warfare upon which my treatment of the subject
will be based. This theory is that the neuroses of war depend
upon a conflict between the instinct of self-preservation and
certain social standards of thought and conduct, according to
which fear and its expression are regarded as reprehensible.
From infancy the influence of parents and teachers is directed
to bring about the repression of any manifestation of fear, and
since the ordinary life of the modern civilised adult rarely
presents any features which come into conflict with the instinct
of self-preservation, this repression meets with little opposition
and rarely produces any serious conflict. The child has many
experiences which tend to call forth the emotion of fear in its
cruder forms, but once adult age is reached, occasions which
tend to produce fear rarely occur, and there is little in the
ordinary life of the modern civilised man which tends to set
up any conflict between the instinct of self-preservation and
acquired social standards.

The business of the soldier, on the other hand, is one which
necessarily brings its follower into the presence of danger, and
as we shall see, one of the chief objects of military training is
to fit the soldier to meet the special assaults upon the instinct
of self-preservation to which his calling will expose him. In
one of the two chief forms of war-neurosis the conflict is solved
by the occurrence of some disability — paralysis, contracture,
mutism or anaesthesia — which, so long as it exists, incapacitates
the patient from further participation in warfare and thus
removes all immediate necessity for conflict between instinct
and duty. Anxiety-neurosis, on the other hand, is a state or
process in which the conflict has not been solved but is unduly
active, the controlling social factors having been weakened by
exhaustion, illness, strain or shock, so that the motives arising
out of the instinct of self-preservation have gained in power,
while in many cases the social factors have produced new
conflicts and causes of anxiety which may be as potent as the
primary conflict with the instinct of self-preservation.

The object of this report is to consider the part taken in this
conflict by the processes of military training and military

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 209

duties, but before considering this, it will be well to inquire
whether the life of officer and man before the war provides any
reason why the two should be affected in different ways by the
strains and shocks of warfare.

One possible cause may be found in difference of general
education. On the whole the officer is more widely educated
than the private soldier ; his mental life is more complex and
varied, and he is therefore less likely to be content with the
crude solution of the conflict between instinct and duty which
is provided by such disabilities as dumbness or the helplessness
of a limb. The histories of officers suffering from anxiety-
neurosis often show the existence of temporary mutism, paralysis
or other functional disability in the early stages of their illness,
but these solutions of their conflict do not satisfy them and
their disabilities speedily disappear, to be replaced sooner or
later by symptoms directly dependent on anxiety.

Another possible cause is to be fomid in the quality of the
education, and especially the school education of officer and man.
Fear and its expression are especially abhorrent to the moral
standards of the public schools at which the majority of officers
have been educated. The games and contests which make up
so large a part of the school curriculum are all directed to
enable the boy to meet without manifestation of fear any
occasion likely to call forth that emotion. The public school
boy enters the army with a long course of training behind him
which enables him successfully to repress, not only expressions
of fear, but also the emotion itself. A similar schooling forms
part of the education of the primary schools whence the majority
of private soldiers have come, but it has been less extensive and
less systematic than in the public boarding schools, though it
is probable that the popularity of certain games has done much
to lessen the difference in recent years.

If the behaviour of the officer and private soldier after they
have become the victims of neurosis is any guide to their
standards before the war, the private soldier has far fewer
scruples about giving expression to his fears, this expression
being both more explicit and less subject to repression.

210 APPENDIX IV

These differences must only be taken in the rough and as
applicable on a large scale, but there is little doubt that the
average private enters upon his military training with less
aversion from the expression of fear than the average officer,
and that his simpler mental training makes him more easily
content than the officer with the crude solution of the conflict
between. instinctive and acquired motives which is provided by
some bodily disability.

The liability of officers and men to different forms of war-
neurosis is thus partly capable of explanation by differences in
the conditions to which they have been exposed before the war.
It is the object of this report to show that these or any other
conditions ^ existing before the soldier joins the army are
greatly assisted by differences in the nature of the training of
officers and men and of the duties which fall to their lot.

I will begin by considering the general aims and character of
military training. Its two chief aims are to fit each individual
soldier to act in harmony with his fellows, and to enable him to
withstand the stresses and trials of warfare. Military training
is designed to enable the soldier to act calmly and methodically
in situations which would naturally tend to upset the balance
of his conduct and in the face of dangers which would arouse the
instinct of self-preservation. Its aim is to free the soldier, not
merely from the danger of succumbing to the collapse of terror
or the blind flight of panic, but also from those minor disturb-
ances of efficiency which are due to apprehensions or to doubts
concerning the issue of a combat. The ideal military training
should bring the soldier into such a state that even the utmost
horrors and rigours of warfare are hardly noticed, so inured is
he to their presence and so absorbed in the immediate task
presented by his military duties.

In carrying out the two chief aims of military training certain
definite agencies are called into play. In fulfilling the first aim
of adapting the soldier to act as one of an aggregate in complete
harmony with its other members, one agency is habituation.

^ Among other possible conditions, those arising out of the influence of
heredity should not be neglected.

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 211

The elementary drill of a soldier consists of processes in which
this agency plays a most important part. The soldier is
thoroughly drilled in certain relatively simple evolutions until
he has acquired the habit of immediate and unreflecting response
to a command by means of which his reactions correspond with
those of all the other members of the aggregate ; all act together
as if there were one mind in common to the whole. The indi-
vidual soldier has to sink his individuality in order to act with-
out hesitation or reflection as one of a section, platoon, company,
battalion, or still larger group. The requirements of modern
warfare are leading to some modification of this mechanical
aspect of military training, but such modification only begins
after the soldier has been subjected to a prolonged course of
drill designed to adapt him to act as one of an aggregate.

An agency working with habituation, and one far more
important from our present point of view, is suggestion.^ The
process by which an individual comes to act promptly and
harmoniously as one of an aggregate is simply one variety of
the process by which individuals come to act as members of
social aggregates in general. A person who is being drilled is
taken from our highly individualistic community, in which
spontaneity and independence are encouraged, and is subjected
to a course of training calculated to produce a state allied to
that of existing communistic peoples or of animals which are
accustomed to act in herds. One result of such a training, if it
be not indeed also its chief aim, is to enhance the responsiveness
of each individual to the influence of his fellows, and the form
which is taken by military training is especially designed to
enhance his responsiveness to those who are immediately above
him in the military hierarchy. From one point of view the
most successful training is one which attains such perfection of
this responsiveness that each individual soldier not merely
reacts at once to the expressed command of his superior, but is
able to divine the nature of a command before it is given and

^ Another process or agency which might be considered here is imita-
tion, but this process is probably only important in military training in so
far as it depends upon suggestion.

212 APPENDIX IV

acts as a member of the group immediately and correctly, even
when the conditions of warfare might produce uncertainty if
he relied entirely on the actual words or definite gestures of
command. The process by which a capacity for such immediate
response comes into being resembles very closely, if it be not
actually identical with, the process we call suggestion. In the
hypnotic state, in which the power and efficacy of suggestion
reach their acme, the individual responds immediately and
without question or hesitation, not merely to the command of
his hypnotiser, but even to a desire or impulse of the hypno-
tiser's mind which is not expressed by speech or obvious gesture.
The resemblance between the two states is so close that there is
little doubt that one result of military training, and especially
that of the more elementary forms of drill, is to enhance the
suggestibility of those who are subjected to the process. It
produces a modification of character which makes the soldier
more immediately responsive to suggestion, whether this emanate
from an individual officer or from the general body of the
group, whether platoon, working-party, company or other body
which forms the aggregate of which he is a member at the
moment.

This enhanced responsiveness is well exemplified in certain
well-known incidents occurring in the army which has carried
the more mechanical aspects of military training to an
extreme length.^ The success of the Captain of Koepenick
could only be possible in an army whose members had through
a special course of training reached such a pitch of responsive-
ness to the commands of one in uniform that they obeyed
without question the ludicrous orders of a cobbler.

The other aim of military training, which especially touches
the liability to different forms of neurosis, is to fit the soldier to
withstand the trials and stresses of warfare. One of the chief
instruments by which this aim is met is that already considered,

^ Ferenczi (see Contributions to Psycho- Analysis, Boston, Badger, 1916,
p. 68) has incidentally alluded to the similarity between the command of
an officer and the suggestion of a hypnotist. He records liow during his
military service he saw an infantryman instantaneously fall asleep at his
lieutenant's command.

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 213

which makes the individual soldier act as a member of the
aggregate to which he belongs in a closer sense than holds good
in civil life. This does away with or diminishes greatly the
tendency of any one individual in the group to react to fear or
other emotional state in a wav which would interfere with his
military competence. In carrying out the aim of adapting the
individual soldier to withstand the dangers of warfare, the first
instrument is identical with that by which his actions come to
be performed with the requisite immediacy and harmony. I
have now to consider the other processes by which the soldier
collectively is assisted to withstand the stresses of warfare.
These processes bring into action two chief agencies, repression
and sublimation.

In considering the process of repression in its relation to
military training, two varieties must be distinguished. In the
first variety an attempt is made to thrust some part of the
mental content, some feeling, thought, memory or sentiment,
from consciousness. In the second variety the effort is directed
rather to the repression of the outAvard expression of some
mental state, especially of feeling or emotion. There is no
hard and fast line between these two forms. One who en-
deavours to control the expression of an emotion will also try
to banish from his mind thoughts or memories likely to call
the emotion forth. Since, however, it is the expression of an
emotion which is appreciated by others, the repression of the
outward manifestation bulks more largely in the process in so
far as it is a feature of military training. There are probably
great individual differences in the way in which different persons
treat the conscious elements of the mental content in their
efforts to subdue their outward expression. As I have pointed
out elsewhere,^ repression forms a necessary part of all educa-
tion and adaptation to social life. Perhaps the most important
feature of the repression of military training is the relatively
late period of life at which it takes place. The older a person
is, the more difficult it becomes for him to give up habitual
modes of thought and action. It is where repression is

1 S«e Appendix III.

214 APPENDIX IV

incomplete and is the source of persistent mental conflict that
it becomes a factor in the production and maintenance of
neurosis. If the repression which forms part of military train-
ing is complete, it probably helps greatly towards the success
of the repression which will become necessary when the soldier
enters upon active service, but if it is incomplete, so that the
soldier enters upon active service accompanied by the active
conflicts so aroused, his success in the necessary repression of
warfare will be prejudiced.

During military training much may be done, especially by
means of games, to exercise the repression of fear and its
expression, but during this part of his training other kinds of
repression are more in evidence. In order to act as one of the
aggregate to which he now belongs, the recruit has to repress
any tendencies to individual action which would interfere, or
are supposed by military tradition to interfere, with efficiency,
and failure of these repressions has much to do with the
production of war-neurosis. Thus, a frequent factor in the
production of war-neurosis is the necessity for the restraint of
the expression of sentiments of dislike or disrespect for those
of superior rank, and these restraints become particularly
trying when those who are disliked or despised are the
instruments by which the many restrictions of military life
are imposed or enforced.

When the soldier is brought into contact with actual warfare,
a new set of repressions come into action. It may become
necessary to control and inhibit the expressions of emotion
consequent upon the dangers of warfare. In some persons,
especially those already well schooled in such repression, this
process seems to take place with no obvious conflict, but in
many cases the necessity for such repression is continually
present, while in a far larger number this necessity comes
into existence as the result of strain, the presence of a con-
flict in this respect being in many cases the first symptom of
his abnormal state that the soldier notices. He may notice
that whereas at one time he was hardly aware of shelling or
other incident of warfare, he now tends to duck his head or

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 215

perform some other involuntary movement whenever the noise
of a shell is heard, thus betraying the presence of a conflict.
A state in which such a tendency persists and requires continual
repression is one of the most frequent forms taken by the early
stage of war-neurosis.

When the soldier has been in the trenches for some time, a
new necessity for repression may arise and may affect those who
have not previously found it necessary to repress fears or appre-
hension, or in whom such repression, in so far as it has been
present, has aroused no conflict. The soldier may undergo
some particularly trying experience ; some disgusting sight, or
the death and mutilation of a friend, or other experience may
be so painful that it continually intrudes itself upon him while
he unavailingly strives to banish it from his mind.

The last agency to be considered is that made up by sublim-
ation and side-tracking. To the soldier these words may be
strange, but not so the processes which they denote. By sublim-
ation is meant a process in which an instinctive tendency,
more or less fostered by experience, which would normally find
expression in some kind of undesirable conduct, has its energy
directed into a channel in which it comes to have a positive
social value. By side-tracking we mean a process in which the
energy so diverted acquires no special social value, but is
altogether harmless, or at any rate less harmful to the welfare
of the individual and community than that expression in which
the energy would otherwise find its outlet.

One of the simplest and most frequent forms of side-tracking
is the oath. The "strange oaths" or other forms of lurid
language of the soldier are nothing but the relatively innocent
means by which an outlet is given to superfluous energy. The
form of energy which is perhaps most frequently thus released
is that arising out of the repressions which form part of
military training. Another form of side-tracking is to be
found in the conviviality and relative freedom from restraint
in certain directions which form so frequent an accompaniment
to the life of the soldier.

One of the chief means of diverting spare energy, however

216 APPENDIX IV

this may be produced, takes the form of games and athletic
competitions. Since these are of definite military value, they
must be regarded as a means of sublimation. These exercises
do not merely train the mind and body and thus add to the
efficiency of the soldier, but they also have the most important
function of utilising spare energy, whether derived from the
activity of suppressed complexes or the product of some more
healthy process.

A most important instrument of sublimation is to be found
in the development of esprit de corps. There is thus produced
a body of sentiments which contribute greatly to military
efficiency, while at the same time they provide a most valuable
means of sublimating energy which might otherwise work in
the opposite direction.

In the old army the chief vehicle of esprit de corps was the
regiment. The regular British soldier of the days before the
war was above everything a member of the regiment. The
honour and welfare of his regiment formed one of his chief
interests, and the desire that he might do nothing to tarnish
this honour or prejudice this welfare stood forth prominently
among the means which enabled him to withstand trials and
dangers.

This esprit de corps of the old army was chiefly bound up
with the institution of " long service." A soldier spent years,
including the most impressionable of his life, in one regiment,
with the other members of which he came to have relations of
comradeship which were even more efficacious as a protective
against fear or other emotion than motives arising out of the
more abstract sentiments of honour and duty.

These features of the process of military sublimation have
been much changed in the more recent history of the British
army, especially during the war, but these changes have only
modified the process and have not changed its essential character.
They have affected the nature of the unit with which the esprit
de corps is associated, the spirit embodied in the regiment or
the company being now attached to the battalion or platoon,
or other unit which has been brought into existence by the

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 217

exigencies of warfare. The old spirit based on long years of
comradeship has during the present war been replaced by one
based on the sharing of common hardships and dangers.

