locke and dissolution of ego

7/29/2019 Locke and Dissolution of Ego

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Locke and the "Dissolution of the Ego"Author(s): Ernest TuvesonReviewed work(s):Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Feb., 1955), pp. 159-174Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/435542 .

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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO"'ERNEST TUVESON

I. THE NEW MODEL OF THE MINDIT AS been said that "forAddison, andthemen of lettersofthe eighteenthcentury, ockewas 'thephilosopher,'somewhat as Aristotlehad been fortheschoolmen."2The duo of Newton andLocke always appears as the revolution-ary heroeswho dominatethe beginningsofthe "modern"age. Yet it has been thecase with both that much oftheir nflu-ence on creative artists,as well as onideas about art,remains bscure, or, ikethe larger part of an iceberg, t lies be-neath thesurface fthings.n thepresentpaper shalltry osuggest fewpointsofthat nfluence,oncentratingn the "newmodel" ofthemindwhich merges, y m-plication as well as explicitly,fromLocke's writingsn thementalprocesses.Therewillbe no attempt o enter nto themany ndvexatiousproblems f echnicalphilosophynd psychology,ut rather osee the effectshatLocke's epistemologyproducedon the commonman's idea ofhimselfndhisfellows: hat deawhich, fnecessity,mostpoets,novelists,nd evencriticswere to use as the basis and muchoftheverymaterial ftheirworks.A reasonfor he actual effectivenessfLocke's system-its ability o winalmostuniversal cceptancewithin fewyears,as opposed to the enmityand uproarHobbes stirred p-is the factthat, ike

the GloriousRevolution tselfwithwhichhe had muchto do, he compromised. esucceeded in producing theoryof themindwhich retainedwhatmostmende-sired while it excluded,seemingly,whattheyfeared.There weretwoextremes o be mediat-ed.One wasthefamiliar,rudemechanismrepresentedyHobbes.ThephilosopherfMalmesburyhad made an overhasty t-tempt o explain ll sensation, ll dreams,all thought,n termsofpurelymaterial,physiological hangesin the body, pro-duced by particlesof matteroutside m-pingingon the matter of the organism.Connectionsof these impressions, ro-duced n fortuitousequences,giverisetoall our notionsof relations.According ohis theory to whichhe himself id notstrictlydhere),there s nothing lse: noseparate oul,no livingbeing t theheartof t all, aware of itself nd of ts aware-ness. t was all verymaterial ndmechan-ical and, theage rightly elt, alse.Thiswas an age ofextremesnphiloso-phy. The problemof bringing he mindintorelationwith physicalworldwasbe-comingsteadilymore acute. Some, likeDescartes, resorted o the desperateex-pedient f a radicalsplitbetween hysical"imagination" nd "pure"intellection; ecould,he says,have onlya confuseddeaas image of a chiliagon,for example,whereashis mental onceptions clear nddistinct: "And thus I clearly recognizethat I have need of a particular ffortfmind n order o effect heact of magina-tion, such as I do not requireto under-stand,and thisparticular ffort fmindclearly manifeststhe differencewhich

1This paper is part ofa study ofaspects ofLocke'sinfluenceon theoriesof art and on writers n the eight-eenth century.2 Basil Willey, The Seventeenth Century Background,chap. xi, sec. 1 (firstpublished, 1934). The compre-hensive study of Lockian influences s Kenneth Mac-Lean, John Locke and English Literature of the Eight-eenthCentury New Haven, 1936). For substantiationofstatements n the text about the triumphofLockianepistemology,reference s made to MacLean's work.[MODERN PHILOLOGY, February, 1955] 159

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160 ERNEST TUVESONexists between magination nd pure in-tellection."3 hus perceptionnd imagin-inghad becomedivorced rom thought"-and this n theage that was witnessingthe greatrenascence fthe sensesin thecall forobservation, orfaith n and reli-ance on facts as revealedby seeing;and,indeed, in many ways Descartes's ownsystem fnature ontributedmarkedly,findirectly,o this result. The Descartestheory f themind ed to "hypotheses"--attemptsto make perfectmental con-structs, n the basis of some sense data,which would solve all difficulties. hemind,for xample, ouldby "pure" intel-lection rrive t a complete ystem f theuniverse.Newton'scelebrated ejection fhypotheses typifiedthe distrust thatgreeted his kindof thing nd, by impli-cation, this kind of epistemology.Des-cartes'sowntheory f the "vortices" oonbecame an object of scorn. Hobbes wasrightin assumingthat men wished toworkdirectly ith he"phantasms"of heimagining ower n themind.No longerwere they contentwith the traditionalview that the "phantasms" merely n-spire, o to speak,themindto create tsown "intelligible" deas: the mindmustworkdirectly ith nd be restrictedothesensationswhichrepresenthe realworld,the world n whichwe actually ive.Yet therewas formostthinkersnotherand equally impelling, ven though ap-parentlycontradictory, eed. The mindmustbe preserved s living nd moral nthe sense ofhavingresponsibility. s anextreme eaction, erhaps, gainstthe de-pendenceon sense,an influx f neo-Pla-tonic opinions stressed more than hadscholasticismhedivine, ndhence upra-sensory,natureof themind'sknowledgeofGod, religious ruths,nd ethics.Eventheordinarymentaloperations ookon a

transcendentharacter.AfterHobbes hadwritten hebest version fhistheory ndlessthantwenty earsbefore ockewrotethe first raft f his Essay concerningheHuman Understanding,ohn Smith de-clared: "That that Mental faculty ndpowerwherebywe udgeand discerns sofarfrom eing Body, hat tmustretractand withdrawtself rom ll Bodily opera-tionwhensoever t will nakedlydiscernTruth."4Like the CambridgePlatonistsingeneral, e stressed heparticipationfthehumanmind nthe divineone. In thehighestknowledge,that of the Deity,imaginationcan only breathe a "grossdew upon the pure Glass of our Under-standings."All knowledge, ven of ordi-narythings,mustfinally e thought f assomethingfar removedfromsensation,eventhough tmaybe initiated y senseexperiences.A result fthisdisagreement as an al-most unbelievable confusion nd com-plexity n the area ofepistemology.ordHerbert of Cherbury, orexample, n awork to whichLocke refers,ries to un-tangle the knot into whichperception,knowledge, nd thought s a whole hadgot.5Whilehis treatise asmanybrilliantinsights-towhichLocke did not do jus-tice-nevertheless t is almostunreadableand, except o a fewpatient pecialists,l-most incomprehensible.The weakestpoint bout theCambridge latonists ndthoseoftheir eneral ersuasionwas theirobscurity.Their attemptsto solve theproblems fepistemology erehopelesslyunusable.Not without easondidmanyoftheir ontemporariesegard heir olumesas cloud castles.Yet this was the time of the rise of the

aMeditation VI of Meditations on the First Philos-ophy, trans. Elizabeth Haldane and G. R. T. Ross(Cambridge, 1931).

