Freud - Complete Works (770 page)

THE
QUESTION OF A WELTANSCHAUUNG

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, - At our last meeting we
were occupied with little everyday concerns - putting our own
modest house in order, as it were. I propose that we should now
take a bold leap and venture upon answering a question which is
constantly being asked in other quarters: does psycho-analysis lead
to a particular
Weltanschauung
and, if so, to which?

  
‘
Weltanschauung
’ is, I am afraid, a specifically
German concept, the translation of which into foreign languages
might well raise difficulties. If I try to give you a definition of
it, it is bound to seem clumsy to you. In my opinion, then, a
Weltanschauung
is an intellectual construction which solves
all the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one
overriding hypothesis, which, accordingly, leaves no question
unanswered and in which everything that interests us finds its
fixed place. It will easily be understood that the possession of a
Weltanschauung
of this kind is among the ideal wishes of
human beings. Believing in it one can feel secure in life, one can
know what to strive for, and how one can deal most expediently with
one’s emotions and interests.

   If that is the nature of a
Weltanschauung
, the answer as regards psycho-analysis is
made easy. As a specialist science, a branch of psychology - a
depth-psychology or psychology of the unconscious - it is quite
unfit to construct a
Weltanschauung
of its own: it must
accept the scientific one. But the
Weltanschauung
of science
already departs noticeably from our definition. It is true that it
too assumes the
uniformity
of the explanation of the
universe; but it does so only as a programme, the fulfilment of
which is relegated to the future. Apart from this it is marked by
negative characteristics, by its limitation to what is at the
moment knowable and by its sharp rejection of certain elements that
are alien to it. It asserts that there are no sources of knowledge
of the universe other than the intellectual working-over of
carefully scrutinized observations - in other words, what we call
research - and alongside of it no knowledge derived from
revelation, intuition or divination. It seems as though this view
came very near to being generally recognized in the course of the
last few centuries that have passed; and it has been left to
our
century to discover the presumptuous objection that a
Weltanschauung
like this is alike paltry and cheerless, that
it overlooks the claims of the human intellect and the needs of the
human mind.

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   This objection cannot be too
energetically repudiated. It is quite without a basis, since the
intellect and the mind are objects for scientific research in
exactly the same way as any non-human things. Psycho-analysis has a
special right to speak for the scientific
Weltanschauung
at
this point, since it cannot be reproached with having neglected
what is mental in the picture of the universe. Its contribution to
science lies precisely in having extended research to the mental
field. And, incidentally, without such a psychology science would
be very incomplete. If, however, the investigation of the
intellectual and emotional functions of men (and of animals) is
included in science, then it will be seen that nothing is altered
in the attitude of science as a whole, that no new sources of
knowledge or methods of research have come into being. Intuition
and divination would be such, if they existed; but they may safely
be reckoned as illusions, the fulfilments of wishful impulses. It
is easy to see, too, that these demands upon a
Weltanschauung
are only based on emotion. Science takes
notice of the fact that the human mind produces these demands and
is ready to examine their sources; but it has not the slightest
reason to regard them as justified. On the contrary it sees this as
a warning carefully to separate from knowledge everything that is
illusion and an outcome of emotional demands like these.

   This does not in the least mean
that these wishes are to be pushed contemptuously on one side or
their value for human life under-estimated. We are ready to trace
out the fulfilments of them which they have created for themselves
in the products of art and in the systems of religion and
philosophy; but we cannot nevertheless overlook the fact that it
would be illegitimate and highly inexpedient to allow these demands
to be transferred to the sphere of knowledge. For this would be to
lay open the paths which lead to psychosis, whether to individual
or group psychosis, and would withdraw valuable amounts of energy
from endeavours which are directed towards reality in order, so far
as possible, to find satisfaction in it for wishes and needs.

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   From the standpoint of science
one cannot avoid exercising one’s critical faculty here and
proceeding with rejections and dismissals. It is not permissible to
declare that science is one field of human mental activity and that
religion and philosophy are others, at least its equal in value,
and that science has no business to interfere with the other two:
that they all have an equal claim to be true and that everyone is
at liberty to choose from which he will draw his convictions and in
which he will place his belief. A view of this kind is regarded as
particularly superior, tolerant, broad-minded and free from
illiberal prejudices. Unfortunately it is not tenable and shares
all the pernicious features of an entirely unscientific
Weltanschauung
and is equivalent to one in practice. It is
simply a fact that the truth cannot be tolerant, that it admits of
no compromises or limitations, that research regards every sphere
of human activity as belonging to it and that it must be
relentlessly critical if any other power tries to take over any
part of it.

   Of the three powers which may
dispute the basic position of science, religion alone is to be
taken seriously as an enemy. Art is almost always harmless and
beneficent; it does not seek to be anything but an illusion. Except
for a few people who are spoken of as being ‘possessed’
by art, it makes no attempt at invading the realm of reality.
Philosophy is not opposed to science, it behaves like a science and
works in part by the same methods; it departs from it, however, by
clinging to the illusion of being able to present a picture of the
universe which is without gaps and is coherent, though one which is
bound to collapse with every fresh advance in our knowledge. It
goes astray in its method by over-estimating the epistemological
value of our logical operations and by accepting other sources of
knowledge such as intuition. And it often seems that the
poet’s derisive comment is not unjustified when he says of
the philosopher:

                                               
Mit seinen Nachtmützen und Schlafrockfetzen

                                               
Stopft er die Lücken des Weltenbaus.
¹

  
¹
Heine.

