British Journal of Psychiatry (1992),161,430—432

Books Reconsidered

The Unconscious Before Freud: Lancelot Law Whyte

“¿Nothing
has yet been said that's not been said before.― right: “¿It
is not often that philosophy offers such a
(Publius Terentius, 161 BC) potentially profound contribution to the advance of
psychology and psychiatry―.When the book was
Those of us with an interest in the history of reprinted in 1978, Arthur Koestler, in his preface to
psychiatry have occasionally experienceda curious the second edition, declared that it “¿willtake its
kind ofcognitive dissonance.We believe,or ought to place among such classicsas Herbert Butterfield's
believe becauseit has been assertedoften enough, The Originsof Modern Scienceand Lovejoy'sThe
that Freud discoveredthe dynamic unconscious;but GreatChainof Being.―
in our perusal of ancient texts we frequently find Thus we have a book which was receivedecstati
authors alluding to unconsciousfactors —¿
in works of cally, hailed asa positive contribution to the history
psychiatry, philosophy, and literature —¿
in a surpris of ideas,but whichisnowlargelyignoredexceptby
ingly ‘¿modern'
way. Our responseto this conundrum those who wish to attack the theoretical basis of
is usually simple —¿
we try not to think about it too psychoanalysis.One of the many ironies in this is
much, and get on with somethingelse. that Whyte neverintended his book to bea criticism
For anyonewishingto grapplewith thisproblem of Freud —¿ although plainly he was irritated by the
inmoredetail, Iwouldcommend a bookpublished tendency of Freud's successors to ignore the vast
30 years ago, The UnconsciousBefore Freud, by literature on unconscious mentation pre-dating
Lancelot Law Whyte. Whyte was a physicist inter Freud. He tells us in the preface that the spur to
ested in the philosophical assumptions underlying writing the book was Ernest Jones's biography of
modern science.He published several critiques of Freud, which failed to place psychoanalysis in the
physics and biology before turning his attention to proper context of the development of Western
the Freudian corpus.Perhapsbecausehecameto this thought over severalcenturies.
work as an outsider, his book is better known to The Unconscious BeforeFreudhasboth a major
historians of sciencethan to psychiatrists;certainly, and a minor theme. The latter need not detain us
it is not cited by many of the standard works on long; put briefly, it concernsthe ‘¿limits
of ratiocina
dynamic psychotherapy or Freudian theory. The tion'. Due to severalfactors, but chiefly unconscious
exceptionsare Sulloway (1979)who refersto Whyte influencesand the constraints of language,human
in his famous Chapter 13,“¿The myth of the hero―, thought and logic are not the powerful instruments
and Eysenck (1985). It is noteworthy that both of that humanconceitmakesusbelieve.This, according
theseworks are demolition jobs. Ellenberger(1970), to Whyte, has severalconsequences.One of these,
who traces the history of dynamic psychotherapy which bearsdirectly on the main subjectof the book,
from a more neutral standpoint, does not mention is that all philosophical and scientific doctrines have
Whyte's work, despite covering some of the same to be regardedas partial visionsof the truth, to be
ground. The only referenceto Whyte that I know of replacedoneday by more comprehensiveones.
in a generalpsychiatry textbook is Walmsley (1988), The major theme relates specifically to the un
who suggeststhe book as further reading but does conscious;Whyte postulates that the knowledge of
not mention it in the text or attempt to summariseits unconscious mentation has existed for thousands
content. of years. Before Cartesian philosophy, these un
The book's presentobscurityis disappointing, conscious forces were assumedto be present but
considering the praise with which it was initially were seldom examined in detail. After 1637,when
greeted.Edith Sitwell wrote in the foreword―!do not Descartes published his Discourse, splitting the
know of any more important book by a living writer. Universeinto mind and matter, ‘¿mind' was taken to
It is indeed a history of the development of man.― be synonymouswith ‘¿consciousness' or ‘¿awareness',
Professor W. H. Trethowan (1964), reviewing it in sothe ideaof an ‘¿unconscious mind' becamea logical
the British Journal of Psychiatry, was equally forth contradiction. John Locke, for example,in his Essay
430
 BOOKS RECONSIDERED 431
Concerning Human Understanding, published in Herder, Fichte, Schelling,and Goethe, all of whom
1690,specifically denied that there were “¿mental
pro wrote extensivelyabout unconsciousmotivation in
cessesofwhich one is unaware―. This showsthat the human behaviour but paid increasing attention to
concept of an unconsciouswas part of the currency instinctive and vital elements. In the 19th century
