The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (red queen free ebook txt) 📕

Most psycho-analysts pay little attention to the analysis of

desire, being interested in discovering by observation what it is

that people desire, rather than in discovering what actually

constitutes desire. I think the strangeness of what they report

would be greatly diminished if it were expressed in the language

of a behaviourist theory of desire, rather than in the language

of everyday beliefs. The general description of the sort of

phenomena that bear on our present question is as follows: A

person states that his desires are so-and-so, and that it is

these desires that inspire his actions; but the outside observer

perceives that his actions are such as to realize quite different

ends from those which he avows, and that these different ends are

such as he might be expected to desire. Generally they are less

virtuous than his professed desires, and are therefore less

agreeable to profess than these are. It is accordingly supposed

that they really exist as desires for ends, but in a subconscious

part of the mind, which the patient refuses to admit into

consciousness for fear of having to think ill of himself. There

are no doubt many cases to which such a supposition is applicable

without obvious artificiality. But the deeper the Freudians delve

into the underground regions of instinct, the further they travel

from anything resembling conscious desire, and the less possible

it becomes to believe that only positive self-deception conceals

from us that we really wish for things which are abhorrent to our

explicit life.

In the cases in question we have a conflict between the outside

observer and the patient’s consciousness. The whole tendency of

psychoanalysis is to trust the outside observer rather than the

testimony of introspection. I believe this tendency to be

entirely right, but to demand a re-statement of what constitutes

desire, exhibiting it as a causal law of our actions, not as

something actually existing in our minds.

But let us first get a clearer statement of the essential

characteristic of the phenomena.

A person, we find, states that he desires a certain end A, and

that he is acting with a view to achieving it. We observe,

however, that his actions are such as are likely to achieve a

quite different end B, and that B is the sort of end that often

seems to be aimed at by animals and savages, though civilized

people are supposed to have discarded it. We sometimes find also

a whole set of false beliefs, of such a kind as to persuade the

patient that his actions are really a means to A, when in fact

they are a means to B. For example, we have an impulse to inflict

pain upon those whom we hate; we therefore believe that they are

wicked, and that punishment will reform them. This belief enables

us to act upon the impulse to inflict pain, while believing that

we are acting upon the desire to lead sinners to repentance. It

is for this reason that the criminal law has been in all ages

more severe than it would have been if the impulse to ameliorate

the criminal had been what really inspired it. It seems simple to

explain such a state of affairs as due to “self-deception,” but

this explanation is often mythical. Most people, in thinking

about punishment, have had no more need to hide their vindictive

impulses from themselves than they have had to hide the

exponential theorem. Our impulses are not patent to a casual

observation, but are only to be discovered by a scientific study

of our actions, in the course of which we must regard ourselves

as objectively as we should the motions of the planets or the

chemical reactions of a new element.

The study of animals reinforces this conclusion, and is in many

ways the best preparation for the analysis of desire. In animals

we are not troubled by the disturbing influence of ethical

considerations. In dealing with human beings, we are perpetually

distracted by being told that such-and-such a view is gloomy or

cynical or pessimistic: ages of human conceit have built up such

a vast myth as to our wisdom and virtue that any intrusion of the

mere scientific desire to know the facts is instantly resented by

those who cling to comfortable illusions. But no one cares

whether animals are virtuous or not, and no one is under the

delusion that they are rational. Moreover, we do not expect them

to be so “conscious,” and are prepared to admit that their

instincts prompt useful actions without any prevision of the ends

which they achieve. For all these reasons, there is much in the

analysis of mind which is more easily discovered by the study of

animals than by the observation of human beings.

We all think that, by watching the behaviour of animals, we can

discover more or less what they desire. If this is the case—and

I fully agree that it is—desire must be capable of being

exhibited in actions, for it is only the actions of animals that

we can observe. They MAY have minds in which all sorts of things

take place, but we can know nothing about their minds except by

means of inferences from their actions; and the more such

inferences are examined, the more dubious they appear. It would

seem, therefore, that actions alone must be the test of the

desires of animals. From this it is an easy step to the

conclusion that an animal’s desire is nothing but a

characteristic of a certain series of actions, namely, those

which would be commonly regarded as inspired by the desire in

question. And when it has been shown that this view affords a

satisfactory account of animal desires, it is not difficult to

see that the same explanation is applicable to the desires of

human beings.

