Kohs: New Light on Eugenics 



449 



scious it was Richard Herbetz (16) who 

 made the remark that "we do not 

 know what it is, but only what it does, 

 and we do not know how it does what it 

 does" (p. 217). But despite our lack 

 of knowledge as to its exact nature, we 

 do know quite definitely and certainly 

 that the unconscious exists and that 

 it is a potent force in directing behavior. 



The Freudians and those closely 

 allied to them have uncovered a large 

 number of mental mechanisms whose 

 roots lie in the subconscious. Data 

 first obtained in gross form from those 

 mentally disturbed were found to 

 apply quite as well to people whose 

 psyche was in normal activity. And the 

 great contribution of the Zurich school 

 to the psychology of today has been the 

 discovery of the existence of the com- 

 plex and the explanation of how it 

 functions. Previous to this time all we 

 could do was just to make disconnected 

 observations such as that of Le Bon 

 in his "Psychology of the Crowd:" 

 "Behind the avowed causes of our acts 

 there undoubtedly lie secret causes that 

 we do not avow, but behind these 

 secret causes there are many others 

 more secret still, which we ourselves 

 ignore. The greater part of our actions 

 are the result of hidden motives which 

 escape our observations." But now 

 we know that the complex, once it is 

 formed, becomes a potent, dynamic unit, 

 and that some of these "blind impulses 

 to action" are merely the inevitable 

 result of its existence. 



A complex, simply defined, is an 

 associative arrangement of specific men- 

 tal data, strongly tinged emotionally. 

 Complexes may exist in the realm of 

 the conscious, but are of as great, if not 

 of greater, significance, when they sink 

 below the limen of consciousness. Edu- 

 cation, environment, home influences, 

 exceptional experiences, age, sex, race, 

 religion, certain hereditary predisposi- 

 tions, are among the most important 

 factors determining the type, number 

 and trend of one's complexes. (See 20, 

 p. 548-554.) The recent research of 

 psychoanalysts, whose testimony and 

 data ought not to be ignored, has 

 indicated the close and intimate rela- 

 tionship between such phenomena as 



forgetting, moods, character, likes and 

 dislikes, ambitions, mental and physical 

 ability, habits, the development of 

 special aptitudes, — and the complex. 

 The analyses of insane persons and 

 criminals on the one hand, and those of 

 geniuses, artists, poets, on the other, 

 have shown that the type of complex in 

 both groups is very much alike. These 

 dynamic units, by the way, find their 

 counterpart in the engrams of Scmon's 

 mneme, but it does not necessarily 

 follow from that, that all complexes are 

 inherited; some are, a large number 

 are not. 



INSTINCT AND REASON 



In this connection, it might be well to 

 mention that instinct, for example, is 

 merely a mass of inherited complexes, 

 and in terms of the mnemic theory, 

 merely a group of engrams. The effect 

 of one impulse acts as a stimulus to the 

 second, the effect of the second acts as 

 a stimulus to the third, and so on until 

 the chain of action is complete. It is 

 Hall (15) who indicates the superiority 

 of instinct over reason, and his state- 

 ment is of significance for us, since we 

 are so liable to overemphasize the 

 importance of conscious, superficial, 

 intellectual factors over those which are 

 unconscious, innate and organic. "The 

 superiority of instinct over reason is 

 that it regulates conduct in the interest 

 of the species at every point, while 

 consciousness is selfish and is exactly 

 measured by the degree to which the 

 individual has broken away from the 

 dominance of the race and set up for 

 himself against it" (p. 211). 



The Freudian and Adlerian schools 

 have already contributed a mass of 

 material which is of enormous impor- 

 tance for the study of character and 

 personality. One main achievement 

 of the Ziirich school has been the 

 discovery that the principal roots of 

 personality and character lie in the 

 unconscious. Another valuable contri- 

 bution was their proof that the early 

 impressions of childhood were of enor- 

 mous significance in the later develop- 

 ment of the individual. Waldstein 

 ably s-ummarizes these two aspects in 

 his article on the unconscious ego and 