More important than either esprit de corps in the strict sense,
or the camaraderie which is so closely associated with it, is the
special relation existing between officers and men. Anyone
having much to do with those who have taken part in the
fighting of the war must have been struck by the extraordinary
manner in which an officer, perhaps only just fresh from school,
has come to stand in a relation to his men more nearly re-
sembling that of father and son than any other kind of relation-
ship. It seems clear that different battalions show the incidence
of neurosis in very different degrees, and this is probably due
more than anything else to the nature of the relations between
officers and men by which the private soldier acquires towards
his officer sentiments of duty and trust, while the officer is
actuated, it may be dominated, by interest which could not be
greater if those under his command were his own children.

This brief sketch of the aims and methods of military train-
ing has led me to distinguish three main processes — suggestion,
repression and sublimation, while others of less importance in
relation to neurosis are habituation and side-tracking. I can
now consider how those different factors will affect officers and
men respectively. The heightening of suggestibility, though
probably an inevitable result of any kind of military training,
is pre-eminently one which affects the private soldier. It is the
private soldier especially who is submitted to prolonged mechani-
cal drill and is continually subject to the commands of others,
while the officer is not only less fully drilled, but the periods in
which he is subject to the commands of others are relieved by
other periods in which he is the dispenser of commands and
orders.

Sublimation, on the other hand, has more effect on the officer.
It is doubtful how far the honour and welfare of the i-egiment
or other unit appeals to the private soldier in general, though it is
perhaps almost, if not quite, as definite among the non-commis-
sioned as among the commissioned officers of the old army. In

218 APPENDIX IV

the new army, it probably means little or nothing to the ordinary
soldier, in whose case any sublimation due to military training
has its source in comradeship or in his feelings of respect and
duty towards his officers, and especially towards either his
platoon- or company-commander. It is because the aggregate
with which he acts is composed of men with whom he has shared
hardships and dangers, with many of whom he has become com-
rade and friend, that this aggregate comes to have an influence
upon him, while in other cases the relation towards his officer is
more important. In each case, however, the result is the
production of a state of dependence which works in the same
direction as the factor of suggestibility already considered. The
point of especial importance in relation to the incidence of
neurosis is that the fact of comradeship to some extent, and far
more the state of dependence on his officer, diminish the senti-
ment of responsibility and thus tend to enhance suggestibility
or, perhaps more correctly, work in the same direction as
suggestibility. In the case of the officer, on the other hand,
the relation towards his men brings with it responsibilities
which are perhaps more potent than any other element of his
experience in determining the form taken by his nervous dis-
order, if he should break down. It is these responsibilities and
other conditions associated with them which lead to his being
so especially prone to suffisr from the state of anxiety-
neurosis.

The third main factor, repression, is very important in relation
to the incidence of diffisrent forms of neurosis in officers and
men. The officer is driven by his position to repress the
expression of emotion far more persistently than the private
soldier. It is the special duty of the junior officer to set an
example in this respect to his men, to encourage those who show
signs of giving way. In the proper performance of this duty, it
is essential that the officer shall appear calm and unconcerned in
the midst of danger. The difficulty of keeping up this appear-
ance after long-continued strain or after some shock of warfare
has lessened the power of control, produces a state of persistent
anxiety which is the most frequent and potent factor in the

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 219

production of neurosis, and is especially important in determin-
ing the special form it takes. The private soldier has to think
only or chiefly of himself ; he has not to bear with him continu-
ally the thought that the lives of forty or fifty men are imme-
diately, and of many more remotely, dependent on his success
in controlling any expression of fear or apprehension.

A factor of minor importance, but one which is nevertheless
worth mentioning here, is that the officer is less free to employ
the picturesque or sulphurous language which is one of the
instruments by which the Tommy finds a safety valve for
repressed emotion.

The preceding argument has led us to the conclusions that of
tlie three main agencies upon which the success of military
training depends, one, suggestion, is especially potent and
prominent in the case of the private, while the other two,
sublimation and repression, have by far the greatest effect in the
case of the officer. One of the chief results of military training
is to increase the suggestibility of the private, and this increased
tendency in one direction is but little counteracted by sublima-
tion or complicated by the necessity for vigorous repression.
The factor of sublimation may even tend to enhance his depend-
ence and suggestibility. In the case of the officer, any increase
of suggestibility produced by his training is largely compen-
sated by the necessity for individual and spontaneous action,
while the esprit de corps and other means of sublimation only
tend in many cases to heighten his sense of responsibility and
thus add still another cause for his anxieties. There are many
officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, to whom the
honour of the regiment or battalion is quite as potent as
responsibility for the lives of others in producing the state of
anxiety which forms the essential element in the production of
their neurosis.

I have now considered how far the different forms of war-
neurosis can be traced to the influence of military training and
the nature of military duties. It is gradually becoming apparent,
however, that the conditions of military training and active
service are very far from exhausting the factors by which war-

220 APPENDIX IV

neurosis is produced. A large part, perhaps even a majority of
the prolonged cases of functional nervous disorders which fill our
hospitals, can be traced directly to circumstances which have
come into being after some shock, illness, or perhaps only the
ordinary process of leave, has removed the soldier from the
actual scene of warfare. I have now to inquire how far
the influence of military training and the nature of military
duties assist in producing the neurosis of the hospital and the
home.

Histories of cases of war-neurosis show that officers after some
shock or illness often suffer for a time from those symptoms
which I have ascribed to suggestion, but whether owing to
treatment or spontaneous change, these symptoms soon dis-
appear. It may be that the failure to be content with a simple
but crude solution of a conflict which satisfies the private soldier
is due to superior education, but the nature of his training and
duties also contribute to this result. If the disability were the
unwitting outcome of a conflict between the instinct of self-
preservation and a simple conception of military duty, it might
suffice to be paralysed or mute, but if the morbid state depends
primarily upon sentiments of responsibility towards his military
unit or his comrades, such a solution is not likely to satisfy his
nature long. His conflict differs from that of the private soldier
in that it is founded largely upon acquired experience rather
than upon instinctive trends. It is more actively conscious than
the process which has produced a paralysis or mutism. These
disabilities fail altogether to touch the special anxieties which
have taken the foremost place in the production of his illness.

In the state of weakened volition produced by shock or
exhaustion it seems to the officer impossible that he will ever
again be able to exert the vigour of control and initiative which
alone enabled him to maintain the upper hand in the conflict of
the trenches, and with this realisation, the former conflict is
replaced by one still more painful and enervating, in which
sentiments of duty struggle ineffectually against a conviction of
unfitness.

In this conflict military training and duty take a most

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 221

important place. There are many officers whose conflict would
be solved, or would never have existed, if it were merely a matter
of personal safety. It is the knowledge, born of long experience,
that the honour of their military unit and the safety of their
comrades depend on their efficiency which forms by far the most
potent factor in the production or maintenance of anxiety states.
To the private soldier, devoid of such responsibilities, the mere
solicitude about his safety forms a less potent motive for conflict,
and one which is more easily solved. Once the disability due to
suggestion has disappeared spontaneously or by treatment, there
may be no obvious conflict left. The instinct of self-preserva-
tion, to which his disability has been essentially due, will of
course still be there ready to reassert itself if the occasion arise,
but any conscious conflict is so readily solved in accordance with
obvious standards of social conduct that there is no opening for
the occurrence of a state of anxiety sufficiently profound to act
as the basis of neurosis.

The conclusion reached in the preceding pages is that the
private soldier is especially apt to succumb to that form of
neurosis which closely resembles the effects produced by hypnot-
ism or other form of suggestion, because his military training
has been of a kind to enhance his suggestibility. The officer,
on the other hand, is less prone to this form of neurosis and
falls a victim to it only when there is some organic injury which
acts as a continuous source of suggestion. On the other hand
the officer is especially liable to anxiety-neurosis, because the
nature of his duties especially puts him into positions of
responsibility which produce or accentuate mental conflicts set
up by repression, thus producing states of anxiety, the form
taken by his nervous disorder. It will now be well to inquire
whether this relation of military training and duties to the form
of neurosis points the way to any practical conclusions. Several
aspects may be considered here : nomenclature, prophylaxis, and
treatment.

The nomenclature of functional nervous disorders is at present
in a very unsatisfactory state. Cases of paralysis, contracture,
anaesthesia or convulsive seizures, which provide the most strik-

222 APPENDIX IV

ing manifestations of functional nervous disorder, were once
universally known under the name of hysteria, because they
seemed to be especially apt to aft'ect women. The words
" hysteria " and "hysterical" acquired a meaning which made
their use inconvenient for many purposes, and they were gradu-
ally replaced in practice by the term " functional," at any rate
in this country. This term, however, has so wide an application
as to make it of little scientific or practical value. Used origin-
ally as a means of avoiding the word " hysteria," it has become a
label for a large number of morbid states differing widely from
one another in nature, and calling for very different forms of
treatment.

Another functional syndrome which is widely recognised is
neurasthenia. Even before the war, however, this term was
being used in so wide a sense that it was becoming every year of
less value, and it has now lost the last remnants of any scientific
value it once possessed by its adoption as the official designation
of the army for all forms of functional nervous disorder. A
third term, psychasthenia, has been used in most textbooks of
medicine, but in a very unsatisfactory sense. The cases usually
called neurasthenia present signs of mental as well as of bodily
enfeeblement, and if the term " psychasthenia " had been used
for those cases in which mental exhaustion is especially promi-
nent, there might have been some sense in its use. The term
has been used, however, for cases of obsession, phobia and
compulsion in which there is often no sign of general mental
exhaustion, cases differing from the so-called neurasthenia in
the special direction taken by mental energy rather than in any
defect in its amount. All the old terms being thus unsatis-
factory for one reason or another, it becomes necessary to find a
wholly new nomenclature.

Babinski ^ has recently proposed pithiatism, a word derived
from the Greek term for persuasion, as a substitute for hysteria.
This term has been especially chosen to distinguish the cases
formerly called hysteria from other similar states on which per-

^ See J. Babinski and J. Froment, Hysteria or Pithiatism, and Reflex
Nervous Disorders. London : University of London Press, 1918.

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 223

suasion has no effect. Babinski has been influenced in his choice
of the word by the need for a term to distinguish functional
from organic paralyses, especially from the reflex paralysis in
which Babinski is especially interested. Through this special
interest he has been led to ignore the large group of functional
nervous disorders which are especially open to the influence of
persuasion, but yet differ fundamentally in nature from the cases
which the term pithiatism is especially intended to denote. It
is also unusual, and hardly satisfactory, to denote a disease on
the basis of a feature of its therapy. It will be much more
satisfactory if it is possible to find a term based on the setiological
rather than the therapeutical aspect of the syndrome.

One term of this kind which has been used by Freud and his
followers is " conversion-neurosis."" The use of this term is
based on a definite theory, according to which the paralysis or
other affection is held to be the outward manifestation of some
underlying unconscious tendency which thus finds a more or less
dramatic expression. The paralysis, contracture or convulsive
seizure is regarded as the product of a process of conversion
whereby the energy of some unconscious process is transformed
into, and finds expression in, one or more of these symptoms.
Partly because the term implies a theory which all will not be
ready to accept, but still more because there are other patho-
logical states to which the term would be equally appropriate,
it is improbable that this term will find general acceptance.
Since it is generally conceded that these functional paralyses,
contractures and other manifestations closely resemble, if they
be not identical with, the products of suggestion, it would seem
that suggestion-neurosis ^ might be an appropriate term. If I
am right in my view that the special prevalence of these states
in the private soldier is due to his enhanced suggestibility, this
term becomes still more appropriate. The term has the advan-
tage that its meaning is at once obvious and does not require
recourse to the dictionary. Suggestion, being a common English

^ I leave this proposal in the text of this Appendix, though I prefer the
terra " substitution-neurosis," founded on the pathology of the state which
I have put forward in Chapter XVI.

224 APPENDIX IV

word, is very unlikely to acquire the inconvenient associations
which have become attached to hysteria. Suggestion-neurosis
not only carries its meaning on the surface, but this meaning is
one which points directly to an essential feature of the state
it denotes.

For the other chief form of functional nervous disorder no
more appropriate term can be found than that which I have
used in this report. The meaning of anxiety-neurosis is also at
once apparent. It indicates in direct fashion that anxiety
is both the main factor in causation and at the same time one
of the leading symptoms. The only disadvantage of the term
is that it has been used by Freud and his followers in a some-
what narrower sense than that given to it in this report and in
the work of MacCurdy ^ and other writers on war-neurosis. The
Freudian usage has, however, had so little effect on the general
body of medical practice that this disadvantage is not very
great, and the usage now proposed only involves such widening
of the connotation of the term as we might expect to be the
result of the experience derived from the war.

Anxiety -neurosis is so often accompanied by repression, and
so many of its symptoms can be ascribed to this aetiological
factor, that repression-neurosis might seem to afford an altern-
ative term. There are, however, many cases of anxiety-
neurosis in which repression is not present or is of little
importance. In many cases even the opposed process of dwell-
ing too exclusively on the causes of anxiety is in action, so that
the use of repression-neurosis would make still another term
necessary. It will therefore be more convenient to speak of
anxiety-neurosis with or without repression, although in some
cases repression is so prominent as to make repression-neurosis
a useful term. If this term is used, however, it must be
remembered that the state denoted is only one variety of
anxiety-neurosis.

If there is any truth in the foregoing scheme of the influence
of military training and duties in the production of the different
forms of war-neurosis, it is evident that much might be done in
1 War Neuroses, Cambridge, 1918.

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 225

the way of prevention. If the special tendency of the private
soldier to suffer from suggestion-neurosis is due to the effect of
military training in heightening his suggestibility, it will follow
that this training should be carefully reviewed with the aim of
modifying those of its features which tend especially to produce
this result. It is probable that the necessary changes would
correspond closely with those already made necessary by the
nature of modem warfare. The encouragement of independence
and the less mechanical training which is following the multi-
plication of the means of warfare should have as one of
their consequences a lessening of the tendency to heighten
suggestibility, and should therefore diminish the occurrence
of suggestion-neurosis.

Much could be done in the prevention of anxiety-neurosis if
the commanding officer and the battalion medical officer were
alive to the conditions upon which this state depends. If they
worked together to utilise this knowledge, many a young
subaltern and non-commissioned officer would be saved during
the early stages of his disorder by rest or appropriate change of
occupation and brought back to health and peace of mind.
Such measures are adopted at the present time, but often not
until anxiety has produced a state of obvious unfitness, so that
the period of rest or change prescribed is quite inadequate to
restore stability. If the nature and causation of anxiety-
neurosis were more fully understood, it would be possible to
intervene at an earlier stage and save many a valuable career,
for the victims of this form of neurosis often suffer through excess
of zeal and too heavy a sense of responsibility and are likely
to be the most valuable officers.