4 The Immortality of the Soul, chap. iii, in The Cam-bridge Platonists, ed. Campagnac (Oxford, 1901), p.120.SDe veritate, trans. Meyrick H. Carre (Bristol,

1937). On the attitude toward Descartes and hy-potheses see my article, "Swift and the World-Makers," JHI, XI (1950), 54 ft.



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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO" 161"new philosophy,"with its rejectionofoccult qualities in the physicaluniverse.Mystery,wonder, hetranscendent, ereout ofkeepingwith he newspirit,nd es-peciallywas authority oingout of fash-ion. Thehierarchyf heplanetsno ongerhad any reality,and yet a hierarchicalconceptionof the soul still held sway.Atomismwasbeingrevived s the basis ofphysics, nd the whole systemof "mat-ter" and "form"whichhad prevailedforso manycenturies nd to whichthephi-losophyof the mind was necessarily t-tunedwas antiquated.The newer mpha-sis was notonthe elf-existentform," hefinal eality, ut on theprocesses f mat-ter describedby naturallaws. This newscience,moreover,was givingmena feel-ing of certainty nd security, sense ofunderstandinghegreatorder,whichhadto a largeextentbeen lacking n the firstpartofthecentury. he sense of dissolu-tion,ofmutabilityriumphant,f aimlessflux t theheartofthings, fskepticismdestroying, which Spenser, Donne,Browne, nd manyothersreflectn theirvariousways,wasgivingwaytoa triumphof "commonsense." Newton seemed tocompletetheworkofre-establishinghecosmos na provable,universal, nd,bestof all, comprehensibleystem.The reli-giousness f uch scientistss Newton ndBoyleshowed, oo,that thenew model ofthe universe would prove more surelythan ever before he existence nd won-derful overnmentf a beneficentMaker.Yet the work was incomplete.Men'ssenseof ecurityntheuniverse ests ponanother oundation esidescosmology.tis necessaryfor them to have a corre-sponding pistemology.et thiswas nota-bly acking, venafterNewton'sworkhadbeen largelycompleted. t is really verydifficulto guesswhat theaverage,fairlywell-informedan of 1690thought boutthe operations f his mind.No doubt he

had some kind of watered-downAristo-teliannotions, utwe can suspecthe felta vague dissatisfactionwith them. Wehavenoproblem s towhat the samekindofman, fewdecades ater, houghtboutthe mind: his ideas were substantiallythoseofLocke. For Locke'sworkgave tohis contemporariesnd to manysucceed-ing generationshepreciousgiftof a co-herent nd understandable ay of visual-izingtheworking ftheir ntellects.Notthe leastremarkable act s theevidence,with whichone meets continually, hateveryone appeared to have read some-thingof Locke himself.Unlike Freud inour own time,whomfewseem to haveread to any extent,althoughthis is a"Freudian" age, Locke was known nhisown words.The reason s thathis system,like that ofthenewphilosophy,was onethatquite ordinarymindscouldgrasp, tleast in main points.The greatwave ofoptimismand vigorous self-confidencethat moves so remarkably hrough heeighteenth enturyperhaps owes some-thing f tsimpetus o thisfact.Locke's new model of the mind con-served nd united he elementswhich heage desired. The rejectionof authority,the faith n experience,wererepresentedby therejection f nnate deas. Proposi-tionsdo not comepackaged, o to speak,nordoes themindhavepotential houghtswaiting o be brought ut by experienceas thedeveloperreveals an exposedfilm.On the otherhand, there s no cumber-some attemptto explainall thoughtby"local motions" n thebody, s inHobbes-no "decayingsense" or the like. Thesolutionwas to giveto themind,not theideas,but thepower omake deas.HenryMore had suggested omething artly ikethis.There s inthesoul,he says,a "pow-er" manifestedn a "boniform aculty,"the very "Eye of the Soul." Thus thethinking ower, t is suggested,s a mat-



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162 ERNEST TUVESONter of seeingrelationships.He regardedthis perception,however,as somethingtranscendent; t has to be attained byspiritualpurification:he "Eye" is therein everysoul but must be clearedof itsearthyblindness.Locke,also,makestheprocess f hink-inga matterofseeingand "considering"-a favoritewordwithhim. n the centerofthemind he places an observer,ome-thingikea virtuoso fthe Baconiantype,who takes all the experience ata avail-able, classifyingnd analyzingthe factsinto orderlygroupings.The process isnatural. Locke preservesHobbes's planfor bringing experience directly intothought, ridginghegapbetween phan-tasms" and "species." The stuff f allideas is sensations,which are called the"simple deas." The use of thesame termfor hesimple ensations nd for he com-plexwholes,whichhecalled"modes,"andthe ike, s extremelyignificant.hus thesimple ideas, arisingfromthe effects fphysicalobjectswithout n theorgansofthe body, are conveyed,Locke says, bythe "conduits of the nerves" directly o"theiraudiencein the brain-the mind'spresence-roomas I may so call it)."'These simple ideas are irresistible;wehave no control verwhichones we shallreceive or use. Thus Locke maintainedthathumility efore aturewhich s char-acteristicof the programof the RoyalSociety:These simple deas,when offeredo themind, heunderstandingan no more efusetohave,nor lter,when hey re mprinted,norblot hem ut, ndmakenewones tself,than a mirroran refuse,lteror obliteratethe mages r deaswhich heobjects etbe-foretdo thereinroduce. s thebodies hat

surrounds dodiverselyffectur rgans,hemind s forcedoreceive he mpressions,ndcannot void heperceptionf hose deas hatare annexedo themEssay, I, i,25].This is a wayofembodyingnepistemolo-gytheprinciple hat, s Shaftesburyays,man s madefornature ndnot nature orman. The soul is not a refugeenmatterfrom higher rder ut a functioningartof the visiblecosmos.The impression fthe mind s a partofnature s furthern-hancedbya parallelof xperience ith heconcourse ftheindivisible toms:

For, houghhe ightnd touch ften akeinfromhe ame bject,t the ame ime, if-ferentdeas; s a man ees toncemotionndcolour; hehandfeels oftnessnd warmthnthe samepieceofwax;yetthesimpledeasthusunitedn thesamesubject, re as per-fectlyistincts those hat ome nbydiffer-ent ensesEssay,I, ii,1].It follows, hen,thatthings xist,not asessences n themind,but as conglomera-tions of entities;the atoms of thoughtunite to form heobjectsofthemind, sdo thoseofmatter o form heplanets ndheavenlybodies.Another ource of simple deas is the"reflection" f the mind upon its ownoperations. Again, reflection ike allthoughtmeansconsideringperceptions":

Secondly,he other ountain,romwhichexperienceurnishethheunderstandingithideas, s,--the erceptionftheoperationsfourown mindwithin s, as it is employedabout he deas t hasgot;--whichperations,when he oul omes oreflectn ndconsider,do furnish heunderstandingsith notherset of ideas,which ouldnot be had fromthings ithout;nd uch reperception,hink-ing,doubting, elieving,easoning,nowing,willing,nd all thedifferentctings f ourownmindsEssay,I, i,4].The mind, then, s always the observer,evenwhenthe object is its own actions,which "pass there continually. . . like

6 Essay concerning the Human Understanding, II,iii, 1. All citations from thiswork,except as noted, aretaken fromthe edition of A. C. Fraser (Oxford, 1914),and for convenience in reference are given by book,chapter, and section. Citations from The Conduct ofthe Understanding re taken from The WorksofJohnLocke (12th ed.; London, 1824), Vol. II.