We judge easily from the behaviour of an animal of a familiar

kind whether it is hungry or thirsty, or pleased or displeased,

or inquisitive or terrified. The verification of our judgment, so

far as verification is possible, must be derived from the

immediately succeeding actions of the animal. Most people would

say that they infer first something about the animal’s state of

mind—whether it is hungry or thirsty and so on—and thence

derive their expectations as to its subsequent conduct. But this

detour through the animal’s supposed mind is wholly unnecessary.

We can say simply: The animal’s behaviour during the last minute

has had those characteristics which distinguish what is called

“hunger,” and it is likely that its actions during the next

minute will be similar in this respect, unless it finds food, or

is interrupted by a stronger impulse, such as fear. An animal

which is hungry is restless, it goes to the places where food is

often to be found, it sniffs with its nose or peers with its eyes

or otherwise increases the sensitiveness of its sense-organs; as

soon as it is near enough to food for its sense-organs to be

affected, it goes to it with all speed and proceeds to eat; after

which, if the quantity of food has been sufficient, its whole

demeanour changes it may very likely lie down and go to sleep.

These things and others like them are observable phenomena

distinguishing a hungry animal from one which is not hungry. The

characteristic mark by which we recognize a series of actions

which display hunger is not the animal’s mental state, which we

cannot observe, but something in its bodily behaviour; it is this

observable trait in the bodily behaviour that I am proposing to

call “hunger,” not some possibly mythical and certainly

unknowable ingredient of the animal’s mind.

Generalizing what occurs in the case of hunger, we may say that

what we call a desire in an animal is always displayed in a cycle

of actions having certain fairly well marked characteristics.

There is first a state of activity, consisting, with

qualifications to be mentioned presently, of movements likely to

have a certain result; these movements, unless interrupted,

continue until the result is achieved, after which there is

usually a period of comparative quiescence. A cycle of actions of

this sort has marks by which it is broadly distinguished from the

motions of dead matter. The most notable of these marks are—(1)

the appropriateness of the actions for the realization of a

certain result; (2) the continuance of action until that result

has been achieved. Neither of these can be pressed beyond a

point. Either may be (a) to some extent present in dead matter,

and (b) to a considerable extent absent in animals, while

vegetable are intermediate, and display only a much fainter form

of the behaviour which leads us to attribute desire to animals.

(a) One might say rivers “desire” the sea water, roughly

speaking, remains in restless motion until it reaches either the

sea or a place from which it cannot issue without going uphill,

and therefore we might say that this is what it wishes while it

is flowing. We do not say so, because we can account for the

behaviour of water by the laws of physics; and if we knew more

about animals, we might equally cease to attribute desires to

them, since we might find physical and chemical reactions

sufficient to account for their behaviour. (b) Many of the

movements of animals do not exhibit the characteristics of the

cycles which seem to embody desire. There are first of all the

movements which are “mechanical,” such as slipping and falling,

where ordinary physical forces operate upon the animal’s body

almost as if it were dead matter. An animal which falls over a

cliff may make a number of desperate struggles while it is in the

air, but its centre of gravity will move exactly as it would if

the animal were dead. In this case, if the animal is killed at

the end of the fall, we have, at first sight, just the

characteristics of a cycle of actions embodying desire, namely,

restless movement until the ground is reached, and then

quiescence. Nevertheless, we feel no temptation to say that the

animal desired what occurred, partly because of the obviously

mechanical nature of the whole occurrence, partly because, when

an animal survives a fall, it tends not to repeat the experience.

There may be other reasons also, but of them I do not wish to

speak yet. Besides mechanical movements, there are interrupted

movements, as when a bird, on its way to eat your best peas, is

frightened away by the boy whom you are employing for that

purpose. If interruptions are frequent and completion of cycles

rare, the characteristics by which cycles are observed may become

so blurred as to be almost unrecognizable. The result of these

various considerations is that the differences between animals

and dead matter, when we confine ourselves to external

unscientific observation of integral behaviour, are a matter of

degree and not very precise. It is for this reason that it has

always been possible for fanciful people to maintain that even

stocks and stones have some vague kind of soul. The evidence that

animals have souls is so very shaky that, if it is assumed to be

conclusive, one might just as well go a step further and extend

the argument by analogy to all matter. Nevertheless, in spite of

vagueness and doubtful cases, the existence of cycles in the

behaviour of animals is a broad characteristic by which they are

prima facie distinguished from ordinary matter; and I think it is

this characteristic which leads us to attribute desires to

animals, since it makes their behaviour resemble what we do when

(as we say) we are acting from desire.

I shall adopt the following definitions for describing the

behaviour of animals:

A “behaviour-cycle” is a series of voluntary or reflex movements

of an animal, tending