Another line in which much might be done towards the
prevention of anxiety-neurosis is suggested by the part which
repression takes in the production of this state. If the soldier
were taught the dangers of repression from the outset of his
career, he would be less likely to adopt a course which may only
postpone a breakdown to make it far more severe whenever it
comes. The influence of repression in the production and
maintenance of anxiety-neurosis suggests that from the begin-
Q

226 APPENDIX IV

ning of his training the soldier should be encouraged boldly to
face in imagination the dangers and horrors which lie before
him. A most successful officer has told nie how in the early
days of the war he encouraged his men to " think horribly," to
accustom themselves in imagination to the utmost rigours and
horrors of warfare, with the result that they were highly
successful in bearing the exceptional trials of the Gallipoli
campaign. It is difficult to gauge how far this success was due
to the course advised and how far to other conditions arising out
of the personality of the officer who advised it, but the experi-
ence suggests that much might be done in this direction. We
can at least be sure that a soldier who steadfastly refuses to face
in imagination the trials that lie before him is very unlikely to
cope successfully with the reality. Many of those who pass
unscathed through modern warfare do so because of the slug-
gishness of their imaginations, but if imagination is active and
powerful, it is probably far better to allow it to play around the
trials and dangers of warfare than to carry out a prolonged
system of repression by which morbid energy may be stored so
as to form a kind of dump ready to explode on the occurrence of
some mental shock or bodily illness.

If the argument of this report is sound, that the cases of
functional nervous disorder hitherto labelled hysteria are largely
due to suggestion and depend on the enhanced suggestibility of
the private soldier, it might seem at first sight the obvious
course to make use of this heightened suggestibility in the
treatment, and to use suggestion, either with or without the
production of hypnotic state. If, however, suggestion be used
in the ordinary crude way to remove symptoms, this line of
treatment will only tend still further to heighten the suggesti-
bility of the patient and to increase the tendency to similar
disorders whenever he returns to the field. If at the time that
the symptoms are removed, suggestions are given against the
occurrence of similar disabilities in the future, more could be
said for this line of treatment, but this of course would not
affect the heightened suggestibility which is the root of the evil.

The argument of this report points rather to a course in

WAR-NEUROSIS & MILITARY TRAINING 227

which treatment should be directed to lessen the suggestibility
by a process of re-education. This process should be so designed
as to make the soldier understand the nature of the disorder
which has afflicted him. He should be made to realise the
essentially mental basis of his trouble and be thus put into a
position in which, even if the disability recurs, he will not long
be satisfied with it as a solution of the situation. This line of
treatment has the disadvantage that it sometimes succeeds in
doing away with the paralysis or other symptoms only to replace
the physical disability by a state of anxiety ; but a soldier in
whom the conflict between the instinct of self-preservation and
duty is so pronounced as to lead to this result is very unlikely
to show any more real success if treated by suggestion. Here,
however, as in so many other departments of psychotherapy in
connection with the war, we are hampered by our almost total
ignorance concerning the after-history of soldiers who have been
subjected to different modes of treatment. It is possible that
there are sufferers from suggestion-neurosis who are capable of
long and valuable service if the symptoms due to suggestion are
treated by means similar to those by which they have been
produced.

In cases of anxiety-neurosis the lines of causation considered
in this report offer less help in treatment than in prevention.
The knowledge of the process by which his state has been
produced often greatly helps a patient, especially in removing
or diminishing depression, or even shame, consequent upon
failure. If he can be brought to see that his illness is the
outcome of definite agencies over which he has had no control,
or has been due to excess rather than defect in certain good
qualities, the symptoms may be greatly relieved and the patient
set upon a path which, if the exigencies of military service allow,
may enable him again to perform his military duties. The
knowledge of causation set forth in this report is useful in thus
providing a groundwork for the process of re-education.

APPENDIX V

FREUD'S CONCEPTION OF THE "CENSORSHIP"

According to Freud, the unconscious is guarded by an
entity working within the region of the unconscious, upon
which it exerts a controlling and selective action. It checks
those elements of unconscious experience which by their un-
pleasant nature would disturb their possessor if they were
allowed to reach his consciousness, and if it permits these to
pass, sees that they appear in such a guise that their nature
will not be recognised.

In sleep, according to Freud, this censorship allows much to
reach the sleeping consciousness, but as a rule distorts it so
that it appears only in a symbolic form and with so apparently
meaningless a character that the comfort of the sleeper is not
affected. Or, the process may perhaps be more correctly ex-
pressed as a selective action which only allows experience to
pass when it has assumed this guise.

In the waking state the censorship is held to be even more
active, or rather more efficient. It only allows unconscious
experience to escape in the form of slips of the tongue or pen
or to show its influence in apparently motiveless acts which,
owing to the complete failure of the agent to recognise their
nature, in no way interfere with the efficiency of the censorship.

There is no question that this concept of a censorship, acting
as a guardian of a person against such elements of unconscious
experience as would disturb the harmony of his life, is one which
helps us to understand many of the more mysterious aspects of
the mind. Such a process of censorship would account for a
number of experiences which at first sight seem so strange and

228

CONCEPTION OF THE ' CENSORSHIP ' 229

irrational that most students have been content to regard them
as the products of chance, and as altogether inexplicable. It
is only his thoroughgoing belief in determinism as applied to
the sphere of mind which has not allowed Freud to be content
with such explanation, or negation of explanation, and has led
him to his concept of the censorship.

There are many, however, prepared to go far with Freud in
their adherence to his scheme of psychology, who yet find it
difficult to accept a concept which involves the working within
the unconscious of an agency so wholly in the pattern of the
conscious as is the case with Freud's censorship. The concept
is based on analogy with a highly complex and specialised
social institution, the endopsychic censorship being supposed to
act in the same way as the official whose business it is to control
the press and allow nothing to reach the community which will,
in his opinion, disttirb the harmony of its existence.

It would be more satisfactory if the controlling agency which
the facts need could be expressed in some other form. Since
the process which has to be explained takes place within the
region of unconscious experience, or at least on its confines, we
might expect to find the appropriate mode of expression in a
physiological rather than a sociological parallel. It is to
physiology rather than to sociology that we should look for the
clue to the nature of the process by which a person is guarded
from such elements of his unconscious experience as might
disturb the harmony of his existence.

It is now generally admitted that the nervous system, in so
far as function is concerned, is arranged in a number of levels,
one above another, forming a hierarchy in which each level
controls those beneath it and is itself controlled by those above.
If we assume a similar organisation of unconscious experience,
we should have a number of levels in which experience belonging
to adult life would occupy a position higher than that taken by
the experience of youth, and this again would stand above the
experience of childhood and infancy. A level of more recently
acquired experience would control one going back to an earlier
period of life, and any intermediate level would control and be

280 APPENDIX V

controlled according to its place in the time-order in which it
came into existence.

Moreover, the levels would not merely differ in the nature of
the material of which they are composed, the lowest level ^
being a storehouse of the experience of infancy, the next of the
experience of childhood, and so on.^ Much more important
would be that character of the hierarchy according to which
each level preserves in its mode of action the characteristics of
the mentality in which it has its origin. Thus, the level of
infancy would preserve the infantile methods of feeling, thinking
and acting, and when this level became active in sleeping or
waking life, its manifestations would take the special form
characteristic of infancy. Similarly, the level recording the
forgotten experience of youth would, when it found expression,
reveal any special modes of mentality which belong to youth.

I have now to inquire how far this concept that higher levels
of adult experience, acting according to the manner of adult
life, control lower levels of infantile and youthful experience,
acting according to the manner of infancy and youth, is capable
of forming the basis of a scheme by means of which we may
explain those facts of the sleeping and waking life which Freud
refers to the action of his endopsychic censorship.

I will begin by considering dreams, the special form in which
experience becomes manifest in sleep. There is much reason to
believe that the dream has the characters of infancy ; not so
much that its material is derived from the experience of infancy,
but rather that any experience which finds expression in the
dream is moulded according to the forms of feeling, thought
and action proper to infancy. This character of the dream
finds a natural explanation if its appearance in consciousness is
simply due to the removal in sleep of higher controlling levels,
so that the lower levels with their infantile modes of expression

^ I leave on one side for the present the possibility that there may be a
still lower level derived from inherited experience of the race. If there
be such a level, we must suppose that this is controlled by the acquired
experience of the individual.

^ It must be noted that these levels, like those of the nervous system,
are not discontinuous^ but pass into one another by insensible gradations.

CONCEPTION OF THE ' CENSORSHIP ' 231

come to the surface and are allowed to manifest themselves in
their natural guise. The phantastic and irrational character of
the dream would not be due to any elaborate process of dis-
tortion, carried out by an agency partaking of a demonic
character. It would be rather the direct consequence of the
coming into activity of modes of behaviour which in the ordinary
state are held in check by levels embodying the experience of
later life.

It will be well at this stage of the argument to state as
exactly as possible how the view I now put forward differs from
that of Freud. This writer supposes that his " censorship " is
a process which has come into being as a means of protecting a
sleeper from influences which would awake him. So far as I
understand Freud, the distortion of the latent content of the
dream is a result of the activity of the censorship. It is a
transformation designed to elude this activity. I suppose, on
the other hand, that the form in which the latent content of
the dream manifests itself depends on something inherent in the
experience which forms this latent content or inherent in the
mode of activity by which it is expressed. If the controlling
influences derived from the experience of later life are removed,
the experience finding expression in the dream must take the
form proper to it, and would do so quite regardless of its influ-
ence upon the comfort of the sleeper and the duration of his
sleep. I do not deny that the infantile form in which uncon-
scious or subconscious experience reveals itself in dreams may
be useful in promoting or maintaining sleep, but if there be
such utility, it is a secondary aspect of the process. It is even
possible that this protective and defensive function may be a
factor which has assisted the survival of the dream as a feature
of mental activity, but the character of the dream is primarily
the result of the way in which the mind has been built up. It
is a consequence of the fact that early modes of mental function-
ing have not been scrapped when more efficient modes have
come into existence, but have been utilised in so far as they are
of service, and suppressed in so far as they are useless.^ I
1 Cf. Brit. Journ. Psych. , vol. ix. (1918), p. 242.

282 APPENDIX V

suppose that the general mode in which the mind has developed
is of the same order as that now generally acknowledged to
have characterised the development of the nervous system, and
that the special character of the dream is the direct result of
that mode of development. As a by-product of this special
development the dream may have acquired a useful function in
protecting the sleeper from experience by which he would be
disturbed, but in his concept of the censorship, Freud has
unduly emphasised this protective function. His view of the
endopsychic censorship with its highly anthropomorphic colour-
ing tends to obscure the essential character of the dream as a
product of a general principle of the development of mind.

I can now pass to other activities ascribed to the censorship
by Freud. The phenomena of the waking life which need
consideration are of two chief kinds. First, slips of the tongue
or pen, apparently inexplicable examples of forgetting, and
other similar processes which have been considered by Freud
in his book on The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. The
other group which needs explanation is made up of those
definitely pathological processes which occur in the psycho-
neuroses, for the explanation of which Freud has called upon
his concept of the censorship.

I propose on this occasion to accept, without discussion,
Freud's view that such processes as slips of the tongue or pen
are the expression of tendencies lying beneath the ordinary
level of waking consciousness. My object is not to dispute this
part of his scheme of the unconscious, but to inquire whether
such a scheme as I have suggested may not explain these slips
in a way more satisfactory than one according to which they
occur, owing to momentary lapses of vigilance on the part of
a guardian watching at the threshold of consciousness.

The special character of slips of the tongue or pen is that a
word which would be appropriate as the expression of some
unconscious or subconscious trend of thought intrudes into a
sentence expressing a thought with which it has no obvious
connection, thus producing an irrational and nonsensical character
similar to that of the dream. If it is true, and that it is so

CONCEPTION OF THE ' CENSORSHIP ' 233

seems to me to stand beyond all doubt, that underlying the
orderly and logical trains of thought which make up our
manifest consciousness, there are systems of organised experience
embodying early phases of thought, and still earlier mental
constructions which hardly deserve the name of thought, it is
necessary that these lower strata should be held in some kind of
check. Consistent thought and action would be impossible if
there were continual and open conflict between the latest
developments of our thought and earlier phases, phases, for
instance, belonging to a time when, through the influence of
parents and teachers, opinions were held directly contrary to
those reached by the individual experience of later life. The
earlier systems may and do influence the later thoughts, but the
orderly expression of these later thoughts in speech, spoken or
written, would be impossible unless the earlier systems were
under some sort of control.

In so far as they are explicable on Freudian lines, slips of the
tongue or pen seem to depend on two main factors ; one, the
excitation in some way of the suppressed or repressed body of
experience which finds expression in the slip ; the other,
weakening of control by fatigue or impaired health of the
speaker or writer. A suppressed body of experience ("com-
plex") is especially, or perhaps only, liable to intrude into the
speech by which other thoughts are being expressed when there
has been some recent experience tending to call into activity the
buried memory, while this expression is definitely assisted by
weakening of the inhibiting factors due to fatigue or illness.
Such a process is perfectly natural as a simple failure of balance
between controlled and controlling systems of experience, the
temporary success of the controlled system being due either to
increase of its activity, or weakening of the controlling forces,
or both combined. It is not so clear that it accords with the
protective influence ascribed by Freud to the censorship. The
slips of tongue or pen may be quite as trying and annoying as
the suppressed experience out of which they arise. There is no
such useful function as the guardianship of sleep, which is
ascribed by Freud to the censorship of the dream.

284 APPENDIX V

Another kind of experience fits better with Freud's concept
of the censorship. The forgetting of experience when it is
unpleasant or is a condition of some dreaded activity, of which
such striking examples have been given by Freud,^ definitely
protects the comfort, at any rate the immediate comfort, of the
person who forgets. The examples seem capable of explana-
tion by the concept of a guardian watching at the threshold of
consciousness. At the same time they are not immediately
explicable as the result of a mechanism by which more lately
acquired control more ancient systems of experience. They
seem to involve a definite activity on the part of the controlling
mechanism, which is not inaptly designated by the simile of a
censorship. In the case of the dream I have pointed out that,
if the scheme I propose be a true expression of the facts, we
should expect that the controlling factors would sometimes
acquire a useful function. This useful function need not be
inherent in the process of development which brought the
mechanism of control into existence. Just as there are certain
features of the dream and certain kinds of dream which lend
definite support to Freud's concept of the censorship, 'so the
forgetting of experience which would lead to unpleasant action
is a phenomenon which might be explained by the activity of a
process similar to a censorship. Such a concept as that of the
censorship, however, should explain and bring into relation with
one another all the facts. If it only explains some of the facts,
it becomes probable that the process of censorship is a secondary
process, a later addition to one which has a more deeply-seated
origin.