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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGo" 163floating isions." The purely ntelligible,thenoetic, ccordingly as thenature ofsomething isible and is made up of theatoms ofexperience. source fthevogueforpersonificationn eighteenth-centurypoetrymay be here. To personify ope,Fear, orMelancholy s notmerely o pre-sent a poetical fiction ut to give someimpression f those "floating isions" ofthe mind as it contemplatestself. ockedwelt on thenecessity or hiskind of n-trospection, nd it is not illogical thatpoetry houldtakeup thiskindof "reflec-tion," underthe formof "reverie," s asource ofsubjects.The attentive bserverwithin hemind-the understanding-goes n mmediate-lyto constructut ofthese tomsofexpe-riencethe combinations hat Locke callsthe"complex deas." Here it is importantnotmerely o graspthe formalmport fLocke's statementsbut to visualize theimageofthe mind s hedescribest.Onlyso can we appreciatethe fact that thissystems bynomeanspurely mechanis-tic." Professor assirervoices a commonviewwhenhe remarks hat"reflection,sunderstood y Locke, is formed ntirelyon the patternof sensation. t is not anactive,buta purely assive principle ...The mind behaves towards deas like amirror hich anneither esistnorchangenor extinguish he images that arise init."' Locke does indeedregardsensationas passive; so much he grants heHobbesside. But the "looking-glass" analogyshouldnot be carried oo far.Locke's ownuse ofthe word "consider" s indicative.The mind, in contemplating he ideaswhich it receives,acts as the BaconianobserverI have mentioned.When westudy photograph r an image n a mir-ror, noting details and comparingonewith another,we do not thinkof our-

selves as passive; but so Locke thinksoftheunderstanding,hichhas been divine-ly endowed as a living powerwith theability o studythe continuum fexperi-ences and to reflect n them, rriving tcombinationswhichpresent reasonablyaccurate facsimile f externalreality. tpossesses, too, the final test of a livingthing,n that t can refuse o "consider."Thus did Lockebring hemindcomplete-ly intothe naturalorderwhilepreservingthe senseof ts own ntegrity,itality,ndself-awareness.

Constructing satisfactory mage ofthe mind was a problemthat obviouslygave Locke some difficulty.t one timehe talks of the understandingn termsthat recall the camera obscura. Externaland internal ensations, e says,"are theonlypassagesthat canfind fknowledgeto theunderstanding":These lone, s far s I candiscover,re hewindowsywhichight s let intothisdark

room; ormethinksheunderstandings notmuchunlike closetwhollyhutfromightwithonly ome ittle peningeft, o let inexternal isible resemblances,r ideas ofthingswithout:would the pictures ominginto uch dark oom utstay here,nd ieso orderlys to be found ponoccasion,twould erymuch esembleheunderstandingof a man, n referenceo all objects fsight,and the deasof hemEssay, I, xi,17].Atfirst,t wouldseem thatthis s anotherversion of Hobbes's mechanism. The"pictures" pparentlynter he darkroomand form hemselves s sensationoccurs,and the combinations ppear to be pas-sive. But the words"and lie so orderlysto be found ponoccasion"givequitean-other mpression; or heremustbe some-thing, ndowedwithpowers facting nddeciding f tsown,to "find"thepictureswhen needed. What Locke really is de-scribinghere is the setting f the under-standing.And even the "pictures"ulti-7 rnst Cassirer, The Platonic Renaissance in Eng-land, trans. J. P. Pettegrove (Austin, Tex., 1953),p. 63.



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164 ERNESTTUVESONmatelyhave an irony f their wn, s willappear; for, las, eventheydo notalways"stay there, nd lie so orderly s to befoundupon occasion."Another mage ofthe mindis clearer.This one,which has been mentioned e-fore, epresentshe sensations s conduct-ed "fromwithout o their udience nthebrain,-the mind's presence-room,s Imayso call it." Locke,the ntimate fthefirst ordShaftesbury, as,ofcourse, er-fectlyfamiliarwith the levees of greatmen,and hemust have realizedfully heimplicationsof this figure.The under-standing s seen as a judge,seatedmajes-ticallywithin tspresence-room,deas be-ingushered efore t for heir isposal; ikea ruler, t is powerful nd autonomous,but it depends absolutelyon its people;withthem t is a potentate,without hemitisnothing.Unlike sovereign, owever,it cannot tir romtschamber,nditcan-not reject the intelligencet receives; tcannotgo abroad to discover, t cannotundertake o rangebeyond ensethroughthe wide expanseofnature, nd it mustperforce elieveimplicitlywhat it learnsfromtsretainers,venthoughbyshrewdcomparisontmayto some extentgetbe-hind the sensations,as when it deter-minesthat colors do not reallyexist innature.Andthere s a hintthat the deasthemselvesan,not mproperly,e spokenof as living; for if the impressions renothingbut mere ooking-glass ictures,how can they have "audience" in the"presence-room"?Yet it is equallytrue thatwemust notoverrate he independence nd extent oftheunderstanding.ocke objectedto theterm"faculties" s meaning o stand for"some real beings in the soul that per-formed those actions of understandingand volition" Essay, II, xxi, 6). His ob-jection really s to the tendency folderphilosophers,specially, nesuspects, he

CambridgePlatonists, o make the minda sort of persona, fullyequipped per-sonality.The understandingnd the willLocke seems to regard as beings, notautomatons, but not fully equipped"souls." The properword is the one heuses, "powers,"dynamic nd self-guided,but not internallymotivated.The complexdeas, then, ven the mostsubtle nd seeminglynexplicable,ikethe"modes" ofpower, nfinity,nd even theidea ofGod, are composedf-not refinedfrom-discrete mpressions, hich retaintheir respectiveforms,however muchtheymay seemto be fused n the mind.These impressions e thinks fusuallyaspictures. ocke,unlikeHobbes,has littleto say about theimagination erse. Onereason s that the visual magination,nasimple evel,permeates issystem, or t stheverymediumof all apprehensionndthought.t is indirectlyhesubjectof alldiscussion.How naturally efalls ntous-ingtheword! The understanding,e says,ordinarily omposes he most elaborate fideas,the"mixedmodes,"by "enumerat-ingand thereby,s itwere, etting eforeour maginationsll those deaswhichgoto themaking hemup, and are thecon-stituent artsof hem" Essay, I, xxii, ).Locke, to be sure, recognizes hat simpleideas ofsensation ome nthroughll five(and more)senses,butonly ight s reallyvivid to him,and seeing, s he says spe-cifically,s the operationof thought.Aprincipal ourceof error, orexample, s"obscurity"-caused eitherby failure oobserveattentively r by lack of light.The worldofthemindshouldbe floodedwith brilliant llumination hich evealsthe deas clearly:

The perceptionf the mindbeingmostaptly xplainedywords elatingo the ight,we shall bestunderstand hat s meantbyclear ndobscuren our deas, y reflectingnwhatwecallclear nd obscurentheobjects



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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO" 165of ight. ight einghatwhich iscoverso usvisible bjects,wegive hename fobscureothatwhichs notplacedn a lightufficientodiscoverminutelyo usthefigurend colourswhich re observablen it, andwhich,n abetteright,wouldbe discernibleEssay, I,xxix, ].