of ideasin the 17th century, at least in the negative therewassomethingofa rapprochementbetweenthe
sensethat someoneofLocke's statustook thetrouble two polesofintellect and passion,and againGerman
to denyits existence.Whyte's thesisis that thehistory writers werein the forefront. The German physician
of philosophy over the subsequent three hundred C. G. Carus publishedin 1846 a treatiseon the
yearsis in part the story of the tentative rediscovery nature of the unconscious,in which he stressedthe
ofthe unconscious.“¿The ideaofunconscious mental importance of repressed sexual content. More
processes―,
writes Whyte, “¿was conceivablearound importantly, in 1868 von Hartmann produced a
1700, topical around 1800, and became effective massivephilosophical work, The Philosophyof the
around 1900― (italics in original). Unconscious, which was translated into French and
Whyte is certainly able to marshall a large body of English and ran to nine editions in Germany alone.
evidenceto support his argument, and most of the Whyte showshow this tomewasextensivelyreviewed
book is taken up with a detailed annotation of and discussedthroughout Europe, so that by 1870
this. He regards the ancient texts of the Indian the ideasofvon Hartmann were,in certain circles,as
Upanishads, and Egyptian writings, as outside his fashionableasthe musicof Wagner.
field of competence, and only mentions these in The bulk of 19th century writing about the
passing,together with the more accessibleworks of unconscious, however, appears to have been gener
Galen, Plotinusand St Augustine.The task he sets ated by the materialists, especially Helmholtz,
himself is to describe the rediscovery of the un Laycock and Maudsley. Henry Maudsley's ideas
conscious from the 17th century onwards, and he about the unconsciousare beyond the scopeof this
provides extensive quotations from 17th century essay; he disliked ‘¿gratuitous metaphysics', but
writers as diverse as Pascal, Spinoza, Milton, and recognisedthat “¿the most important part of mental
Ralph Cudworth. It is fascinating to seethe way in action, the essential process on which thinking
which the idea of an unconscioushas beeninvoked depends,is unconsciousmental activity―.
bydifferent schools forwidely different purposes: by Another 19thcentury figure who caught a glimpse
the mysticsasa link with God; by the Romanticsasa of the underworld of the mind which Freud was
link betweenthe individual and the Universal; by the later to make his own, was the eccentric English
materialists asa physiological process,and so forth. mathematician Sir Francis Galton. Galton dis
Ralph Cudworth, for example, was a theologian covered that there are great differencesin the way
who attempted to demonstrate the existence of that different people conceive the numbers, some
unconscious mentation asa refutation ofatheism. assigningthem to one sort of mental space,others
The ‘¿vital
actions' of the body, hewrote, are entirely making strange unconscious associations. As he
involuntary. Furthermore, even mental activity plunged deeperinto his inquiries he discoveredthat
continues independent of ‘¿express consciousness'. someof theassociationsarevery illogical, oneperson
Sincetheseprocessesrequire somesort of organising describing the number 3 as a ‘¿treacherous sneak',
intelligence, and since this is not being provided another as a ‘¿good
friend', and another asa ‘¿female
by the human mind, they must be directed by the companion to number 2'. His investigations gave
‘¿Supreme Intelligence': him an interesting view of the obscuredepths of the
“¿It
is certain that our human souls themselvesare not human mind:
always consciousof whatever they have in them; for “¿The
generalimpressiontheyhaveleft uponmeis that
eventhe sleepingGeometrician,hath at that time, all his which many of us haveexperiencedwhen the basement
GeometricalTheoremsand Knowledgessomeway in of our househappensto be underthoroughsanitary
him;asalsothesleepingMusician,all hisMusicalskill repairs, and we realise for the first time the complex
andsongs:andthereforewhymayit not bepossiblefor systemof drains and gas and water-pipes,flues, bell
thesoulto havelikewisesomeActualEnergyin it, which wires and so forth, upon which our comfort depends, but
it is not expressly conscious of?―
(Cudworth, 1678) which are usually hidden out of sight, and with whose
Moving on to the 18th Century, Whyte detectsa existence,as long as they actedwell, we had never
trend away from the cognitive aspectsof the un troubledourselves.―
(Galton,citedbyHardin,1960)
conscious,towards the emotional or volitional con So,what is Whyte's final judgement on Freud, and
tent. This trend is seenparticularly in the important what shall be our judgement on Whyte? Freud
sequenceof German thinkers from Kant, who was escapesWhyte's censurebecause,although he was
still mainly concerned with cognitive aspects, to a mountebank and a mythomaniac, Freud was
432 BOOKS RECONSIDERED