The other group of phenomena of the waking life, for the
explanation of which Freud has had recourse to the concept of
the censorship, consists of the psycho-neuroses, and especially
that characterised by the mimetic representation of morbid
states which is generally known as hysteria. A sufferer from
this disease is one who, being troubled by some mental conflict,
finds relief in a situation where the conflict is solved by the
occurrence of some disability, such as paralysis, contracture, or
^ Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

CONCEPTION OF THE ' CENSORSHIP ' 235

mutism, a disability which makes it impossible for him to
perform acts which a more healthy solution of his conflict would
involve. The mimetic character of hysteria is definite, and the
school of Freud has recognised the resemblance of the patho-
logical process underlying it to the dramatisation and symboli-
sation of the dream. The disease is regarded as a means of
manifesting motives belonging to the unconscious, in such a
manner that the sufferer does not recognise their nature and is
content with the solution of the difficulty which the hysterical
symptoms provide. According to Freud, the role of the
censorship in this case is to distort the process by which the
unconscious or subconscious manifests itself so that its nature
shall not be recognised by the patient. This process is so
successful that as a rule the patient not only succeeds in
deceiving himself, but also those with whom he is associated.
On the lines suggested in this paper, the concept of a censorship
is in this case even less appropriate than it might seem to be in
the case of the dream. The hysterical disability is amply
explained by a process in which the higher levels are put in
abeyance so that the lower levels are enabled to find expression.
The state out of which the hysterical symptoms arise is one in
which there is a conflict between a higher and more recently
developed set of motives, which may be summed up under the
heading of duty, and a lower and earlier set of motives provided
by instinctive tendencies. The solution of the conflict reached
by the hysteric is one in which the upper levels go out of action,
while the lower levels find expression in that mimetic or symbolic
form which is natural to the infantile stages of human develop-
ment, whether individual or collective. The hysteric is satisfied
with a mimetic representation as a refuge from his conflict,
just as the child or the savage is content with a mimetic
representation of some wish which fulfils for him all the purposes
of reality.

The infantile character of the process is still apparent if we
turn to the process by which the higher levels of experience pass
into abeyance. It is generally recognised that the abrogation
of control which takes place in hysteria is closely connected with

286 APPENDIX V

the process of suggestion. We know little of the nature of this
process of suggestion, but there is reason to believe that it is
one which takes a most important place in the earlier stages of
mental development. If existing savage peoples afford any
index of primitive mentality, this conclusion receives strong
support, for among them the power of suggestion is so strong
that it goes far beyond the production of paralyses, mutisms
and anaesthesias, and is capable of producing the supreme
disability of death.

This susceptibility to suggestion is to be connected with the
gregariousness of Man in the early stages of the development
of human culture. If animals are to act together as a body,
it is essential that they shall possess some kind of instinct
which makes them especially responsive to the influence of one
another, one which will lead to the rapid adoption of any line
of conduct which a prominent member of the group may take.
In the presence of any emergency, it is essential that each
member of a group shall be capable of losing at once the
conative tendencies set up by his individual appetites, and
shall wholly subordinate these to the immediate needs of the
group. Animals possessing this power by which the higher
and more lately developed tendencies are inhibited by the
collective needs set up by danger will naturally survive in the
struggle for existence. If, as there can be little doubt, Man
in the earlier stages of his cultural development was such an
animal, we have an ample motive for his suggestibility, and
for the greater strength of this character in the earlier levels
of experience. According to this point of view hysteria is the
coming into activity of an early form of reaction to a dangerous
or difficult situation. The protection against the danger or
difficulty so provided is the direct consequence of the nature
of the early form of reaction, and the concept of a censorship
making it necessary that the manifestations shall take this form
is artificial and unnecessary.

The argument thus far set forth is that the phenomena, both
of waking and sleeping experience, which have led Freud to
his concept of the censorship are explicable as the result of

CONCEPTION OF THE ' CENSORSHIP ' 237

an arrangement of mental levels exactly comparable with that
now generally recognised to exist in the nervous system, an
arrangement by which more recently developed or acquired
systems control the more ancient. The special characters of
the manifestations which Freud has explained by his concept
of his censorship have been regarded as inherent in the experi-
ence which finds expression when the more recently acquired
and controlling factors have been weakened or removed.

The concept which I here put forward in place of the
Freudian censorship is borrowed from the physiology of the
nervous system. I propose now to consider briefly some facts
usually regarded as strictly neurological and to discuss how
they fit in with the two concepts. In the case of the nervous
system two chief classes of failure of control can be recognised —
one occasional and the other more or less persistent, at any
rate for considerable periods. If the relations between the
conscious and the unconscious are of the same order as those
existing between the higher and lower levels of the nervous
system, we may expect to find manifestations of nervous activitv
similar to those which Freud explains by his concept of the
censorship.

Good examples of occasional lapses of control in the sphere
of motor activity are provided by false strokes in work or play.
The craftsman who makes a false stroke with his chisel or
hammer, or the billiard player who misses his stroke, show
examples of behaviour strictly comparable with slips of tongue
or pen. From the point of view put forward in this paper,
both kinds of occurrence are due to the failure of a highly
complex and delicately balanced adjustment between control-
ling and controlled processes. If we could go into the causes
of false strokes in work or play, we should doubtless find that
each has its antecedents, and that the false stroke often has
a more or less definite meaning and is the expression of some
trend which does not lie on the surface. Such occurrences
are readily explicable as failures of adjustment due either to
weakening of control or disburbances in the controlled tend-
encies to movement. In the vast majority of cases, however,

288 APPENDIX V

it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to force these into
a scheme by which they are due to the activity of a guardian
who allows or encourages the occurrence of the false stroke
in order to cover and disguise some more discomforting
experience.

A definitely morbid disorder of movement, which may be
taken as an example of the more persistent class of failures
in control, is that known as tic, a spasmodic movement
having a more or less purposive character. This disorder is
definitely due to a weakening of nervous control, and is most
naturally explained as a dramatisation of some instinctive
tendency called into action by a shock or strain. Thus, the
tics of sufferers from war-neurosis may be regarded as symbols
or dramatisations of some tendency which would be called into
activity by danger, and the movements are often of such a
kind as would avert or minimise the danger. The concept of
a censorship is here not only unnecessary, but quite inappro-
priate. The form taken by the tic is that natural to an
instinctive movement, but the tic depends essentially on
weakening of the controlling forces normally in action. Its
existence, like that of hysteria, or perhaps more correctly like
that of other hysterical manifestations, may act, or seem to
the patient to act, as a protection against prospective danger
or discomfort, but it is probable that such a function is
secondary. It is an example of the utilisation by the organism
of a reaction, the nature of which is determined by instinctive
tendencies, and in no way requires the concept of a guardian
watching at the threshold of consciousness, or at the threshold
of activities normally associated with consciousness.

I will conclude this paper by considering how far the process
which I propose to substitute for Freud's censorship has any
parallels in human culture, for since the control of one level by
another runs through the whole activity of the nervous system
as well as through the whole of experience, we should expect
to find it exemplified both in civilised and savage culture.

Every kind of human society reveals a hierarchical arrange-
ment in which higher ranks control the lower, and inhibit or

CONCEPTION OF THE ' CENSORSHIP ' 239

suppress activities belonging to earlier phases of culture. In
certain cases this process of control includes the activity of a
censorship by which activities seeking to find expression are
consciously and deliberately held in check or suppressed. But
this process of censorship forms only a very small part of the
total mass of inhibiting forces by which more recently developed
social groups control tendencies belonging to an older social
order. When in time of stress the control exerted by more
recent developments of social activity is weakened, the earlier
levels reveal themselves in symbolic forms, well exemplified by
the Sansculottism of the French Revolution and the red flag
of the present day, but these symbolic or dramatic forms of
expression are not in any way due to the activity of a censor-
ship. They are rather manifestations characteristic of early
forms of thought by means of which repressed tendencies find
expression when the control of higher social levels is removed.
They are not distortions produced or even allowed by the
social censorship, but are manifestations proper to early forms
of mental activity which occur in direct opposition to the
censorship. Censorship is a wholly inappropriate expression
for the social processes corresponding most closely with the
features of dream or disease for the explanation of which this
social metaphor has been used by Freud.

In a lecture on " Dreams and Primitive Culture " ^ I have
described certain aspects of rude society which seem to show
modes of social behaviour very similar to those qualities of the
dream which Freud explains by the action of a censorship.
I now suggest that these, like the censorship of civilised
peoples, are not necessary products of social activity, something
inherent in the social order, but are special developments.
They seem to be specialised forms taken by the general process
of control in order to meet special needs. It has been seen
that the concept of an endopsychic censorship is capable of
explaining certain more or less morbid occurrences in the
waking life. A good case could be made for the view that

^ Manchester University Press^ 1918. Reprinted from the Bulletin of
the John Rylaads Library, vol. iv. (1918), p. 387.

240 APPENDIX V

the social censorship has in it something of the morbid, and
that its existence points to something unhealthy in the social
order. Whether it be the censorship of the Press of highly
civilised societies, or the disguise of the truth found in the
ritual of a Melanesian secret fraternity, the processes of sup-
pression and distortion point to some fault in the social order,
to some interference with the harmony and unity which should
characterise the acts of a perfectly organised society.

APPENDIX VI

"WIND-UP"!

The expression " wind-up " was probably used originally for
any state of mingled excitement and apprehension called into
being by an unusual occurrence, and especially the prospect or
actual presence of danger. It has, however, gradually come to
be used in the army as a means of expressing fear in one or
other of its forms, an expression by means of which a soldier will
talk about fear without explicitly acknowledging the presence
of this emotion. I propose here to use the word as a definite
expression for fear.

Fear is the emotional or affective aspect of the instinctive
process called into activity by danger. It is the modification of
consciousness which accompanies certain instinctive forms of
action in response to danger, and especially the response by
flight. It is especially intense when there is interference with
this or any other form of reaction to danger.

It is only in Man that we are able to study by means of
introspection the various forms of fear. The first distinction to
be made is between the emotional state or states accompanying
the actual presence of danger and the various forms of fear which
arise when there is only the prospect of danger, while in patho-
logical states a large group of fears or states allied to fear occur
independently of eithqr actual or prospective danger.

Reaction to actual danger. — The most frequent reaction to
danger in Man is one of heightened capacity for the activities
by which the danger may be met withovit any trace of the fear
which, if present, would inevitably interfere with this capacity,
A man in the presence of danger will carry out with the utmost
coolness, and often with a degree of skill surpassing that which
he usually shows, the measures necessary for the aversion of the

^ A report to the Air Medical Investigation Committee.
B 24T

242 APPENDIX VI

danger or his escape from it. In such a case there is complete
suppression of the emotion of fear which the danger might be
expected to produce, and this suppression is nearly always
accompanied by suppression of pain, so that an injury derived
from the dangerous object, or from any other source, is not
perceived.

A second mode of reaction is the assumption of an aggressive
attitude towards the source of danger with the accompaniment
of the affective state of anger. In this case there is not a simple
suppression of fear, but its place is taken by another emotion
belonging to the instinct of aggression. If these lines of action
fail, if the serviceable activity which would lead to escape from
the danger is interfered with or becomes impossible to carry out,
or if the aggressive reaction does not succeed, fear supervenes as
an accompaniment either of flight or of the collapse which is apt
to occur when the more normal and serviceable reactions fail.
In some cases, however, the suppression of fear is so well
established that this emotion remains completely absent even
when the danger is so insistent and unavoidable that death or
violent injury is inevitable. Thus, the emotion of fear may be
completely absent during the fall and crash of an aeroplane in
which death seems certain, being replaced by an interest such
as might be taken by the mere witness of a spectacle, or by
some apparently trivial line of thought. It is when some line
of action is still possible, but this action is recognised to be
fruitless and in vain, that fear, often in the acute form we call
terror, is likely to supervene.

Reactions to prospective danger, — The state most commonly
produced by prospective danger is one of that degree of fear
which we call apprehension. This may be so intense as to
become indistinguishable from the fear which accompanies the
actual presence of danger, but it is more usually a vague dis-
comfort, with minor degrees of the tremor and muscular weakness
which accompany fear.

This state of apprehension may occur, often in a relatively
intense form, in men who become perfectly cool and collected as
soon as the danger becomes actual, when the state of apprehension

* WIND-UP' 243

completely disappears so that there is no interference with the
activity by which the danger may be averted. The apprehension
preceding the occurrence of danger is of exactly the same order
as stage-fright or the fright preceding any other public per-
formance, and just as the best actors and orators are liable to
stage-fright, so may those who show the utmost coolness and
bravery in the actual presence of danger be liable to appre-
hensions while the danger is still only in prospect.

In other cases the apprehensions at the prospect of danger are
so acute, and so accompanied by physical manifestations which
make appropriate action impossible, that the actual occurrence
of danger only serves to bring about complete collapse.

Pathological fears. — Fear is a very frequent accompaniment
of pathological states, and many of its more extreme forms only
occvu' in adult Man as part of such states.

The most frequent form in which such intense fears arise is
the nightmare or the night-terror of the half-waking state.
These are especially characteristic of childhood, but they may
occur in adult life in those who seem otherwise healthy, while
they have recently become familiar as the most prominent
symptom of states of anxiety arising out of the war.

Similar intense fears may occur in the first stage or following
the administration of an anaesthetic, or attacks of terror may
occur in the waking state as part of an anxiety-neurosis.

Another pathological form taken by fear is shown by the
various phobias, in each of which some special stimiilus may
arouse fear in one who otherwise may not know what fear means.
The stimulus which thus arouses fear, often in a very intense
form, may be one which in other persons not only wholly fails to
arouse this emotion, but may be a source of definite pleasvure.
Thus, a man who does not know fear in the presence of actual
danger to life or limb, may suffer from acute fear at the sight
of a cat or harmless snake, or an airman who is only stimulated
by the utmost dangers of aerial warfare may suffer from acute
apprehension in a lift or on a ladder only a few feet from the
ground. These highly-specialised fears also occur in relation to
definite sources of danger ; thus, one who is undisturbed by most

244 APPENDIX VI

of the dangerous situations of warfare may have some special
fear, whether of searchlights, sniping, or some special kind
of shell.

Still another form of fear is the more or less persistent state
of anxiety which forms so prominent a feature of the functional
nervous disorders arising out of warfare that it has been adopted
in the nomenclature of one of the most frequent forms taken by
these disorders. In the healthy person anxiety is a state which
comes into existence in consequence of some prospective mis-
fortune or danger, but in morbid conditions it shows itself in
the form of more or less continuous apprehension colouring the
whole mental life, so that even the most ordinary occurrences are
seen in the blackest light as sources of trouble or danger.

Suppression and repression in relation to fear. — In the form
of reaction to danger which seems to be characteristic of the
normal healthy man, there is a complete absence of fear. No
eflPort is needed to keep this emotion out of the mind for it shows
no tendency to appear in consciousness. Fear in the presence of
danger is, however, so necessary a part of the mental equipment
of animals, and is so frequently manifested in childhood, that we
can confidently assume this emotion to be potentially present,
but in a state of suppression. This assumption is supported by
several lines of evidence. A man who when exposed to danger
experiences no trace of fear, and behaves with the utmost cool-
ness and bravery, may yet suffer subsequently from acute fear in
his dreams. If, as there is much reason to believe, suppressed
affective states find expression in dreams owing to the weakening
of control normally exerted in the waking state, the occurrence
of fear in dreams following a dangerous experience would be
a natural consequence of its ordinary existence in a state of
suppression.