It followsthat correction f error nopinion is largelya matter of bringingmore ightto bear on men's ideas and ofmakingpeoplesee and want to see. Argu-mentation s generally nderstood-dis-cursive thought,with propositions ndchainsof ntellectual elationships,s rep-resented, or nstance, y the syllogism-is of ittleuse and maybe harmful:Godhasgivenmen] mind hatcan rea-son,without eing nstructednmethodsfsyllogizing:heunderstandings not aughtoreason y hese ules;thasa native acultyoperceive he coherencer incoherencef tsideas, ndcanrange hem ight, ithoutnysuchperplexingepetitions.ell a countrygentlewomanhat hewind s southwest,ndtheweatherowering,nd ike orain, nd hewill asily nderstandt isnot afe or er ogo abroadthinclad in such a day,afterfever;he learlyees theprobableonnexionof all these, iz.,southwestind, ndclouds,rain,wetting,akingold, elapse,nddangerofdeath,withoutyinghemogethernthoseartificialnd cumbersomeetters f severalsyllogisms,hatclog and hinder hemind,whichproceeds romone part to anotherquicker nd clearerwithouthem;and theprobabilitywhichshe easily perceivesnthings hus n theirnative statewouldbequite lost, f thisargument eremanagedlearnedlynd proposedn figurend mode[Essay, V, xvii, ].Thus Locke constructed n acceptableepistemology hich nabledmento carryout the revolt against scholastic en-tanglementshatcharacterized aconian-ism. And unless we fullyunderstand hismatter fsimple eeingby a clear ight sreasoning,we cannotfullyunderstandn

what sense the age that followed ocke,whosephilosopher ewas, sthe"Enlight-enment"; ndwecannot ully nderstand,either,muchofthe purposeofthepoetswho inherited hese ideas. "To lay thenakedideas on whichtheforce f the ar-gumentation epends n theirdue order"-in simplest erms, he arrangementfthepictures-this s theessential;onceitis done,men can hardlyfail to concludearight.What glorious prospectsfor thefuture hisdiscoveryeemed, o such menas Jefferson,o open up!Even abstraction s explainedin thisway. The word s likely o be misleading;we think fsomethingike"intellection,"pure thought,wherebythe images aretransmuted, ecome nthe strict ense oftheword"intelligible." o thinkof it sois, however,n theLockian age,most er-roneous. For an abstraction, ocke tellsus, is nothingotherthan a "particularidea," that s,a sensation, eparatedfromall otherswhichmaycome ssociatedwithit in experience,aken as the representa-tive of a largenumberof similar impleideas in whatever orms hose deas maythemselvesbe combined. Locke's state-ment in the 1671 draftof the Essay isespecially aluable: ". .. the dea ofwhiteinthe mindwhich tandsfor ll the whitethatanywhere xists, nd the wordwhitewhichstandsforthat idea, thoughboththese n their xistence e but particularthings,yet as representativesr in theirsignificationsre universals."8The in-volvements f poetry n this conceptionaregreat.The "abstraction"never easesto be a particular mage;there s no needto use metaphoras a means of givingimagisticform o pure idea. The art ofpresenting he universal consists n theskill with which the writer or speakerselects heprecise mageswhich he mind

* Essay concerning the Human Understanding, ed.Rand (Cambridge, 1931), p. 119.



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166 ERNEST TUVESONwillmultiply,o tospeak, nto hegeneral.The epithetperhaps s intended t timesto help give this sense of the individualimageas theessenceof the universal.Oncethemindhas combined hesimpleideas-whether theyhave come associat-ed in original xperience rwhether heyhavebeenshaped ater-theyhavea pow-erful nd almostunbreakable onnection,a factwhich anbe bothdesirable nd re-grettable. ncean idea,a picture,s calledup inthemind, thers ppearin an estab-lished sequence.When Thomsonwrites,

letPeruDeepinherbowels er wn uin reed,Theyellowraitorhather liss etrayed,9he exemplifies poetic use of this prin-ciple.The "yellowtraitor" ets n motionthe whole trainof deas,gold,thecrueltyof the conquerors eeking t, etc., ust asthe statement bout the southwestwindset n motion hesequenceofpropositionsforthe countrygentlewomann Locke'sillustration.So a new model of the mind had beenformed: model new in its wholeratherthan ntheparts,butan inspiredwork orall that. Locke had written,n Sterne'sphrase,the "history f what passes in aman's ownmind," and that historywasacceptedeagerly ymen as diverse s Ad-dison, Jonathan Edwards, Pope, andHutcheson. With the newmodelcame asenseof ecuritywhichwas to underlie heglorioushopesforutopia and perfectibili-tyof theage of thephilosophes.t now re-mains to suggest ome of the onger-rangeconsequences fLocke'sepistemologyndto showhowandwhyhe is one of hemostimportantmakersof thattemperwe call"modern."

II. TWO POINTS OF THE LOCKIANREVOLUTIONTwo revolutionaryoncepts bout theuniverse hat came out of the astronomi-

cal studyof the seventeenthenturyndbeforeweretheendingof thenotion hatthe universe s geocentricnd therevela-tion thattheheavenlybodiesarenot"in-corruptible."Out of Locke's philosophytwo conceptions, f comparable impor-tance, about the nature ofman weretoemerge.One was the propositionthat menknow,not reality,but theirown experi-ence only."Truth,"Locke goes so farasto say, "seems to me to signify othingbut the joiningor separating fsigns, sthe things ignified o agree or disagreeone withanother."Yet through he agesmen had assumed that the object of allstudy,ofknowledge,s objectivetruth-whether hatofobjectsor thetranscend-ent deas,ofwhich herealworld s but animperfect epresentation. ocke, on thecontrary,sserted hat theessencesof allthings re unknowable, hatwhatwe canknowthroughnd throughs the deaswehave. JohnNorris, ne of themost acuteoftheearlycritics ftheEssay,statestheissue thus: "I verymuchwonder hatourAuthor professingn the Title of theChapterto discourse f Truth n general,and particularlyf that Truth toowhichhas been the Enquiry of so many ages,shouldyetconfine isDiscourse of TruthofWords nd TruthofThoughts,withoutthe least mentionof Objective Truth.Which indeed is the principalkind ofTruth."'oPanofsky peaksoftheprocesswhereby theveryprinciple frealitywasshifted o the ubjectivehuman onscious-ness."'11 orrisclearly howsthe processunderway. The mind that cannot lookout of the windowof ts darkroom, hatsees only the "pictures,"must, indeed,know ts own mpressionss truth. n thelong run, therefore,iterature,whose ob-9 "Liberty," V, 11. 23 ff.1o Cursory Reflections on the Essay concerning theHuman Understanding (London, 1728), p. 26.11Studies in Iconology (New York, 1939), p. 229.



