Dear TIPSters, Many times the question of the origin of the iceberg metaphor for the relationship between the conscious and unconscious minds has come up on this list. It is generally agreed that, although it is often used in textbooks to explicate Freud’s theory of the unconscious, it was not used by Freud himself. Usually, someone finds the vaguely similar reference to icebergs in the work of Fechner, and suggests that this must be the source f the metaphor.
I was just reading through an 1898 article by G. Stanley Hall on the development of the sense of self, and I ran across the following passage: The mistake of ego-theorists is akin to that of those who thought icebergs were best studied from above the surface and were moved by winds, when in fact about nine-tenths of their mass is submerged, and they follow the deeper and more constant oceanic currents, often in the teeth of gales, vitiating all the old aerodynamic equations (p. 393). Considering that Hall was the man who (11 years later) would host Freud (and Jung) in America, and that he was one of the early American promoters of psychoanalysis (translating Freud’s “Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis,” and publishing it in his own American Journal of Psychology (before it was republished in book-form), it seem not impossible, that the association of the iceberg with the structure of (un)consciousness that we now find associated with Freud comes, originally, from Hall. The full citation is: G. Stanley Hall (1898). Some aspects of the early sense of self. American Journal of Psychology, 9, 351-395. I have included the passage above in its original longer context below. Chris ….. Christopher D Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo ………………………………... When we are told that nothing but the soul can mirror it-self, that self-consciousness is the Bible of the psychologist, I reply that only a part of the soul is therein revealed; that personality has far deeper roots in unconsciousness; that the testimony of consciousness, wherein only a part of the soul content knows another part, can not express the most impor-tant elements; that all the processes in it are land-locked, as in an inland sea, far from the great ocean of life and mind, because thought must at best imitate sense, however dimly and remotely, and that consciousness is "not the creator or bearer of the ego-synthesis, but only one form of its expression." Even if we had a complete history of the consciousness of every member of the race, it would be a very incom-plete expression of the human soul, not only because con-sciousness is yet in its babyhood, and the best things are not revealed in it yet, but because from its very nature they never can be. We have sought the real ego in the intellect. It is not there, nor yet in the will, which is a far better expression of it than thought. Its nucleus is below the threshold of consciousness. The mistake of ego-theorists is akin to that of those who thought icebergs were best studied from above the surface and were moved by winds, when in fact about nine-tenths of their mass is submerged, and they follow the deeper and more constant oceanic currents, often in the teeth of gales, vitiating all the old aerodynamic equations. We must, therefore, without neglecting these older oracles, turn to a different source for real knowledge of the real self, viz.: the objective study of every phase and every growing stage of the psyche and of the soma in animals, savages, and children. Soul is vastly larger than consciousness, and the highest powers are those that spring from roots that start deepest down in the scale of life. Consciousness is as differ-ent from mind as froth is from beer, and the syllabub of some of its exploiters and "promotors" suggests the mediaeval barber's apprenticeship, which ended when the tyro could make two tierces of foam from two ounces of soap. Perhaps the excuse of some philosophic apprentices, were it as naive, would not be unlike that of the Boston tapster, who, when remonstrated with by his customers for selling so little beer and so much froth, replied that the better the beer the more it foamed, and also that the profit was in the froth. Hence child study, because of these limitations of intro-spection, and even of consciousness, and because the real deeper self can confessedly never be thus known, turns to more purely objective methods. It is a homely term, and psychogenesis, paidology, or some others might have been more academic, but it represents a movement so fundamental that it was necessary to appeal to the larger constituency of virgin minds, who knew none of the prejudices so inveterate in philosophic schools and sects, and to utilize the deep instinct of parental love which has created all education sys-tems and institutions. In doing this education and philosophy have both gone back to re-examine the foundations from which they sprang; have turned to first principles and to plain common sense as the ultimate court of appeal, and sought to reaffirm the practical obligations of these studies and to meet some of the crying needs for a philosophy that shall do for our land and age what the great philosophers of other periods have done for theirs. Recha was rescued from a fire by a stranger in white who vanished, and her gratitude idealized her saviour till she thought she owed her life to an angel, and her mystic, contemplative mind elaborated a cult of worship which gradually absorbed her life almost to the point of mental alienation, when suddenly came the announcement that a man, A. B., who had snatched her from the flame, was dying for a woman's ministration. Her illusions vanished, and she found sanity, and he was restored by her to life, and a career of philanthropy. Philosophy was to Plato a quest of eternal foundations,when a decaying state and a sophistic culture seemed to threaten general dissolution. Later it wrought old cults to unity and opened the way for Christianity, and still later gave it an organ. It gave science its methods and instruments, unified the Teutonic spirit, and expressed the English induction and utilitarianism, and in this country it laid down the methods of church, state, school and college. Latterly, however, we have been almost playing with philosophy and fascinated by not only unfruitful but un-solvable problems, have striven to be critical and polemic, brilliant and literary, gone astray in technicalities and de-tails, revived problems once vital, but now dead, because no longer practical in the high moral sense; rendered a rather doubtful and uncertain service to religion and plain right liv-ing, and above all hypostatized to theoretical regions the agencies that were meant to save men from passion, fill them with enthusiasm for the ideal, purge their souls from faction, jealousy, superstition and selfishness, and bring consecration to the vocation of leading lives devoted to the highest service. With regard to the self, indeed we have lapsed almost to the standpoint of Condillac, who said: "When I smell a rose, e. g., this sensation of smell is my entire ego." Teachers of philosophy, now called, like Recha, to more serviceable work, are responding as she did, and the results already seen are a new sense of the need of these chairs, despite the many rival claimants for scholastic time and money, the better ministration to troubled adolescent needs, the decline of epistemological and simply historical, and the increase of neurological and ethical teaching, the aid to impending religious and social transformation, and the better development of children and youth to the fullest maturity of mind and body. This is the best and highest test of home, school, church, state and civilization itself, and the basis of the only true philosophy, not only of education, but of history. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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