Still more important and conclusive is the occurrence of fear
as the result of shock or long-continued strain and fatigue which
lower the efficiency of the higher controlling levels of mental
activity. Thus, one of the earliest signs of the strain of warfare
is the occurrence of apprehensions in one who until then has
passed through the dangers of warfare without fear. The

' WIND-UP ' 245

occurrence of fear either manifestly, or in the form of vague
apprehensions, when shock or strain has lowered efficiency is
naturally explained if the fear has been there throughout, but in
so complete a state of suppression that it never passed the
threshold of consciousness.

When fear or apprehension begins to show itself in conscious-
ness, a new process comes into action. The fear, no longer held
unwittingly in check, has now to be voluntarily repressed. One
who has flown or fought without fear, perhaps for many months,
finds himself the subject of apprehensions which he regards with
shame and strives to banish from his mind. A short rest at such
a time, by allowing the unwitting controlling process to regain
the upper hand, will often bring about the disappearance of the
apprehensions, so that danger can again be faced with equanimity
and without the necessity for witting repression. Or, the
lowered efficiency of the controlling forces may be temporary,
and the recuperative power of the sufferer may be so great that
recovery of the normal state of suppression may come about, and
witting repression again becomes unnecessary. More frequently,
however, the voluntary repression of fears or apprehensions only
adds to the strain and fatigue which has led to the failure of
suppression. The fears become stronger and call for still
stronger efforts of repression. Through the vicious circle thus
set up there is produced a state of persistent anxiety in which
even ordinary incidents of life, incidents wholly devoid of danger,
come to be viewed with apprehension. The fears which are
repressed with apparent success during the day find expression
in an accentuated form at night, when the control exerted by
day is removed in sleep or weakened in the state preceding or
following sleep. The interference with rest so produced only
serves to increase the state of strain and fatigue upon which
the nightmares or disturbing night-thoughts depend, while
distiurbances of digestion or circulation secondary to the anxiety
may react on and accentuate the state to which they are
primarily due. Finally, some shock or additional sti'ain, a
slight accident which a few months before would only have
raised a laugh, a misunderstanding with a superior officer, or

246 APPENDIX VI

some domestic trouble, will bring about a crisis and reduce the
soldier to a state in which he becomes wholly unfit for any kind
of duty. The morbid state which most frequently supervenes
is that known as anxiety-neurosis, which is only an exaggeration
of the morbid state of anxiety which preceded his definite
breakdown. In other cases, the trouble may find expression in
some mimetic disability usually known as hysteria, while in those
of psychopathic disposition, there may be complete mental
collapse, or the unbearable situation may be solved by the
occurrence of those false rationalisations we call delusions.

The special feature of practical importance in the foregoing
statement of the various forms taken by the emotion of fear is
that the occurrence of this emotion may be a symptom, often
the earliest symptom, of a state of fatigue and strain. Owing
to the way in which the society to which we belong, and
especially those whose business it is to fight, look upon fear, its
occurrence, especially without adequate cause, arouses other
emotions, and especially that of shame, which greatly enhance
the strain to which the fear is primarily due.

Treatment. — It is evident that the state so produced is one
which gives ample scope for treatment, both preventive and
curative. There is no department of medicine in which a medical
officer can gain results so definite as in the treatment of the early
stages of the anxiety-neurosis of warfare. The earlier he can
act the better, for the longer the state of anxiety is allowed to
last, the greater the witting repression which becomes necessary,
the longer is the period of rest which is required to enable the
process of suppression to become again effective. Moreover, the
occurrence of disturbances of circulation, of digestion, and of
other organic functions may produce complications which greatly
prolong the process of recovery. Nowhere is the adage mox-e
appropriate that " a stitch in time saves nine."

A medical officer can only hope to succeed if he is on such
terms with those under his care that they are ready to give him
their full confidence, for owing to the general sentiment regarding
fear, it is only with the greatest reluctance that its presence is
acknowledged. It is here that the expression " wind-up " has

' WIND-UP ' 247

its peculiar utility in that it enables one in whom strain is
producing apprehensions to refer, half seriously, half humorously,
to his trouble. The first step in the treatment is to assure the
patient that there is no cause for shame, that the fear he
experiences is a well-recognised symptom of strain and is due to
the temporary failure of the mechanism by which in the healthy
and normal man fear is kept under adequate control. If sleep
is already disturbed by dreams, a second line of treatment will
be to induce the sufferer to give up the process of voluntary
repression to which, in the vast majority of cases, these dreams
are due. Having by this process of education put the patient
on the road to recovery, a short rest followed perhaps by a
period of limited duty, will usually restore him to his normal
level of efficiency. To send him for a holiday without the
necessary process of education and reassurance is open to the
serious risk that he will only continue during the holiday to
repress or brood over his painful thoughts and feelings, with the
result that the state of anxiety is accentuated and becomes a
fixed habit.

In conclusion, it must be pointed out that this line of treat-
ment only holds good for those in whom the occurrence of fear is
clearly the result of shock or strain. Those who are naturally
apprehensive require a different line of treatment. Their case
is far more difficult and less hopeful than that in which fear is
secondary to strain or shock, but much can be done with them
by sympathetic encouragement in fighting their disability, and
when possible, by introducing them gradually to the conditions
which rouse their apprehensions. There is reason to believe
that in some cases such apprehensions are the definite sequel
to some emotional shock in childhood or youth which has set up
faulty trends in feeling and behaviour. In such cases a thorough
and sympathetic discussion of the history of their fears may be
of great service, and may at least allow the medical officer
to recognise how far the state is capable of amendment, whether
there is a reasonable hope that the patient may acquire that
state of suppression of fear which in his more fortunate comrades
has come into existence in childhood.

APPENDIX VII

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR^

While we were still in the midst of the great struggle which
has recently convulsed the world we had no time to realise how
it was affecting, and what permanent influence it was likely to
have upon, the various branches of learning. Certain broad
results were fairly obvious, and even while the war was in pro-
gress I ventured to put forward a brief resume of its influence
upon psychology ^ Much of the world is still in a state of dis-
tress, involving the primary needs of life, which makes it difficult
to attend to abstract problems. Our own country is more
fortunate. We are already living under conditions which make
it possible to consider with some degi'ee of dispassionateness the
effect of the war upon many branches of scientific activity. I
propose in this address to consider some aspects of the influence
of the war upon psychology.

As an introduction it will be useful to survey briefly the
recent history of the science. Fifty years ago psychological
teaching and research were entirely in the hands of men whose
interests lay in the direction of philosophy. Psychology was
regarded as a branch of philosophy and was treated by methods
differing little, if at all, from those which were utilised in the
study of logic, ethics and metaphysics. To men whose lives were
devoted to such pursuits, intellect and reason were the salt of
knowledge and their interest was turned predominantly, often

^ An address delivered as Chairman of the sub-section of Psychology at
the Bournemouth meeting- of the British Association in September 1919;
published in a modified form in Scrilmer's Magazine, August 1920, vol.
liXvm, p. 161.

2 See Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen, 1918, No. 6; also published
in Science, N.S. 1919, vol. xlix, p. 367.

248

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR 249

exclusively, to the intellectual aspect of the mind. Even much
later the textbooks and manuals of psychology which formed the
basis of academical instruction were almost exclusively concerned
with purely intellectual processes. Feeling, emotion, and desire
took a secondary place, while instinct was often omitted alto-
gether.

When I first became concerned with psychological teaching,
about twenty five years ago, two important movements were
taking place which, while giving psychology a different orien-
tation, failed to turn it from its predominantly intellectual
direction. If anything they tended to enhance the bias which
made this direction so definite. These movements were the
introduction of the experimental method and the application of
psychology to education. Certain aspects of psychology are far
more open to the application of the experimental method than
others. Especially adapted to this mode of treatment are sensa-
tion, perception, association and memory, while in the realm of
feeling and emotion little can be done but record certain of their
physiological accompaniments. Whether because of the already
predominant direction of attention of psychologists to the intellect-
ual aspect of mind or for some other reason, even these observa-
tions on feeling and emotion came to take a very small part in
the curriculum of experimental psychology. Owing to the
adaptability of perception and other intellectual process to exact
observation, the introduction of experiment into psychology
only enhanced the already preponderant interest in the in-
tellectual aspect of the mind.

The application of psychology to the practical problems of
education worked in the same direction. The teacher who
became interested in the theory of his art turned his attention
to those sides of psychology in which observations could be made
with some degree of exactness and were capable of expression in
numerical form. If psychology had been utilised in the large
public schools of England, where character has always been rated
more highly than intellect, the case might have been different,
but when psychology came to be applied to the educational
problems of Great Britain, this took place in connection with

250 APPENDIX VII

the primary schools in which, under the belief that knowledge
is power, the process of education had taken a predominantly
intellectual direction. Educational psychology came to deal
almost exclusively with the processes of association and memory
by which knowledge is acquired rather than with the emotion,
desire and impulse which would have been so much more
prominent in the teacher''s mind if he had thought of education
in a wider sense.

The two new influences which were thus brought to bear on
academic psychology only tended to strengthen the intellectual
bias which had already been given to it by its philosophical
parentage and relationships. It was left for influences lying out-
side academic lines to bring into their proper place those aspects
of mental life which were ignored or neglected by academic
psychology. One of these influences came from the study of
social phenomena; the other from the study of disease.

When students of psychology turned their attention to the
mental processes which underlie social activity they found that
they were little helped by the intellectual constructions of the
academic psychologist. They were led to see that reason and
the intellect take but a secondary place in determining the
behaviour of Man in his social relations. They found that
collective conduct was determined by a mass of preferences and
prejudices which could only be explained in reference to instincts,
desires and conative trends connected therewith, aspects of mind
more or less remote from the chief interests of the academic
psychologist.

Still more important and far reaching than the lessons taught
by the study of social reactions are those which come from the
study of Man's behaviour when afflicted by disease. Morbid
psychology affbrds the most important means by which we may
hope to advance our knowledge of mind. Through it alone are
given those variations of condition and those dissociations of
function which in other biological sciences we are able to produce
by experiment. Even already, when we are barely on the thres-
hold of this study, morbid psychology has done more than any
other line of work to advance our knowledge.

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR 251

Work on abnormal states of the nervous system during the
last fifty years, and especially that of Hughlings Jackson, has led
neurologists to recognise that one of the chief effects of disease
is to annul the action of many of the higher controlling
mechanisms of the nervous system and thus allow activities to
reassert themselves which have been long in abeyance. Every
lesion of the nervous system, whether due to injury or disease,
not only produces symptoms directly dependent upon its de-
structive eifect, but it also allows the reawakening of older forms
of activity which have been suppressed. The activities thus re-
aroused are those which, adapted to some earlier phase of racial
history, have been controlled and wholly or partially suppressed
in the interest of later developments. It is largely the reawaken-
ing of latent processes and tendencies suited to an existence of a
different kind which gives to the symptoms of disease of the
nervous system their special character. The nature of these
symptoms often sheds a flood of light upon the history of the
nervous system, on the nature of its earlier phases of develop-
ment, and on the processes by which these earlier phases have
been brought under control and coordinated with later adjust-
ments of the organism to its environment.

We are now coming to see that, as we might expect, a similar
process holds good of disorders of the mind. Mental disorders
of the most diverse kind, which make up what we call the
psycho-neuroses, can be brought into an orderly and intelligible
system if we regard them as the result of a twofold process.
They are seen to be due partly to the loss or weakening of
certain mental functions and partly to the reawakening of other
functions which are normally held in abeyance as the result of
suppression and control. The functions which are thus brought
into activity receive their natural explanation as activities proper
to early phases of the development of mind which have been
partly or wholly suppressed on account of their incompatibility
with later products of development. The study of the psycho-
neuroses thus affords a means of learning much concerning the
history of mental development.

It has become clear that the suppression of the early activities

252 APPENDIX VII

is rarely complete, but that the same suppressed activities which
find their expression in the psycho-neuroses are also liable to
intrude into consciousness, and still more to influence behaviour
unconsciously, under many conditions of normal life. They are
especially influential in producing the characters of the dream in
which the suppressed activities are allowed to find expression
owing to the abrogation in sleep of the control exerted during
the waking life. Moreover, the special kind of study of mental
function which is known as psycho-analysis is pointing more and
more surely to the origin of special features of character,
especially of the preferences and prejudices which bulk so largely
in it, as being due to the activity of incompletely suppressed
tendencies and of bodies of experience associated therewith. The
study of mental pathology has led the physician to a point of
view in close agreement with that which had been reached inde-
pendently by the student of social psychology that social behaviour
is determined much less by reason and much more by deeply seated
systems of preferences and prejudices for the explanation of
which we have to go far back in the history of the mind.

Both lines of study lead the student back to those inherited
modes of behaviour which make up the instincts, and to the
emotional states which are so intimately connected with the
instincts. Before the war psychology had reached a phase in
which it was becoming obvious to many that the intellectual
factors which so greatly interested the academic psychologist
were wholly inadequate to explain the behaviour of mankind
and that some fundamental reconstruction of the science of
psychology and of the mode of teaching it had become im-
perative.

The experience of the last few years has only brought this
need for reconstruction into greater prominence. The war has
been a vast crucible in which all our preconceived views con-
cerning human nature have been tested. Out of the complex
mass of experience which has emerged and is capable of study
and analysis nothing is more certain than the general confir-
mation of the conclusions to which students were already being
led. The war has shown that human behaviour in the mass is

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR 253

determined by sentiments resting upon instinctive trends and
traditions founded on such trends. We have learnt that reason
plays a very insignificant part in determining behaviour when
mankind is brought into contact with circumstances which
awaken the instinct of self-preservation. It is a common-place of
worldly wisdom when anything inexplicable occurs in human
conduct that we should "chercher la femme." The truth which
underlies this adage is that when we find anything in human
conduct which cannot be explained by reason, it is probably due
to circumstances arising out of the instinct of sex, the instinct
which in our normal peaceful life is the most frequent source of
conflicts with reason. Similarly, it was becoming widely, if not
universally, recognised that in those greater failures of adapta-
tion of conduct to the circumstances it has to meet which we
call disease, it is the sexual instinct which in times of peace
provides the most potent agent in the mental conflicts upon
which disorders of the mind depend. Many of the lessons of the
war in relation to psychology depend on the fact that it has
brought into action with tremendous force an instinct still more
powerful and even more fundamental than the sexual instinct,
the instinct of self-preservation, or rather that group of the
instincts of self-preservation which is called into action by the
presence of danger which I have called the danger-instincts.
These instincts are often active in childhood, but in the ordinary
course of our modern civilisation they are allowed to slumber
and show themselves so little that those who desire the pleasure
which goes with the satisfaction of instinct have to seek for it
in excessive speed, risky sports, big game hunting or other means
by which men gain the pleasurable excitement which comes with
personal danger.