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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO" 167ject is and mustalwaysbe the imitationof reality, very naturallyunderwentshift fattention.ftruths the oining rseparating fsigns,whichrepresentdeasas impressions,hen thestudyof truth sthestudy fthe mind.This does not meana "flight romreality,"or escape to theivorytower,but rather hatreality, s itis felt nd knownby men,must be foundwithinrather han without. t is a mis-take, of course,to confuseLocke's posi-tion withsolipsism; he mind has a highdegree fcorrespondence ithreality,ndwe are not abandoned to completely ri-vate worlds. But our apprehensions freality re private n another ense,for tis oursense, hequalityofourawareness,that must nevitably iffer.t is not sur-prising hattherehas been a steadydriftin literature,rom heeighteenthenturyon,toward hecontemplationftheworldas seenbythemindrather hanof truth"perse; and consequentlyhe state ofmindhas assumedgreat mportance.Nor is itstrange hat therehas been an absorbinginterest n abnormal conditions of themind;further easonsfor his nterestwillappear later.Such a theorymight eemto throw ntochaos thewholeworldofthought;yet itwas thephilosophy f an age ofobjectivescience.The paradoxmaybe explained ycertainfacts. There was the intense on-viction hat all naturerepresents great,harmonious rder, n which ach part isordained to play its appropriate ole ac-cordingto its own "laws." The mind,therefore,s a partofthatorderly ature,mustbe thoroughlydaptedto thephysi-cal realm n which t exists. To reconcilethe many aberrations f mindwith thispresuppositions one of the problems fthe age and underliesShandyism.Thusthe revival of the distinctionbetween"primary" nd "secondary"qualities,farfromupsetting he situation, n the end

became a proofof thisdivinely rdainedadjustmentof the mind to reality.Thatourexperience fcolor,heat,and the ikeshould be purely subjective and yet soreliable s an evidence that man's naturehas its ownlaws, as firm nd predictableas those thatgovern heplanets.Thomas Aquinas, describing histypeofepistemology, ejected t, amongotherreasons, "because the thingswe under-stand are theobjectsofscience;thereforeifwhat we understand smerely he ntel-ligible pecies n thesoul, t wouldfollowthatevery ciencewouldnot be concernedwith objects outside the soul, but onlywith the intelligible pecies within thesoul."12What has prevented hisdenoue-ment, o far as what we call thephysicalsciences reconcerned,s the invention fthe experimentalmethod,wherebytheimpressionsfmany ndividualsn a con-trolled ituation an be exactly ompared;and the absorption f themind nto na-ture has changedthe character f "intel-ligible species." But in the realm ofhu-manisticknowledge isprediction as notbeen withoutrealization, hat concern srather bout thingswithin than outsidethesoul.The secondpointofthe Lockian revo-lution concerned hequestionofpersonalidentity. ocke's opinionwas that"self sthat consciousthinking hing,whateversubstancemade up of, whether piritualor material, simple or compounded, tmattersnot)-which is sensible or con-scious of pleasureand pain, capable ofhappinessormisery, nd so is concernedfor tself, s far as that consciousness x-tends" (Essay, II, xxvii,17). The pivotofthe "self,"therefore,s the awarenessofeasiness or uneasiness,a state of mindrather han a single"self" as an essence.There is not any self-contained,mmate-

12Summa theologica, rans. Fathers of the EnglishDominican Province, Q. 85, Art. 2, Obj. 3.



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168 ERNEST TUVESONrial soulnecessary o thepersonality,ndthe"ego" is theunderstanding,hepowerof apprehending n its dark room, to-getherwiththe mpressionss theygroupthemselves r are grouped nto theirpat-terns.The ego,therefore,s thesum ofthematrix nd the deaswhich ometoitdur-ing the courseof a lifetime,which s tosay that theego is a constantly hangingthing. f Socrates nd the"presentmayorof Queensborough gree" in identityofconsciousness-that is, in the awarenessof the same sensations-theyare, Lockeassuresus, the sameperson;butif the same Socrateswakingndsleeping onot partake of the same consciousness,Socrateswakingndsleepingsnotthe ameperson.And to punish ocrateswaking orwhatsleeping ocrates hought,ndwakingSocrateswasnever onsciousf,would enomoreofright, han to punish ne twinforwhathis brother-twinid,whereofe knewnothingEssay, I,xxvii, 9].This radical opinion greatly excitedLocke's contemporaries.t did notreallychallenge mmortality,orLocke, unlikeHobbes, insistedon the realityoffuturerewardsand punishments,nd his con-ceptof the iving nd willing nderstand-ingdid not destroy esponsibility,s didHobbes's purelymaterialmechanism. etLocke's critics elt that it did somethingstrangeand revolutionaryo the wholeidea of the personality.What did it do?Only now, perhaps,aftermany genera-tionscan we see the fullmeaningofthechangeand see how fullythe apprehen-sionsmayhave been ustified.The traditional dea of the mind en-visioned the soul living, ike Spenser'sAlma,as mistressn hercastle. The soulwas a definite,ntegrated,elf-containedpersonality,ealing n a continuous iplo-maticmissionwith heworld. t hadwith-in itself ll potentialitiesnd decidedbyits will whether o ascend or descendin

the cosmic hierarchy. t mightweaklysubmit o the mportunitiesnd blandish-ments fthe"lower"faculties,uchas thepassions;but it continued orever o havea separateand substantial ndividuality,as fixed nd clearlymarked s that of oneofBoyle's atoms. It is in this sense thatHamletuses the wordwhen he criesO heart,osenot hynature;etnot verThe soulofNero nter his irmosom.It is not the "consciousness" f Nero thathe means,and thephraseprobablyhas amore heavily metaphorical orceforusthan it did forShakespeare, o whom tmeant a character, n individualbeingwithfixed,willed tendencies part fromhisexperience.Locke, in effect,ransferredhe clearidentityfrom the ego to the separateideas.Theyare thefixed lements, ixed olongas memory ndures.The personalityitself s a shifting hing; it exists,notthroughout lifetimes an entity, utal-most from hour to hour. For Socrateswakingyesterdaynd Socrates odaymaybe differents the sensationswhichcon-stitutethe contentof the consciousnessand therefore fpersonality hange.Theoneness ftheself s thatof river,nd inthis ense"streamofconsciousness"s anaccuratephrase,howeverpoorly t maydescribe the actual process of experi-encing.