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   But philosophy has no direct
influence on the great mass of mankind; it is of interest to only a
small number even of the top layer of intellectuals and is scarcely
intelligible to anyone else. On the other hand, religion is an
immense power which has the strongest emotions of human beings at
its service. It is well known that at an earlier date it comprised
everything that played an intellectual part in men’s lives,
that it took the place of science when there was scarcely yet such
a thing as science, and that it constructed a
Weltanschauung
, consistent and self-contained to an
unparalleled degree, which, although it has been profoundly shaken,
persists to this day.

   If we are to give an account of
the grandiose nature of religion, we must bear in mind what it
undertakes to do for human beings. It gives them information about
the origin and coming into existence of the universe, it assures
them of its protection and of ultimate happiness in the ups and
downs of life and it directs their thoughts and actions by precepts
which it lays down with its whole authority. Thus it fulfils three
functions. With the first of them it satisfies the human thirst for
knowledge; it does the same thing that science attempts to do with
its
means, and at that point enters into rivalry with it. It
is to its second function that it no doubt owes the greatest part
of its influence. Science can be no match for it when it soothes
the fear that men feel of the dangers and vicissitudes of life,
when it assures them of a happy ending and offers them comfort in
unhappiness. It is true that science can teach us how to avoid
certain dangers and that there are some sufferings which it can
successfully combat; it would be most unjust to deny that it is a
powerful helper to men; but there are many situations in which it
must leave a man to his suffering and can only advise him to submit
to it. In its third function, in which it issues precepts and lays
down prohibitions and restrictions, religion is furthest away from
science. For science is content to investigate and to establish
facts, though it is true that from its application rules and advice
are derived on the conduct of life. In some circumstances these are
the same as those offered by religion, but, when this is so, the
reasons for them are different.

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   The convergence between these
three aspects of religion is not entirely clear. What has an
explanation of the origin of the universe to do with the
inculcation of certain particular ethical precepts? The assurances
of protection and happiness are more intimately linked with the
ethical requirements. They are the reward for fulfilling these
commands; only those who obey them may count upon these benefits,
punishment awaits the disobedient. Incidentally, something similar
is true of science. Those who disregard its lessons, so it tells
us, expose themselves to injury.

   The remarkable combination in
religion of instruction, consolation and requirements can only be
understood if it is subjected to a genetic analysis. This may be
approached from the most striking point of the aggregate, from its
instruction on the origin of the universe; for why, we may ask,
should a cosmogony be a regular component of religious systems? The
doctrine is, then, that the universe was created by a being
resembling a man, but magnified in every respect, in power, wisdom,
and the strength of his passions - an idealized super-man. Animals
as creators of the universe point to the influence of totemism,
upon which we shall have a few words at least to say presently. It
is an interesting fact that this creator is always only a single
being, even when there are believed to be many gods. It is
interesting, too, that the creator is usually a man, though there
is far from being a lack of indications of female deities; and some
mythologies actually make the creation begin with a male god
getting rid of a female deity, who is degraded into being a
monster. Here the most interesting problems of detail open out; but
we must hurry on. Our further path is made easy to recognize, for
this god-creator is undisguisedly called ‘father’.
Psycho-analysis infers that he really is the father, with all the
magnificence in which he once appeared to the small child. A
religious man pictures the creation of the universe just as he
pictures his own origin.

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   This being so, it is easy to
explain how it is that consoling assurances and strict ethical
demands are combined with a cosmogony. For the same person to whom
the child owed his existence, the father (or more correctly, no
doubt, the parental agency compounded of the father and mother),
also protected and watched over him in his feeble and helpless
state, exposed as he was to all the dangers lying in wait in the
external world; under his father’s protection he felt safe.
When a human being has himself grown up, he knows, to be sure, that
he is in possession of greater strength, but his insight into the
perils of life has also grown greater, and he rightly concludes
that fundamentally he still remains just as helpless and
unprotected as he was in his childhood, that faced by the world he
is still a child. Even now, therefore, he cannot do without the
protection which he enjoyed as a child. But he has long since
recognized, too, that his father is a being of narrowly restricted
power, and not equipped with every excellence. He therefore harks
back to the mnemic image of the father whom in his childhood he so
greatly overvalued. He exalts the image into a deity and makes it
into something contemporary and real. The effective strength of
this mnemic image and the persistence of his need for protection
jointly sustain his belief in God.

   The third main item in the
religious programme, the ethical demand, also fits into this
childhood situation with ease. I may remind you of Kant’s
famous pronouncement in which he names, in a single breath, the
starry heavens and the moral law within us. However strange this
juxtaposition may sound - for what have the heavenly bodies to do
with the question of whether one human creature loves another or
kills him? - it nevertheless touches on a great psychological
truth. The same father (or parental agency) which gave the child
life and guarded him against its perils, taught him as well what he
might do and what he must leave undone, instructed him that he must
adapt himself to certain restrictions on his instinctual wishes,
and made him understand what regard he was expected to have for his
parents and brothers and sisters, if he wanted to become a
tolerated and welcome member of the family circle and later on of
larger associations. The child is brought up to a knowledge of his
social duties by a system of loving rewards and punishments, he is
taught that his security in life depends on his parents (and
afterwards other people) loving him and on their being able to
believe that he loves them. All these relations are afterwards
introduced by men unaltered into their religion. Their
parents’ prohibitions and demands persist within them as a
moral conscience. With the help of this same system of rewards and
punishments, God rules the world of men. The amount of protection
and happy satisfaction assigned to an individual depends on his
fulfilment of the ethical demands; his love of God and his
consciousness of being loved by God are the foundations of the
security with which he is armed against the dangers of the external
world and of his human environment. Finally, in prayer he has
assured himself a direct influence on the divine will and with it a
share in the divine omnipotence.