The dormant instincts which the accidents of war have thus
brought into renewed activity are of relatively great simplicity,
certainly more simple than the sexual instinct which forms its
chief rival in the production of mental disorder. This simplicity
has made it easy to discern the essential nature of the psycho-
neuroses, to detect the mechanisms and agencies by means of
which the special features of mental failure and disorder ai-e

264 APPENDIX VII

produced. It has become evident that the psycho-neuroses are
essentially attempts to solve in various ways the conflict between
instinctive tendencies and controlling forces, the special form of
the psycho-neurosis depending on the nature of the solution
attempted, on the relative strength of the warring forces, on the
nature of the instinctive tendencies involved, and on the outcome
of a struggle between different forms of activity by which the
cruder instinctive tendencies are controlled. In some cases the
whole mechanism breaks down entirely producing an acute in-
sanity; in others, a faulty process of rationalisation leads to a
more chronic form of insanity in which early suspicions and
forebodings are dispelled by day-dreams which passing over into
definite delusions make up the picture of a dementia praecox or a
paranoia. In other cases the conflict is resolved by the occurrence
of a paralysis or some other form of disability which incapacitates
for further participation in the struggle, this form of solution
being usually known as hysteria or conversion-neurosis since it
is supposed that the energy of the patient has suffered conversion
into the special form of energy in which the disability manifests
itself. Other forms of solution are by means of mechanical acts
which give an outlet for the energy engendered by the conflict,
producing what is called a compulsion-neurosis; excessive in-
terest in the morbid state produced by the conflict which is
known as hypochondriasis; resort to alcohol or other drugs,
which, while dulling the pain of the conflict, only serve to
accentuate its strength.

More frequent than any of these attempted solutions is one
which may be regarded as having a more normal character in
which the sufferer attempts to still the conflict by means of
voluntary and witting repression. He attempts to get rid of the
conflict by thrusting out of sight the instinctive tendencies and
all experience associated with them and does not attempt to face
the situation which is presented by the reawakened tendencies
and the conflict they have aroused. In consequence the conflict
persists, but beneath the surface, and manifests itself, partly in
impaired activity owing to all available energy being absorbed
in the conflict, partly in various disorders of mental and nervous

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR 255

function, and especially disturbances of sleep which serve as
manifestations or symbols of the subterranean conflict. These
manifestations of repressed activity form prominent features in
a disease forming one of the many morbid states included under
the heading of neurasthenia, which may suitably be known, from
the chief condition by which it is produced, as repression-
neurosis.

In dealing with the influence of the war upon the position of
psychology I have begun with its effect upon our views concern-
ing the nature of those morbid states which provide such
arresting examples of failure of adaptation of the human
organism to its environment. In attempting to illustrate its
influence in other ways I do not think I can do better than con-
tinue to deal with the influence of the reawakening of the
instinct of self-preservation on the less obviously morbid aspects
of individual and social life. If the instinct of self-preservation
brought into activity by the dangers and privations of war has
had the vast part I suppose in producing the grosser disorders
of the individual life which we call disease, we can be confident
that it has also played a great part in determining those smaller
currents of the individual life which probably hardly one of us
fails to detect in himself, his friends and acquaintances. For the
last few years the civilised world has been living under the
shadow of a great danger, not in the case of many of us a danger
which immediately threatened existence as in the case of those
young enough and strong enough to fight, though even among
those who stayed at home, air-raids brought into activity the
danger-instincts in their cruder form. With most of us it has
rather been the danger-instincts as modified by gregarious in-
fluences which came into activity during the war. It was the
danger of the destruction of the social framework in which each
one of us had his appointed place which acted as the stimulus to
reawaken tendencies connected with the instinct of self-preserva-
tion. Moreover, now that the danger from external enemies is
over, there are large numbers of persons in whom the alteration
in the internal social order which seems in all countries to be
imminent is keeping their danger-instincts in a state of tension,

256 APPENDIX VII

while the fatigue and strain which few have escaped during the
war is at the same time giving these aroused instinctive tendencies
a wider scope than would otherwise be open to them.

Since this reawakening of the danger-instincts affects nearly
every member of the more civilised populations of the world, it
is producing a state which may be regarded as a universal
psycho-neurosis which explains much that is now happening in
human society. Owing to the different conditions under which
the danger-instincts have been aroused in different nations, the
social disorder is taking various forms in different countries. We
can hardly expect that a disorder of the national life should
follow exactly the lines taken by the psycho-neuroses of the
individual, but we should expect to find analogues of the chief
forms of solution adopted by the individual organism. Even in
the individual it is rare to find that some one form of solution
is attempted to the exclusion of all others so that most cases of
psycho-neurosis have a complex character. This complexity is
still more to be expected in the disorders of society having a
complexity much greater than that of the individual organism.
In those countries in which long ages of dominance of some
foreign or autocratic power has crushed development or failed
to educate the people to act as members of a body corporate,
the war has produced a state of disorder which can only be
likened to an acute psychosis in which instinctive tendencies
have been given the wildest scope, altogether uncontrolled by
the organised hierarchy which gives system and order to the
modern state. In other cases, it is hardly as yet possible to
discern the special form which the national psycho-neurosis is
going to take. We may hope that our own country is suffering
from nothing worse than the fatigue and exhaustion which are
the necessary consequence of the prolonged period of stress and
strain through which it has passed. There are, however, some
national symptoms which suggest the danger of a more definitely
morbid state. It is generally acknowledged to be a characteristic
of the English people that they are content to act without
system, to take the path in national affairs which seems most
obvious and to trust to their endowment of native sense to lead

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR 257

them right. In other words, in political matters they prefer to
act by methods comparable with those of instinct and distrust
all solutions dictated by intelligence, and especially by that
organised intelligence we call science. To such a people the
natural line of action in the presence of the painful is to put
into practice the policy of repression which, as we have seen, is
in the individual responsible for a definite form of psycho-
neurosis. The function of pain is to act as a stimulus to some
kind of activity which will remove the animal or person ex-
periencing the pain from the situation by which it is being
produced. When escape from pain is impossible or no obvious
line of activity is open, there is a tendency, which seems to be
derived from an ancient instinctive form of reaction, to suppress
the pain. The line so often taken, both by the individual and
the society, of repressing the painful seems to be only the working
of an instinctive tendency which on the general lines of its
character we might have expected the English people to adopt.

There is much in the present state of English society which
indicates a tendency to follow this line of least resistance in
which its members are shutting their eyes to the painful elements
in the national situation. We can see many signs of the dis-
organisation and regression which are in the individual the signs
of a repression-neurosis.

As I have pointed out in a lecture on " Mind and Medicine "
which has been published by the Manchester University Press,
the two great remedies for such a disorder are self-knowledge
and self-reliance. Just as it is essential that the individual
sufferer from a psycho -neurosis dependent on repression shall
face the facts, get to understand the situation, and do his best
to meet it in his own strength without relying on artificial and
adventitious aids, so are these measures necessary when the
subject of the morbid state is not an individual but a people.
Treatment to be successful must be on the lines of self-knowledge
and self-reliance, and if these measures are adopted the nation
may yet be spared many of the severer troubles which arise out
of a policy of repression.

As might have been expected from the special nature of the
s

258 APPENDIX VII

experience which the war has brought to myself, I have dealt in
this address especially with its effects upon the psychology of the
morbid. It is, moreover, upon this aspect of psychology that the
effect of the war has been especially pronounced and in which its
action has been most direct. In other branches of psychology
the effect, though in many cases definite enough, has been more
indirect. Thus, many of those who have been studying the
morbid effects of war feel strongly that the lessons they have
learnt are of as great importance to education as to medicine.
They have learnt to how great an extent health and happiness
depend upon the influences of childhood and especially upon
those of its earliest years. The life of a child is a long conflict
between instinctive tendencies and forces brought to bear upon
these tendencies by its elders, and many are coming to believe
that character is largely determined by the strategy and tactics
of this conflict.

Another branch of psychology upon which, at any rate in
Great Britain, the influence of the war, though indirect, has been
profound is that dealing with its application to the problems of
industry. In America psychology had already before the war
received extensive application to the scientific management of
industry. In Great Britain it needed the urgency created by the
needs of war and the vast extensions which were necessary in
many branches of industry to force upon its leaders some, even
if a wholly inadequate, realisation of the services which the
sciences of psychology and physiology can render to the more
economic application of human activity. Many of the services
thus rendered involve chiefly a knowledge of motor processes
and other comparatively menial aspects of psychology, but many
of the most interesting problems of industrial psychology, and
especially those arising out of social and political obstacles to
the application of more economic methods, involve mental
activities of a kind very similar to those which take so prominent
a place in the psychology of war.

It is necessary in concluding to point out a serious limitation
to the usefulness of the science of psychology in its application
to practical affairs. On the more material side of our civilisation

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WAR 259

the experience of war has done much to teach the people at
large, and possibly even their rulers, the value of science. The
sciences which deal with matter are, however, so advanced that
they are able to deal immediately and directly with the concrete
problems presented by warfare, commerce, and other aspects of
practical life. The science which deals with mind in its individual
aspect, and still more that which attempts to deal with the
collective aspect, is so much less advanced that it can hardly as
yet claim to provide an answer to any of the more concrete
questions which the sociologist or the statesman may wish to
put to it. We cannot claim more than that psychology has
reached certain general principles which will help the politician,
the social reformer or the teacher. Especially important in this
respect are the principles which have been the result of experience
in the medicine of the mind. A society is a collection of
individuals, and though the measures adapted to meet the
morbid states of society cannot be the same as those adapted to
individual needs, we can be confident that the general principles
which underlie the treatment of the mental disorders of the
individual will also hold good in the treatment of the disorders
of social and national life.

APPENDIX YIII

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION

The concept of acquisition is one which is very prominent in
the economic and political discussions of the day. In such
works as The Acquisitive Society by R. H. Tawney, we are led
to regard acquisition as the distinguishing feature of existing
society, and, moreover, one closely connected with certain
morbid symptoms which a study of this society reveals, a relation
clearly expressed in the title of Tawney's earlier work. The
Sickness of an Acquisitive Society.

In connection with the problems raised by such discussions it
becomes of great importance to know how far the features of
social behaviour connoted by the terms "acquisition"" and
"acquisitive"" are inherent in the character of human beings as
members of society; how far they are inborn or instinctive, and
how far they are the outcome of social environment and social
tradition. In other words, it is necessary to inquire whether
Man, in addition to the many other instincts now generally
ascribed to him, possesses an instinct of acquisition.

In discussing this question it is necessary to begin by con-
sidering the meaning to be given to the two terms "acquisition""
and "instinct."" Properly speaking, perhaps, acquisition should
only apply to the process or act of acquiring and should be dis-
tinguished from the process of holding or keeping objects when
they have been acquired. We have to distinguish between
gaining and holding.

If acquisition be used in the former sense there can be no
question about the instinctive basis of process. Such acquiring
is essential to the satisfaction of most of the basic instincts, such
as those of nutrition and sex, but at the same time it is highly

260

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION 261

doubtful whether there is any need to posit a special instinct.
In this sense acquiring food is essential to the satisfaction of the
instincts of nutrition ; acquiring a mate is essential to the satis-
faction of the sexual instinct; and the same holds good of the
acquisition of any objects which lead directly or indirectly to the
satisfaction of these instincts or to the acquisition of objects,
such as weapons, prompted by the danger-instincts. It is the
aspect of holding or keeping that we must have in mind when
we consider whether there is an instinct of acquisition, and it is
with this aspect of the subject that I shall deal in this paper.
When Tawney or any other economist deals with acquisition he
means the acquisition of wealth and the idea of holding that
which has been acquired is given in the definition of wealth.
The practical interest of the problem with which I shall deal in
this paper, therefore, is concerned with the concept of property
and the problem involved is whether the concept of property
has an instinctive basis.

Whether man possesses an instinct of acquisition in the sense
thus laid down, however, will form only a small portion of our
subject. It will be necessary to consider the nature of this
instinct if it exists, where it stands in a classification of instincts,
and how the original instinct has been modified by the action
either of other instincts, social tradition or individual intelligence.
As a preliminary it will be necessary to inquire, it must be very
briefly, what we mean by instinct; how instincts are classified,
and what are the modifications they undergo.

I shall define an instinct summarily as a set of dispositions to
behaviour determined by innate conditions. It is now becoming
widely recognised that nearly all, if not all, the behaviour of
mankind is partly determined by inborn factors, by tendencies
which the individual brings into the world with him when he is
born. At the same time it is, I think, equally widely accepted
that it is only very rarely that human behaviour is purely in-
stinctive; that every instinct suffers modification through ex-
perience, and that in man the most we can expect to be able to
do in studying any example of behaviour is to recognise an in-
stinctive component as being present in more or less degree.

262 APPENDIX VIII

In this book' I have distinguished two main varieties of
instinct. One kind, which acts purely in the interests of the in-
dividual or of the preservation of the race, has in its unmodified
form a crude character according to which behaviour is not
graded in response to the needs which have to be met, but the
instinctive tendencies exert their full effect independently of the
nature of the stimulus which sets them in action. The instincts
of the other kind, which act mainly in the interests of the group,
reveal themselves in behaviour graded, often very delicately,
according to the needs to be met. In Man at least this character
of grading also forms one of the chief modifications to which the
cruder, "all-or-none " instincts become subject as the result of
experience. It is often a problem of the utmost difficulty to
determine how far the modification of a crude, "all-or-none"
instinct in the direction of grading is due to the influence of
other instincts of the graded kind or to the action of experience.
This difficulty is especially great in the case of human instincts
and we shall find that the instinct of acquisition forms no
exception to this rule.

With this preliminary introduction I can proceed to my
proper subject. I will begin by dealing with a few of the facts
which point to the existence of an instinct of acquisition in
animals other than man.

The instinct of acquisition in animals. — The examples of
animal behaviour which have especially attracted attention as
evidence for an instinct of acquisition are cases of hoarding, and
especially such apparently irrational hoarding as is exhibited by
the magpie or by the dog who is continually burying bones for
future use in spite of the fact that he has never known any
interference with his regular supply of food.

An especially striking example of the hoarding instinct is
presented by the bee. The behaviour of the domesticated insect
suggests that this instinct is ungraded in so far as the size of the
hoard is concerned, or more correctly that the strength of the
impulse to hoard stands in no relation to the size of the hoard
already accumulated. Moreover, the enormous accumulations of

» p. 34.