Locke accordinglys a sourceof thatphenomenonof modernthoughtwhichMr. Krutch has termed he "dissolutionofthe ego," wherein "fluid"replacesa"hard-core" individual personality."3"The Christian, nd to an almost equalextent heclassic,conception fthe per-sona' or ofthe ego' seemstohave been ofa fully onsciousunity, f a soul captain,bornwithus at birth nd perhaps reatedby God. It is an ultimate, ven theulti-13 oseph Wood Krutch, "'Modernism" in ModernDrnama (Ithaca, 1953), p. 84.



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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO" 169mate continuous eality ersistinghroughtime."'4 It is against such a conceptionthat Locke's protests boutassuming hatthe soul is a "substance,"againstassum-ing that there are facultieswhich act ofthemselveswithin hemind, re directed.In linewith Locke's opinions, oo, is thefact that such a writer s Proust, ccord-ing to Mr. Krutch, "gives us the sensethat thecharacters re not atanymomentwhattheywereat anyprevious imeandthat theconceptionwhichhe first ormedwhen he heard about them s much moreenduringlyeal thanthe manifestationsnthe fleshwhichfrom imeto time he en-counters."As in Locke, theimpressionstheenduring act, nd the theme fProustis the recallofthe mpressionsntheir n-tegrity rommemory nto the arena ofconscious wareness.The consequences or iterature,s hasbeen suggested,were important.Goethetheorizes, n WilhelmMeister,that thehero of a novel is moreproperly cteduponthanacting. n otherwords, he re-sponseofthe consciousness o its experi-ences,rather han the experiences bjec-tively considered,s theproperfocus forthewriter. et us consider, s a concreteexample, hehistory ftheopinions boutHamlet. The transition rom he kind ofcriticism epresented y Doctor Johnsonto that represented y Coleridge s onefrom oncernwith he actionsofa charac-ter na situation,withprimarynterestntheirmoral evaluationand consequences,to concernwithreactions o a situation sit evolves.The interestn thepublicac-tions s succeededby interestn states ofmindofa sensibility,heir volution ndthe impressions eltfromwithin. Char-acter" forand of itselfbecomesan ade-quate themeforthe imaginativewriter.Coleridge imselfeveals heoppositionof viewpoints.Johnson,he points out,

evaluates and condemnsHamlet's actioninpostponing isrevengewhenhe sees theKing praying;Hamlet's action, ccordingto the earlier ritic,s "atrocious nd hor-rible."'5On the contrary, oleridge ays,this actionmerely s "part ofthe indeci-sionand irresolutenessfthehero,"whichis attributed o thefact that Hamlet is aperson nwhom "reflection"s toostrong.The criterion f the scene, then, is thestate of mind rather hanthe motivesoftheprotagonist. oleridge's wnanalysis,even n tsphraseology,hows he Lockianancestry. here s a disorder fthe under-standing. he directmpressionsfrealityaretooweak,so that "the externalworld,and all its incidents and objects, werecomparatively im,and ofno interestnthemselves, and.., began to interestonly,when heywerereflectednthemir-rorof his mind."Coleridge ssumes thatShakespeare'ssubject is reality s it ap-pears in Hamlet's mind,not "truth" inand of tself.Such criticism hows anotherfacetofthe "dissolution fthe ego." It does notinvolvedissolution fpersonality;ust asreality s not abolishedbut moved ntoadifferentocale, so personalitydoes notcease to be, and one might ay that in asense personality s a modernconcept.Just s thereduction ftheearth,bythenewastronomicalystems, o an insignifi-cantspeck ed to a greatupsurge f nter-est nthis ame nsignificantlanet, o thereduction fthe ego intoinnerresponsesled to an absorbingnterestntheself-inthe individual, heunique self.The char-actersofShakespeare egin o stepoff hestageand to assume ives of their wn inpeople's imaginations nly fter herevo-lution have described. t is not strangethatattempts re made toreconstructhe"early life" of Hamlet,forexample-an

14 Ibid., p. 83.15 Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism, ed. Raysor(London, 1930), II, 196.



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170 ERNEST TUVESONenterprisehat wouldhave been of no in-terest for audiences of the seventeenthcentury. ttemptsopsychoanalyze adyMacbeth or Hamlet fall into the samecategory. o us, the heirsofLocke,Ham-let seemsto be his mentalhistory;nd thedrama tends to be, first nd principally,not actionbutpersonalityesponding. oknow it we must know thewhole story,the preconscious eginnings, he lurkingimpressionsbeyond the range of con-scious thought,motives of action to befound n the totalityof the fluidbeing.Above all, we desireto be carriedout ofour chambers of consciousness nto an-other's xperience, o see his reality s itappears to his consciousness; nd litera-ture can accomplish this result betterthananyothermedium, y arrangingheimpressionso skilfullyhat it is as ifwewere xperiencingromwithin he "ideas"whichgo to makeup another elf.III. THE INSURRECTION IN THE DARK ROOM

AND THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESSIt maybe objectedthat muchofwhathas just been said goesfarbeyondLocke.Where do we findexplicitly tated theproblem f what has made the character?The modern iew,at least thataccordingtoFreudians,Mr. Krutchremarks,s that"the character nd the conductofthein-dividual depends,not upon his own freechoice,but upon the experiences, rau-maticor otherwise,o whichhe has beenexposedand especially o those whichheunderwentninfancy."1"his conception,so extremely tated,does indeed go be-yondLocke, but not so far as we mightsuppose.To be sure, t is quite incongru-ous withthe central heory f the under-standing,whichLockeinthe first ersionsof his Essay seemsto treatmerely s afinished,omplete ortofthing, he centerand thedominating owerof"conscious-

ness" to the point of being coextensivewith t.But even in the first, 690,edition oftheEssay there re intimations f some-thing uitedifferent.ven herehe statedthatchildren egin oreceive imple deasas soon as they ive,perhapseven in thewomb, nd that those deas remain, venthoughthe mind "awakens" onlymuchlater Essay, II, i, 22). Norrispointed utthe contradiction hat this observationposesforLocke's theory fconsciousness.Here we see a hint ofthedilemmawhichwas to growon him:consciousnesss theessential ondition fexperience,ut doesnot consciousness ontainsomething e-yondthe awareness ftheunderstanding?Are there not deposited in memory"ideas" thatemerge o influences, eventhoughwe may not even "remember"havingsuchexperiences?Thus there was a disturbance inLocke's senseofself-satisfactionfterhehad published he firstdition fhisgreatwork. t musthaveseemed o him hathehad reduced the problemof the humanmind,whichby his timehad becomesoconfused nd so hopelessly nd sterilelycomplicated,to good sense and order.Questionsthat had long puzzled men'sheads until hey ched,such as thenatureofthesoul, ntellection,efinitionsffac-ulties, nd the ike,had beensimplifiedrswept away altogether; henewmodel ofthe mind was one that could give confi-dence to men as theywentforwardnto anewage ofthat ntellectual reedom hichrepresented ocke's other great enthu-siasm.Yet within o short time s fouryears,Locke's correspondencehows,he beganto realize that the new model was notcomplete. n the fourth dition of 1700(althoughwrittenmuchearlier)there p-pearedthecelebrated hapter Of the As-sociation of Ideas." It transformed he16Krutch, p. 85.