engagedin a task which Whyte believesto becentral among which is the existenceof unconsciousmen
to the whole of human thought: the mapping out of tation. But the book is more than just that; it
the limits of rationalism. Freud, through his energy has interesting things to tell us about discovery,
and imagination, forced the attention ofthe Western originality, priority and plagiarism. Those ironists
world to this fact: wearenot what wethink ourselves Hunter & Macalpine (1963), having taken over a
to be. It was clearly Whyte's hope, back in 1960, thousand pagesto sketch the history of psychiatry
that Freud had set psychology on to a particular (pages in which ideas about the unconscious are
course, and that in time this course would pay given a prominent place) conclude their Three
dividends by way of a deeper understanding of the Hundred Yearsof Psychiatry with an account of a
human condition. disputein 1860betweenCarpenterand Laycock over
My own view, in reconsidering this book 30 years priority of “¿discovery of the law of unconscious
later, is that Whyte's expectations for psychoanalysis cerebration―. It is a joke that Whyte would have
havenot beenrealised.But whateverthe reasonsfor appreciated. He opens his book with an epigram
this, and whatever status psychoanalysiseventually from Goethe:
achievesas a form of treatment, there can be little
“¿What
does discovery mean, and who can say that he has
doubt that unconsciousfactors exist and that they
discoveredthisor that?After all, it's pureidiocyto brag
may play a part in the presentationof the symptoms aboutpriority;for it's simplyunconscious conceitnot to
that we seeevery day in our patients. In the past admitfranklythatoneisaplagiarist.―
ten years or so, researchon non-consciousmental
processeshasstartedonceagain,this time stimulated
by developmentsin psychophysiologyand cognitive References
science(Kihlstrom, 1987).Today, many clinicians CuDwoRrH, R. (1678) The True Intellectual System of the Universe.
and researchers might concur with Eysenck (1985): London: Royston.
ELLENBERGER, H. E. (1970) The Discovery of the Unconscious. New
“¿Unconscious
activity there certainly is, but the York:BasicBooks.
Freudian unconscious,populated like a medieval EYSENCK, H. J. (1985) Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire.
morality play by suchmythological figuresas the ego, the London: Penguin.
id, and the super-ego, the censor, Eros and Thanatos, HARDIN,0. (1960) Nature and Man @v
Fate. London: Jonathan Cape.
andimbuedbyavariety
ofcomplexes,
amongthemthe HuWrER, R. & MACALPINE,I. (1963) Three Hundred Years of
Psychiatry. London: Oxford University Press.
Oedipus and Elektra complexes, is too absurd to deserve
KIHLSTROM,J. F. (1987) The cognitive unconscious. Science. 237,
scientific status―. 1445—1452.
SULLOWAY,F. J. (1979) Freud. Biologist of the Mind. London:
What, then, should we make of Whyte's book? I Burnett Books.
find it an intriguing work, placing as it does the TPsmowAN. W. H. (1964) The Unconscious before Freud- book
psychodynamic image of man centre-stagein the review British Journal of Psychiatry. 110, 139-140.
history ofphilosophy. Whytemakesthepointmore WALMSLEY, T. (1988) Historical introduction. In Companion to
Psychiatric Studies 4th edn. (eds R. E. Kendell & A. K. Zealley),
clearly than I have seenelsewherethat one of the pp. 1—11.
Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
tasksforthoseinterested in mentalhealthisto Wiiym, L. L. (1960) The Unconscious before Freud. London:
describe the constraints on human thought, chief Reprinted by Julian Friedmann Publishers(l978).

Tim D. Rogers, MPhi1,MRCPsych,

Senior Registrar, Royal Victoria Hospital, Department of Psychiatry,
13CraigneathRoad,EdinburghEH4 2DN