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION 268

honey found in the nests of bees in the wild state suggest that
this character is not merely a result of the abnormal and
artificial circumstances to which the domesticated varieties have
been exposed.

Examples of the action of an instinct of acquisition of a very
different kind are presented by the behaviour of many species of
birds in relation to territory, of which so interesting an account
has recently been given by Mr Eliot Howards Mr Howard finds
that the earliest phase in the process of mating and breeding in
the lapwing, warblers and many other birds is the assumption of
a special attitude on the part of the individual male bird. The
male takes up a position from which he adopts an aggressive
attitude towards any other male of the species which ventures
within a region surrounding this position. The size of the
territory over which individual ownership is thus assumed varies
with different species and under different conditions, but is
usually a half to several acres in extent. When the male bird
has become master of his territory he is sought out by the
female, and mating and breeding take place. In the case of
migrating species this acquisition of what we cannot but regard
as rights of individual ownership over a territory takes place
immediately after migration, but in the case of resident species
the change from the previous communal life to the acquisition
of individual rights over territory seems to depend largely on
temperature, and with return to a lower temperature male birds
which have acquired individual territories may return to com-
munal life. When they so return, no trace can be observed of
the aggressive attitude towards other males which accompanies
the territorial ownership. Another striking feature of the be-
haviour of these birds is that the aggressive attitude only shows
itself within the individual territory, and disappears as soon as
a male has been chased out of the territory into which he has
intruded.

Mr Howard shows that this process of acquiring individual
rights over a territory is clearly instinctive. Its special interest
is not only that it illustrates very definitely the existence of an
^ Territory in Bird Life, London, 1920.

264 APPENDIX VIII

instinct of acquisition, but that this instinctive attitude towards
ownership only shows itself in connection with the parental
function, or as a stage in the chain of proceedings in which the
parental instinct finds expression. So far as we can speak of an
instinct of acquisition in this case, it is not independent but is
closely bound up with the sexual and parental instincts by
means of which the race is perpetuated.

I must be content with these examples of the existence of an
instinct of acquisition in animals other than man. In the cases
I have considered the instinct acts directly in the interests of the
individual, though the acquisition of territory by the individual
male bird is ultimately in the interests of the race. I have now
to consider how the individual instinct of animals is modified in
the interests of the community to which the individual belongs.
This is shown in its most complete form in the bee where the
acquisition of honey has become the specialised function of only
certain individuals of the community who perform this function
altogether in the interests of the community and get from it as
individuals no greater advantage than other members of the
community whose instinct of acquisition has become either atro-
phied or suppressed.

There can be little doubt that at one stage in the racial
history of the bee the storing of honey must have depended upon
an instinct acting in the interest of the individual, and if this
be so, the bee shows us how the individual instinct of acquisition
can be so modified in connection with the gregarious life as to
act completely in the interest of the community. It is not un-
natural that this modification should appear so clearly in an
animal which presents perhaps in a higher degree than any other
creature the process of adaptation to the gregarious life. In the
bee this process of modification has gone so far that it is not
possible to obtain evidence concerning the nature of the process
by which the modification has come about. Let us inquire
whether it is possible to find such evidence in the other chief
case I have cited. One of the chief interests of the behaviour of
the birds observed by Mr Howard is that the instinctive acquisi-
tion of territorial rights by the individual only takes place at

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION 265

one period of the year, and in connection with the sexual and
parental functions. During the rest of the year these birds are
gregarious and sociable, and the instinct of acquisition, in so far
as it reveals itself by the aggressive behaviour of the individual
in relation to territory, shows no sign of its presence^

We have here an alternation of behaviour, and of what we
might call personality, of the same order, though less pronounced,
as is shown by the amphibian which takes to the aquatic life as
part of the process of breeding ^ In the case of the newt, the
change in passing from one state to another is far greater than
in the bird, and it is accompanied by definite physical and
physiological changes, but the difference between bird and
amphibian is probably only one of degree. In the bird the chief
observable change is in behaviour. During the winter it is
eminently sociable ; it is only in the spring, and as part of the
process of mating and breeding, that it shows hostility towards
others of its species. As Howard puts it, "whereas the out-
standing feature of bird life in the winter is sociability, that of
the spring is hostility ^" Moreover, the change from one state
to the other is, according to his observations, directly dependent
upon temperature ; a male bird which with the onset of spring
weather has assumed individual rights over territory, with the
accompanying hostility, will again become peaceful and sociable
if there is a return of cold weather. Whereas any tendencies to
individual acquisition which the bee may once have possessed
have been wholly subdued so as to adapt it to its gregarious life,
these birds, though gregarious through the greater part of the
year, show at one season the presence of an instinct of acquisi-
tion which acts immediately in the interest of the race. While
the bee, as the most highly socialised of creatures, shows com-
plete socialisation of an instinct which may once have acted
solely in the interest of the individual, the bird has its instinct
of acquisition less completely socialised, and still exhibits the

^ I am indebted to Mr F. B. Kirkman for the information that other species
of birds, such as the robin, show the aggressive attitude in relation to terri-
tory throughout the year.

2 See p. 80.

3 Op. cit. p. 231.

266 APPENDIX VIII

activity of this instinct at one season of the year and in connec-
tion with one of its vital activities.

According to the general scheme put forward in this book the
aggressive behaviour of the bird belongs to the group of instincts
which act in the interest of the individual and have primarily
the crude, undiscriminating character of that kind of instinctive
behaviour. In accordance with this scheme the occurrence of an
aggressive attitude in relation to territory is an example of the
utilisation of the instinct of aggression in the interest of the
parental function, this utilisation being accompanied by such
modification of the original " all-or-none '' character that the
aggressive attitude ceases as soon as the bird passes beyond the
limits of its territory.

Except during the breeding season the aggressive attitude has
been still more profoundly modified and in the birds observed
by Mr Howard has, during the greater part of the year, been
suppressed in the interest of communal life. The suppression
differs from that of the bee in that it is not permanent, but is
relaxed in the breeding season when the aggressive attitude
comes to the surface in relation to the acquisition of territorial
rights. Its reappearance is definitely connected with the parental
instinct, having as its biological motive the needs for the
acquisition of a territory upon which sufficient food can be
obtained to feed the young.

The instinct of acquisition in Man. — In dealing with animals
other than Man I have first given examples of the crude instinct
and then tried to show how in certain cases this crude instinct
acting in the interest of the individual has been suppressed or
modified in response to needs arising out of the gregarious life.
It now remains to attempt a similar task for Man himself.

The most striking evidence in favour of the instinct of ac-
quisition as part of Man's mental endowment is derived from
pathology. A leading feature of many psychoses is an impulse
to collect, apparently with little, if any, regard for the nature
or value of the objects collected, though it must always be
remembered that undiscovered beliefs or sentiments present in
the mind of the disordered person may give the collected objects

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION 267

a value as real to him as that of the ordinary possessions of the
normal man.

Another pathological state which points in the same direction
is the impulse to acquire which is known as kleptomania. This
term probably denotes several different states or processes, but
there seems to be little doubt that prominent among these is
one in which a person has an uncontrollable impulse to acquire
anything of value which comes within the purview of his senses.
The various social factors through which such impulses are
normally controlled are wholly insufficient to prevent these
impulses from going on to action. The frequent tendency for
persons to become misers as part of the regression of senility is
another fact pointing in the same direction.

The validity of this evidence depends on acceptance of the
view that the psychoses, psycho-neuroses and other pathological
states are examples of regression or reversion to early stages in
the development either of the individual or the race. The
strength of the impulse to collect in childhood offers confirmation
of a different kind. Not infrequently this impulse to collect with
little regard to the value of the objects collected continues into
adult life, but in most cases only such collections are continued
as stand in a definite relation to other social activities. The boy
who collects butterflies, birds' eggs and postage stamps indis-
criminately will collect certain kinds of insects if he becomes an
entomologist, but will collect books if he devotes his life to
historical or literary studies.

There is thus a certain amount of evidence derived, partly
from behaviour in youth, partly from the regressions of disease
or age, pointing to the existence in Man of a crude undis-
criminating instinct of acquisition acting solely in the interests
of the individual.

In our own individualistic, or as it has been called "acquisitive,"
society acquisition in the interest of the individual is a prominent
part of the existing social order, but it is a question how far
this is due to the action of instinctive tendencies and how far
it is the outcome of tradition and example. The fact that such
a state as kleptomania and the behaviour of the miser are

268 APPENDIX VIII

regarded as pathological or antisocial shows that any crude
instinct of acquisition which Man possesses has been brought
under control as the result of social influences, and the question
before us is how far those cases of acquisition by the individual
which are a normal part of our social order can be held to have
an instinctive basis.

If we are to use the term instinct in the ease of man in the
same sense as it is used when dealing with other animals, we
shall only be justified in regarding that behaviour as instinctive
which is common to mankind in general. It is theoretically
possible that different branches of Mankind may have been
separated from one another for a sufficiently long period of time,
and have in that time undergone development on sufficiently
different lines, to have become endowed with different instincts,
but it is far more likely that the instinctive equipment of all
varieties of the human species is alike, and that any differences
they may show in relation to such a process as acquisition are
due to different degrees in which a common instinct has suffered
modification in the individual as the result of tradition and
social environment.

I propose now to examine some examples of behaviour in
relation to acquisition from people of a culture widely different
from our own in order to obtain some facts bearing on the
subject before us. I shall here confine my attention to the
region of Melanesia which has been the seat of my own inquiries.

Throughout Melanesia we find a peculiar blend of individual-
istic and communistic behaviour in relation to property. In
respect of all kinds of property the whole aspect of individual
ownership is far less definite than among ourselves. Though
certain objects, such as weapons or utensils which a man has
himself made, are regarded by general consent as his individual
property, there is far more common use of such individually
owned articles than is customary in our society. With other
objects, especially those made by the united efforts of the
community, such as the canoe, the concept of individual owner-
ship is unknown in many parts of Melanesia. The canoe, for
instance, is regarded as the common possession of a social group,

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION 269

it may be a clan or a group of kinsfolk, and there is a striking
absence of such disputes concerning the right of use as we might
expect from the example of our own individualistic society.

The object in which common ownership is perhaps most
universal and most definite is land, and it forms a subject
especially suitable for the study of the problem to what extent
ownership in human society can be held to have its basis in an
instinct of acquisition.

Everywhere in Melanesia, so far as our information goes, the
ownership of uncleared land is primarily vested in the tribe.
Any member of the tribe has the right to clear a plot for the
use of himself, his relatives and descendants. Land which has
been already cleared is held in general to belong to a social
group within the tribe. Thus, in Eddystone Island in the
Western Solomons ownership is vested in a group of relatives
called taviti, and any member of the taviti can use the land of
the group or take produce from the land cultivated by any other
of its members. A similar state of affairs holds good for the
group of kin called vantinhul in the island of Ambrim in the
New Hebrides. In both places there are rules that certain kin
must ask for permission before they can take produce from land
cultivated by other members of their group, while in the case of
other kin this is not necessary, the difference depending mainly
on the nearness of relationship. In all cases, however, the
feature which strikes the European observer is the absence of
the disputes which would be inevitable if such a state of affairs
existed among ourselves, assuming, of course, that our existing
sentiments remained what they are now.

A striking example of the difference of attitude towards
common and individual ownership of land was given to me in
the island of Mota in the Banks group \ Here it was the custom
for a man who had cleared a piece of land to mark out an area
for the use of each of his children. I worked out the history of
a plot of land which had been divided up in this way several
generations ago. After a plot had been assigned to each child,
the rest was left for the common use of all. Each of the
^ The Hintory of Melanesian Society, Cambridge, 1914, vol. i. p. 66.

270 APPENDIX VIII

individual plots had passed from one person to another in course
of time and each was still regarded as an individual possession,
but I was told that disputes concerning the ownership and right
to use the produce of these individually owned gardens were
frequent, while there was never any quarrelling about the use of
that part of the original plot which had been left for the
common use of the descendants of the original clearer.

I cannot refrain here from pointing out a striking resemblance
between this Melanesian example of the ownership of land and
the nature of the acquisition of territory by birds of which
Howard has given us so striking an account. This observer finds
that early in the year a flock of birds may be observed living a
common life on an area of land. As spring advances individual
males leave the flock one after another and acquire individual
territories, as already described, but after most of the males
have thus acquired individual territories, part of the original
area still continues to be occupied by the rest of the flock,
including those males which for one reason or another have failed
to acquire territories. The striking feature of resemblance with
the Melanesian example of land-tenure is that the aggressive
attitude only arises in connection with the territories which
have been acquired by individuals, while there is practically no
fighting on that part of the original area which has remained
common to the flock. A further point of resemblance may be
noted. The individual acquisition of territory in the case of the
bird society is definitely connected with the parental function,
while in the Banks Islands the original clearer of the land
marked out the individual plots for his children. Here also
individual ownership in so far as it exists seems to be connected
with the parental function.

I do not wish to lay too much stress upon these striking
resemblances between the social behaviour of man and bird in
relation to the individual ownership of land, though I think we
ought to ponder the kind of conclusions which an avian socio-
logist would be likely to reach if he were to investigate this
aspect of human society. It is impossible, however, to ignore
the fact that in this Melanesian case of human behaviour we

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION 271

have just such an example of the association of communal
ownership with peace and of individual ownership with strife as
is presented by bird society. Moreover, I do not think that in
studying the human example we can ignore the principles of
inquiry which we follow when considering the social behaviour
of other living creatures.

I have suggested that the behaviour of the bird during the
breeding season depends on the revival at this period of the
year of an instinct of aggression in relation to the acquisition of
ten'itory which during the rest of the year has been suppressed
or greatly modified by needs arising out of the gregarious life.
Except in the breeding season the individual instinct of acqui-
sition does not show itself, but has suffered the inhibition or
suppression which instincts acting in the interests of the in-
dividual are liable to undergo during the process of adaptation
to the gregarious life. The facts of development and regression
in man point to acquisition in the interest of the individual as
the primary and more deeply seated process which in the
Melanesian has undergone suppression in the interest of social
needs. In the case of the bird we are accustomed to regard the
modification in the interests of the community as being also
instinctive, as having taken place through the activity of a
gregarious or herd-instinct. In the case of man, it would be
dangerous at once to draw the same conclusion, especially when
we find that, if man's attitude towards property is determined
by an instinct of acquisition, the instinct of different peoples
has undergone in such very different degrees the process of
modification in response to social needs. If we suppose that the
attitude towards property has an instinctive basis we are driven
into the position that the crude individual instinct is far more
powerful among ourselves than among the Melanesians, and that
it has in far less measure been modified in response to the needs
of social life.