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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO" 171character of the work. For Locke hadrealized that the pictures n the "darkroom" oftheunderstandingo notalwayslie so orderly s might e desired, nd wefeel the stirrings funeasiness about re-volt in thatnarrow lace.Locke had, ofcourse,realizedthat hu-manthoughts oftennaccurate, bscure,confused.His purpose n writing heEs-say, nfact,was to laythefoundations orcorrect pinion y showing ow deastrueand false are reallyformed.He had at-tributed he commonfailures fideationto lack of "light,"failure o attendcare-fully o thedistinction f deas,to physi-cal defects, r to simpleprejudice, rfail-ure to extendmentalhorizons.Most ofthese-all, infact, xceptforphysicalde-fects-can be corrected y self-discipline.He had attempted imply o givea morereasonable and simpleaccount of cogni-tion,retaining, owever, omethingftheold assumptions bout Alma inhercastleeven ifhe failedto realizethat fact.What he appears to have understoodlater was that the mind includesmuchmore than the cabinet whereinunder-standing sits, making dispositionsandconclusions rom ts pictureswith a cer-taintyguaranteedby divinepower tself.Roundabout thisworld ftheclearly ut-lined and brilliantly lluminated is amurkyand of deas,notmerely ormantinmemorynd notsubjectto thecontrolofthe governor, r at least not continu-ouslyso. Locke facedthisproblemn thechapteron "association," which he de-fines s follows:Some of our ideas have a natural or-respondencendconnexionnewith nother;it s theofficendexcellencyfourreason otracethese, nd hold them ogethern thatunion ndcorrespondencehichs foundedntheir eculiar eings. esides his, heresan-

other connexion f ideas wholly wingtochance r custom;deas,that n themselves,

are not ll ofkin, ome obe sounitednsomemen'sminds,hat t is veryhard o separatethem; hey lwayskeep ncompany,ndtheone no sooner t any time comes ntotheunderstanding,ut ts associateppearswithit; and ifthey re more han wowhich rethusunited,hewholegang, lways nsepa-rable,showthemselvesogetherEssay, I,xxxiii, ].There are several mportant eatures fthisdescription. irst,theirrational on-nections f deas gotogether,o far s themechanismof making complex deas isconcerned,n a manner imilar o "true"ones;the trains f deas,whetherhoseofBacon or thoseofthemosteccentric u-morist, ssociateand appear in the sameway, and bringingup one recalls theothers.Again,no one is exempt;madnessappears,not as a condition f themindwhich s sharply nd obviously eparatedfrom hehealthy ne,butonly s a matterofdegree.Third, heassociations f deasare usuallyformed y or tracedto exter-nal conditionsverwhichwehave no con-trol, but which exercise an irresistiblepoweroverthemind.Finally,theseasso-ciationshave a lifeof their wnand occa-sionally come, usually unwanted,fromtheirownworld ntotheproperrealmofthemind.And whentheydo erupt ntothe understanding, r the area of con-scious awareness, heyare likely o exer-cisean importantnfluencen conduct.The "case histories" (they must beamong the very firstof these) whichLocke presentsare essential to under-standing fthesepoints.He cites he caseof a manwho,as a child,has heard froma foolish maid stories which connect"ideas ofgoblins nd sprites"withdark-ness.The result s that"possiblyhe shallneverbe able to separatethemagain solong as he lives,but darkness hall ever

afterwards ringwith it those frightfulideas,and they hallbe so joined,that he



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172 ERNEST TUVESONcan no morebear theonethantheother."Here we have an association made inchildhood, erhaps by incidents he mancannot consciouslyremember-eventhenursemaybe forgotten;t is nottruly nassociationproducing opinion,"forthemanmaynotbe awareof nybelief nthesubject,but he is acutelyaware of an un-easinesswhen he is alone in the dark. Inanother example, a man associates hispain or sicknesswith a room nwhichhesuffered;he connections irrational,yetwhen the idea of the place occurs to hismind, t brings..,. that of the pain anddispleasurewith t: he confoundshem nhismind, nd can as littlebearthe one asthe other."Again, there s no consciousopinion,but a powerfulssociation, urk-ingoutsidethe ighted abinet, s capableof producing veryreal state of mind.Similarassociations,Locke says, are thesources of prejudices and superstitionsand areresponsibleormany, fnotmost,ofthe sorrows fhistory.Reflection n thematterenhanced tsimportance.n The Conduct ftheUnder-standing,written fterthe Essay, Lockedeals moreextensivelywiththeproblem.The fullcontrol f theunderstanding,ewrites, s probablythe most importantthingn ife, and there sscarce ny thingharder n thewholeconductofthe under-standing han to get a fullmastery verit" (Conduct,ec. 45). He givesseveral ofthegrotesque-comicxamplesof the fail-ure to master the understanding, x-amples which have in them a germofShandyism nd provideone explanationfor the attractionLocke had for Sterne:there s, for nstance, troublesome in-trusion fsomefriskingdeas"which akepossession f a man's head, so that some"trivial entence, ra scrapofpoetry,willsometimes et ntomen'sheads,and makesuch a chimingthere,that there is nostilling f t." Or a passion maytake overa man'smind s if t were hesherifffthe

placewithall theposse. In such a case,a"puppet" seemsto be appointedforhisentertainment,nd he is so absorbedwithwatching t in his secretcabinetthathedoes not even hear the discourseof thecompany.No wonderhe devotesone whole sec-tionof theEssay, and muchspace in theConduct,o thesolemnwarning hat "thiswrong onnexionn our mindsof deas, nthemselvesoose and independent f oneanother" s so important,nd productiveof suchgreatevil,that "perhapsthere snot any one thing hatdeservesmore tobe looked after." Here we encounter nauthenticnote of "modernism."For, ifwe consider the nature of the "depthstudies"whichLocke essays,we see thattheold conception f owerfacultiesn re-volt againsthigher neswill notdo. Thefact s thatthewrong ssociations re theresult f themind'sresponse o its world.WhatMr. Krutchhas pointedout aboutthe"modern"view of the rrational ouldbe appliedwithoutmuchstrain o Locke:In the lder iew man s eitherane r n-sane-sane if he liveschieflyythe ight freason,nsanefherejectst. Butwhat s stillsometimes alled "the new psychology"breaksdown thissharpdistinction.t dis-covers hat ationalityften laysnthe ivesof whatare callednormalpeoplea muchsmaller artthanwas onceassumed.Atthesametime t discovershat heabnormalonot act in a merely andomunintelligiblemanner.heres methodn theirmadness,stheres alsousuallyomethingikemadnessnthemethodf thetechnicallyane.The dis-tinctionsa matterfdegree.17WhenLocke comesto considerwhat canbe done about these unnatural ombina-tionsof deas,he can onlyconcludethat"when this combination s settled,andwhile t asts, t is not n thepowerof rea-son to helpus, and relieve s from he ef-fectsof t. Ideas in ourminds,whentheyare there,will operateaccording o their17 Ibid., p. 20.



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LOCKE AND THE "DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO" 173natures and circumstances" Essay, II,xxxiii, 13). With the last sentence,hedealsthefinal low to the whole radition-al conception fthenatureofpersonalityand personalresponsibility.ocke's em-phasison thepartofenvironmentatherthanthe innerwill in the shapingof theselfplaceshim nthe"modern"world.To"take care" ofthe association f deas,wefind, s a matterof seeingto it that theminddoes not receive or make the falseassociations; nd thatis largely matterof ooking o education, o the influenceson childhood.It would seem almostinevitable hat,afterreachingthis point,Locke shouldsuggest hatmuch could be doneby wayof fishinghe associationsout of the re-cesses beyond the immediateawarenessand subjectinghem o the kindofhistori-cal reconstructionemakes nthecase ofthe man who associates goblinsand thedark.Then thefalseassociations, nspect-ed under the clear light of the under-standing,mightose much of theirpower.To take this tep,however,was torequirealmost twocenturies.It was a long imebefore herewaseventhe word "unconscious,"althoughit isimplicit n Locke's discussion.MauriceMorgannmade the point that what wecall character rises from multitude fimpressions hichare outside ofand un-relatedto theunderstanding.o appreci-ate thetruenatureofcharacter-that is,the real real sourcesof action-thereforeis outside hescopeofthe Lockianreason:"The Understandingeems forthemostpart to take cognizanceof actionsonly,and from hese oinfermotivesndcharac-ter;but thesensewe have beenspeakingofproceeds n a contrary ourse;and de-termines factions rom ertain irst rin-ciplesofcharacter, hich eemwholly utof the reach of the Understanding."'"tfollows hat anguage,which s construct-ed to express he deas oftheunderstand-

ing, cannot communicate his sense ofcharacter. he impressionis theseparatepossessionofeach, and not in its naturetransferable:t is an imperfectortof n-stinct, nd proportionablyumb." Hereis partof the rationale or hatrevolutionin thesubjectmatter,ndhenceultimate-ly of techniquesof literature,whichhasbeen discussedin the second sectionofthispaper.To achieve uch a "language,"with ll it involves,has been a continuingproblem f iterature.Not untilafter he middleof thenine-teenthcenturydoes the word "uncon-scious" seemto make an appearance.Yetin thepicture f the mindthat E. S. Dal-las, a pioneer n theuse of this wordandconcept, resents,here s ittle hatmightnot have been derivedfromLocke's the-ory.Outside onsciousnesshereolls vast ideof ife,whichs,perhaps,venmoremportantto usthan he ittlesleof our houghtshichlieswithin urken .... Thethingo befirmlyseizeds,thatwe ive n two oncentricorldsofthoughts,-annner ing, f whichweareconscious,ndwhichmaybe describeds il-luminated;n outer ne, fwhichweareun-conscious,ndwhichmaybe describeds inthe dark. Between he outer nd the nnerring, etween urunconsciousnd our con-scious xistence,heres a freenda constantbut unobservedrafficorever carried n.Trains fthoughtrecontinuallyassing oandfro, romhe ightnto hedark,ndbackfrom hedarknto he ight.Whenhe urrentofthoughtlows romwithin ur kento be-yond urken,t sgone,weforgett,weknownotwhat has become fit. After time tcomes ackto us changedndgrown,s if twere new hought,ndwe know otwhenceit comes.19

It has been remarked that Locke,strangely, oes not refer o predecessors18"On the Dramatic Character of Sir John Fal-staff," in Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare,ed. D. Nichol Smith (Glasgow, 1903), p. 219. Mor-gann's essay was published in 1777, although writtenearli he Gay Science (London, 1866),r. 207.9The Gay Science (London, 1866), I, 207.



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174 ERNESTTUVESONwho postulated some kind of "associa-tion," most notably Hobbes, who hadmade the accidental connections f im-pressions heveryprinciple f all knowl-edge and thought.Aside from the factthatthepiousLockeno doubt had no de-sire to be associated with theLeviathan,he had good reason to believe that hisprinciplewas really omething ew,how-evermuch tmightn detailsresemble heolder ideas. For Locke's association isquite differentrom hat ofmechanisticpsychologists.t is not a mereautomaticconnection f mpressions,s ifan addingmachinewerebeing etup. He alwayshasthe sense of a livingbeing,withcertaininnatebiological endencies,espondingna myriad fwaysto a worldwhich ffectsit in an infinite umberofways. In thecenter s a living, rganizing ower,con-structing atternswhich o a highdegreecorrespondo thoseoftheexternalworld;but its area isnotsharply efined,nd theboundaries xpandand contractwith theexigencies fthecreature s it feelsvari-ous statesofmind nd as theenvironmentchanges.Thepersonalityotentiallys thewhole world of sensationsexisting n astate ofconstantlyhiftingensions. imi-larly, here s nothingikethenecessitari-anism ocharacteristicfmechanistic sy-chology.Rather,Locke in effect utsthewholequestionoffreedom na newbasis.The mind is not simplyfreeor notfree;but decisions a product f whole, astlycomplexstate of the tensions, f certainnaturalvariationsntemperament,nd ofdeeply hidden associations manifestingthemselves n relationto consciousness.The mind is neither personaexistingwithin hebodynora meremachine, utsomething nique.The account ofassociation s notcom-plete unless we consider the force of

Locke's frequentuse of language andimageswhich ndicatethat the ideas actof themselves. f associations are madeoutside onsciousnessnd remain assive-ly inmemory,waiting call,theuncon-scious is obviously much more imitedthingthanwhat we now thinkofas the"unconsciousmind." But Locke impliesmany times that the associations are amore omplexmatter.He doesgive phys-iological explanationfor these combina-tions, utmostly e writes s if xperienc-ingthe deas fromwithin.And,fromwith-in,these associations ppearto be volun-tary"ganging"of ideas; in thissense,Isuspect,he meant"association."So withthe playful, frisking"deas that set upthe annoying himingn ourheads. Andso with the mysterious orceof passion,that seizes our minds as if it were thesheriff. he ideasappearto theexperienc-ingconsciousness o be endowedwiththepowerofdecision ndmotion; ne"comesinto the understanding"nd the others,his "associates," insiston coming long.A backstairs lique is intriguing,r per-hapsmerely avingfun,whiletheseriouswork is going forward n the cabinet.There s no suggestionn Locke thatper-hapsthedeeply reativework fthemindalso is done in the darkarea outsidethecabinet;such a notion s partofthatre-voltagainst heunderstanding ithwhichLockehad no sympathy. ut, given dif-ferent emper, he conclusion s easy toreach. In any event,no one afterLockecan ignore hegreat reasoutside aware-ness"; the preoccupationof "modern"man withwhat is beyondconsciousness,and,behind hatpreoccupation,hesenseof hisexperience s constitutingheverystuff f his self,are implicit n the newmodelofthe mind.UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

locke and dissolution of ego

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