At the present time it is the fashion to call upon herd-
instinct for the explanation of many manifestations of the social
activity of Mankind, usually without any clear statement con-
cerning what is meant by instinct. One of the chief problems

272 APPENDIX VIII

awaiting the consideration of the sociologist is how far such
sociahsation of an individual instinct as is shown by the attitude
of bird and Melanesian towards territory is to be explained by
the action of a gregarious instinct and how far it is due to the
influence of social tradition and example. Both Melanesian and
bird show that an instinct of acquisition in the interest of the
individual can be so greatly modified in response to gregarious
needs that it practically disappears or only appears under special
circumstances. If this modification or disappearance needs the
direct action of a gregarious instinct, there are no great hopes
that the highly individualistic attitude of our own society
towards property can suffer speedy modification. If, on the
other hand, such modification or suppression can take place
through the agency of social tradition and example, those who
advocate a change in our social attitude towards property can
be much more hopeful. The fact that two creatures so like one
another as Melanesian and European differ so greatly in their
attitude towards individual ownership suggests that, in so far as
they possess in common an individual instinct of acquisition,
this has been modified by social traditions rather than by the
direct activity of a gregarious instinct, but far more exact
thought is needed about the part which instinctive factors take
in social development.

The problems suggested by this paper are not going to be
settled by the kind of loose thinking and loose writing about
herd-instinct which are now so prevalent. Two lines of in-
quiry are especially needed. We need in the first place exact
thinking about the part taken by instinctive factors in the action
of social tradition and, in the second place, we need a vastly
larger store of facts concerning the attitude towards acquisition
and ownership of different human societies on the one hand, and
of different animal societies on the other. It is an easy course
to reject the value of such comparative study in its relation to
our own social problems by pointing out that the bird has
evolved on lines widely different from our own and that the
Melanesian is a palpable failure in the social struggle for
existence. Such arguments may have a certain amount of force

THE INSTINCT OF ACQUISITION 273

so long as we treat the problem on purely historical lines and
fail to bring psychological considerations to bear upon it.
But the rejection of such evidence is no longer possible when
we turn to psychology for guidance, and seek for the general
psychological laws which have guided the evolution of societies.
Certainly such evidence cannot be rejected when we are dealing
with the part which instinct has taken in this guidance.

It is, of course, impossible to attempt the treatment of such
problems as I have raised on such an occasion as this. I must
be content to suggest certain lines of study in relation to the
instinct of acquisition which cannot be ignored if we are to under-
stand the essential nature of some of our most important
political and economic problems.

INDEX

Acquisition, instinct of, 53, 260
Acuity, sensory, 104
Adrian, E. D., 45
Affect, 35, 47

and instinct, 37

in dreams, 114, 118, 154

suppression of, 36, 57, 129

Affective over- weight, 27, 30
Aggression, instinct of, 54, 57, 61, 97,

242, 263, 266
Air-raids, 255
Alcohol, 143, 254
All-or-none reaction, 45, 61, 89, 98,

107, 117, 131, 153, 262, 266
Alternate consciousness, 75, 79, 80,

134
Ambrim, 269
America, 258
Amnesia, 14, 60, 129
Amphibia, 69, 79, 104, 265
Anaesthesia, 105, 129
Anger, 37, 44, 57
Angst, 124
Anxiety, 124, 143, 244

states, 129, 139, 165, 247

neurosis, 122, 132, 143, 149, 154,

187, 207, 218, 225, 246
Appetite, 52, 236
Apprehension, 242
Arboreal existence, effect of, 55, 58,

62, 66, 68, 80
Art, 157
Astasia, 129
Auto-suggestion, 111, 116

Babinski, J., 222

Banks Islands, 269, 270

Beauchamp, Miss, 74, 106, 108

Bee, the, 49, 53, 100, 262, 264

Bias, political, 85, 87

Birds and territory, 263, 264, 270

Bravery, 243

Butler, S., 161

Butterfly, 42, 69, 70

Capricorn beetle, 42, 49
Catalepsy, 137

Caterpillar, 69
Catharsis, 199
Censorship, 163, 228
Cerebral cortex, 27, 41, 49, 51
Character, 77, 103, 249
Childhood, 157, 230, 258

behaviour in, 44, 149

somnambulism in, 114

suppression in, 63, 126

Christian Science, 142
Claustrophobia, 9, 21, 34, 71, 75, 77,

140, 170
Co-consciousness, 75, 109
CoUapse, 55, 58, 210, 243
Collecting, 266, 267
Communism, 268, 271
"Complex," 85, 163, 233
Compulsion-neurosis, 140, 150, 254
Conative tendencies, 36, 236
Concealment, instinct of, 55, 56
Concussion, 2, 14, 190
Conflict, 6, 59, 119, 123, 162, 254, 258
Consciousness, 43, 49
Construction, instinct of, 53
Contractures, 129
Control. 31, 48, 82, 120, 143, 146, 154,

199, 228, 231, 244, 251
Conversion-neurosis, 127, 135, 223,254
Convulsions, 136
Crank, 145, 156
Crime, 149, 157
Culture, primitive, 239
Curiosity, 52
Cutaneous sensibility, 23 et seq., 64, 88

Danger-instmcts, 5, 52, 67, 97, 123,

135, 153, 241, 253, 255, 261
Death, 84, 236

simulation of, 134

Delirium, 11

Delusion, 83, 125, 144, 151, 155, 246

Dementia prsecox, 145, 151, 254

Depression, 123, 129, 140,144, 166, 195

Determinism, 229

Development, phylogenetic, 23, 29, 65

Devolution, 148

Dipsomania, 144

274

INDEX

275

Discrimination, 23, 28, 64, 99, 111,

117, 154
Disgust, 52

Dispositions, psychologioal, 8
Dissociation, 70, 86, 98, 105, 139, 153,

155, 167, 185, 196

epicritic, 82, 83, 156

in hysteria, 134

Distortion, 231, 235

Dog, 262

Dramatisation, 235, 238

Dream, 11, 150, 174, 182, 189 et seq.,

230, 239, 247, 252

and suppression, 57, 113, 244

day-, 145, 151

protective fxmction of, 231

DriU, 211

Duty, 128, 216, 235

Eddystone Island, 269
Education, 157, 209, 249, 258
EUiot Smith, G., 81
Emotion. See Affect.
Energy, psychical, 157
Epicritic behaviour, 51, 117, 124

dissociation, 82, 83, 155

modification of instinct, 63

sensibility, 23, 48, 77

sentiment as, 88

Epilepsy, 136
Esprit de corps, 216
Experience, imconscious, 160
Extensor thrust, 46

Pabre, J. H., 42

Fad, 145

Faith, 183, 200

False strokes, 237

Fear, 56 et seq., 241. See also Phobia.

and flight, 37, 56, 61

in the dream, 118, 244

suppression of, 57, 66, 121, 209,

242
Fechner's formula, 47, 48
Ferenczi, 212
"Fits," 137

Flight, 37, 44, 53, 56, 66, 97, 133
Forel, A., 112

Forgetting, 18, 63, 162, 180, 232
Freud, S., 3, 18, 37, 124, 127, 140, 159,

180, 183, 228
Frog, 69, 79, 104
Fugue, 73, 78, 86, 98, 105, 109, 114,

139, 155, 166
Fusion, 24, 32, 72, 77, 81, 88, 91

Genius, 157

Globus hystericus, 136

Gregarious instinct, 53, 90, 94, 103,
132, 236, 271, 272

life, influence of, 255, 264

Grief, 149, 198

Habituation, 210

Hallucination, 15, 145, 151

Hart, Bernard, 85, 88

Head, H., 22, 46, 48, 64, 71, 87

Heart and the all-or-none reaction, 46

Herd-instinct. See Gregarious instinct.

Heredity, 161, 168, 210

Bering, E., 161

Hoarding, 262

Hobby, the, 85

Hocart, A. M.. 94

Holmes, Gordon, 27, 48

Holt, E. B., 37

Horror, 123, 191

Howard, Eliot, 263, 264, 265, 270

Hughlings Jackson, 148, 251

Hunger, 52

Hypnotism, 9, 14, 20, 36, 101, 112,

131, 167, 193

in animals, 104, 106

Hypochondriasis, 143, 254

Hysteria, 127, 148, 153, 206, 222, 234,

254

Imagery, 11, 68, 86

Imitation, 53, 90, 92

Immobility, instinct of, 55, 58, 62, 67,
97

and h3'pnotism, 104

and hysteria, 130, 148, 153

and sleep, 115

Incoherence, 146

Individualism, 268

Industrial psychology, 258

Inferiority, 144, 145

Inhibition, 31, 238

Insanity. See Psychosis.

Insect, instinct in, 43, 50, 99, 107

Instinct, 40, 150, 161, 249, 257, 261,
268. See also Acquisition, Construc-
tion, Danger, Gregarious, Immo-
bility, Parental, Play, Sexual.

Integration, 80, 83, 167, 199

Intelligence, 21, 40, 48, 81, 99, 124, 131

Interest, 13, 18, 142, 162

Introspection, 7, 241

Intuition, 93, 95, 99, 103, 107

Jung, C. G., 4, 85

Keeling, F., 121
Kirkman, F. B., 265
Kleptomania, 267

276

INDEX

Lapsus linguae. See Slips of tongue.

Lapwing, 2()3

Level, neurological, 30, 229

psychological, 229, 244

sensori-motor, 30, 38, 64, 87

L6vy-Bruhl, 83, 84
Livingstone, D., 68
Localisation, 23, 28, 32
Lucas, Keith, 45
Lying, pathological, 151

MacCurdy, J. T., 224

Magpie, 262

McDougall, W., 37, 91

Mania, 146, 152

Manipulative activity, 54, 57

Mass-reflex, 29, 30, 35, 46

Meaning, 18

Mechanisms, pathological, 4, 168

Melanesia, 94, 240, 268, 272

Memory, 60, 69, 129, 161

Metamorphosis, 68, 70

Military training, 130, 186, 205

Mimesis, 92, 131, 149, 235

Misers, 267

Monoplegia, 129

Morgan, Lloyd, 41, 49

Mosso, A., 56

Movement, perception of, 68, 67, 72,

97
Mutism, 132, 153, 206

Nancy school, 101
Neo-pallium, 27, 41, 81
Nest- building, 53
Neurasthenia, 124, 222, 255

traumatic, 3

Neurosis, 119
Newt, 80, 265
Nightmare, 15, 76, 113, 117, 123, 154,

190, 243
Night-terror, 76, 150, 171, 243

Oath, the, 216

Occipital cortex, 72

Optic thalamus. See Thalamus.

Pain, 24, 38, 138

suppression of, 26, 32, 67, 242

Panic, 210

Paralysis, 105, 128, 133, 164, 220, 254

reflex, 223

Paranoia, 144, 157, 254

Parental instinct, 37, 52, 53, 112, 264,

266
Personality, 15, 74, 112, 163, 265

double, 74, 80, 98

multiple, 36, 74, 106, 108

Phobia, 78, 86, 139, 164, 243. See

Claustrophobia and Snake-phobia.
Pithiatism, 222
Play, instinct of, 63
Pleasure, 47, 113
Prejudice, 15, 252
Prelogical thought, 83
Preyer, W., 104
Prince, Morton, 75, 106, 108
Projection, 23
Property, 261, 268, 271
Protopathic, behaviour, 61

instinct, 48, 117

sensibility, 22, 38, 46, 87

suppression as, 63

Psychasthenia, 141, 222
Psvcho-analysis, 3, 11, 36, 63, 76, 146,

164, 171, 183, 201, 252
Psychology, experimental, 249

history of, 248

industrial, 258

influence of the war on, 248

social, 250, 252

the older, 7, 13, 161, 248

Psycho-neurosis, 119, 234, 251, 256

of civil life, 3, 120, 135

of war, 2, 4, 19, 34, 120, 138, 164,

186, 203

protective function of, 128, 138

Psychosis, 144, 146, 207, 254, 256, 266
Psycho-therapy, 142, 227, 246, 257.

259
Puberty, 120

Quadrumana, 55

Radiation of sensation, 25, 28, 46, 87
Rationalisation, 108, 125, 141, 144,

246, 254
Reality, 151

Re-education, 156, 200, 227
Reference of sensation, 25, 28, 87
Reflex action, 28, 38, 46

and suppression, 30, 34, 38

Regeneration of nerve, 22, 25
Regression, 65, 82, 148, 257, 267
Religion, 158
Repression, 17, 20, 124, 126, 167, 185,

213, 218, 245, 254, 257
neurosis, 124, 224, 255, 257. See

Anxiety-neurosis.
Resistance, 63
Riddoch, G., 28, 46, 72
Robin, the, 265

Science, 257, 259
Seals, terror in, 56

INDEX

277

Self -analysis, 11

Self-knowledge, 267

Self-preservation, instinct of, 5, 52,
120, 208, 253, 255. See Danger-
instinct.

Self-reliance, 257 «

SeUgman, C. G., 70

Senility, 267

Sentiment, 87

Sex and psycho -neurosis, 3, 120, 135,
163, 172, 177, 253

Sexual instinct, 37, 52, 261

Sexuality, infantile, 3

Shame, 123, 150, 197, 246

Shand, A. F., 37

"Shell-shock," 2

Sherrington, C. S., 46

Side-tracking, 215

Sleep, 110, 154, 163, 228

Slips, of tongue, 228, 232

of pen, 228, 232

Snake-phobia, 140, 243

Social behaviour, 250, 252

Socialisation of instinct, 265, 272

Solitude, desire for, 150

Solomon Islands, 94, 269

Somnambulism, 114, 118, 198

Spinal cord, 28, 50, 71

Stage-fright, 243

Stupor, 137

Subconsciousness, 7

Sublimation, 156, 216, 219

Substitution-neurosis, 135

Suggestibility, 101, 130, 212, 217

Suggestion, 15, 53, 90, 107, 183, 200,
211, 236

and hypnotism, 20, 101

in hysteria, 130

in sleep. 111

neurosis, 130, 223

post-hypnotic, 108, 112

Suicide, 141, 196, 203

Suppression, 17, 22, 67, 66, 121, 146,
152, 158, 181, 185, 244, 251, 264,
266, 271

and immobility, 58, 67

and inhibition, 31

in hypnotism, 102

in hysteria, 129

in sleep, 113

Suspicion, 144

Symbolism, 140, 141, 146, 163, 228.
235, 238

Sympathy, 53, 90, 92, 107

Taboo, 168

Tact, 96

Tawney, R. H., 260, 261

Telepathy, 96

Temperature sensibility, 23, 26, 46, 87

Territory in bird life, 263, 265, 270

Terror, 59, 210, 242

Thalamus, 27, 30, 48

Thirst, 52

Thought-reading, 96

Tic, 207, 238

Tremor, 55, 59, 242

Unconscious, the, 7, 33

content of, 34

"Unwitting," 16

Vicious circle, 245
Visceral sensibility, 25

Waking, 116

Warblers, 263

War-neurosis. See Psycho-neurosis of

War.
Warning cry, 54, 132
"Wind-up," 241, 246
Wish, unconscious, 37

Yucca-moth, 42

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