The Depths of the Soul: Psycho-Analytical Studies - Wilhelm Stekel

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training in psychology. Not psychology in the sense of that school philosophy which flourishes in theoretical phraseology and in theoretical facts remote from the green tree of life. Life can learn only from life. One who knows the secrets of the second world will not be surprised by any happenings that the day may bring forth. He will understand the weaknesses of the great and the strength of the small.

      He will see virtue and vice coalesce in one great stream whose murky waters will flow on into unknown regions.

       Table of Contents

      Very few people perceive the ridiculous element in the frequent complaints about the wickedness of human nature. “Human beings are ungrateful, false, untrustworthy,” and so forth. Yes, but we are all human. We ought, therefore, logically speaking, complain: “We human beings are ungrateful, we are false, we are untrustworthy.” But naturally this requires a measure of self-knowledge that is seldom to be found in those bearing the vesture of humanity. Let us make a modest beginning; let us try to look truth in the face. Let us not put ourselves on a pinnacle above the others till we know how high or low we ourselves stand.

      We like to deceive ourselves, and, above all, not to see our faults. That is the most prevalent of all weaknesses. We look upon ourselves not only as cleverer but also as better than all others. We forget our faults so easily and divide them by a hundred, whereas our virtues are ever present to our mind and multiplied by a thousand. To himself everybody is not only the first but also the wisest and the best of mortals. That is why we complain about the ingratitude of our fellow-men, because we have forgotten all the occasions on which we proved ungrateful—in exactly the same manner in which we manage wholly to forget everything calculated to awaken painful emotions in ourselves.

      The complaint about man’s ingratitude is as old as the history of man himself. The Bible, ancient legends, the folk-songs, and the proverbs of all nations, ancient and modern, bewail man’s ingratitude. It is “the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin.” A trait that is so widely distributed, investing the egoist with the glory of supreme worldly wisdom and branding the altruist as half a fool, must be founded deep in the souls of men. It must be an integral part of the circumstances conditioning the life of the individual. It must send its roots down into the unconscious where the brutal instincts of primal man consort with humanity’s ripened instincts.

      But if ingratitude is a genuinely (psychologically) established fact then we must be able to determine the dark forces that have it in them to suppress the elementary feeling of gratitude. For even to the most casual observation it is apparent that the first emotion with which we react to a kindness is a warm feeling of recognition, gratitude. So thoroughly are we permeated by it that it seems impossible ever to withhold this gratitude from our benefactor, let alone repay him with ingratitude. The first reaction with which the human soul requites a kind deed is a firm purpose “ever” to be grateful therefor. But purpose, “the slave to memory,” is only the puffed sail that drives the boat until the force of the storm and the weakness of the rudder compel a different course. So, too, the intent to prove grateful is driven about fitfully by the winds of life. Of course, not at once. It requires the lapse of a certain latency period ere gratitude is converted to ingratitude. In the beginning the feeling of gratitude reigns supreme. Slowly it grows fainter and fainter, is inaudible for a time, then on suitable occasions is heard again but ever more faintly. After a while, quite unawares, ingratitude has taken its place. All those pleasurable emotions that have accompanied gratitude have been transformed into their opposites: love into hatred, attraction into aversion, interest into indifference, praise into censure, and friendship into hostility.

      How does this come about? Where lie the sources of these hidden streams that drive the wheels of our emotions?

      We pointed out at the very beginning that everybody regards himself as the wisest, the best, and the most capable of men. Our weaknesses we acknowledge very reluctantly. A losing chess-player is sure to say in ninety-nine out of a hundred instances: “I did not play this game well.” The opponent’s superiority is always denied; defeat is attributed to a momentary relaxation of the psychic tension, to carelessness, to some accident, etc. And if an individual is compelled to admit another’s superiority, he will do so only with reference to some one point. He will always make reservations leaving himself some sphere of activity in which he is king. That constitutes a man’s secret pride: the sphere in which he thinks he excels all others. This self-consciousness, this exaggerated apperception of the ego is a natural basis of life, a protective device of the soul which makes life bearable, which makes it easier to bear our fardels and endure the pricks of destiny, and which compensates us for the world’s inadequate recognition of us and for the failure of our efforts which must inevitably come short of our intentions. “The paranoid delusion of the normal human being,” as Philip Frey aptly named it, is really the individual’s “fixed idea” which proves him to be in a certain sense pathologic and justifies the opinion that the whole world is a great madhouse.

      This exaggerated self-consciousness manifests itself with pathological intensity especially in these times. The smaller the individual’s share in the real affairs of the world is, the more must his fantasy achieve so as to magnify this function and have it appear as something of vital importance. In those cases in which individuality is crushed, a hypertrophied delusion of greatness is developed. Everyone thinks himself important, everyone is indispensable, everyone thinks himself an important power in the play and interplay of forces. Our era has created the type of the “self-made man.” Everyone is willing to be indebted only to himself, his qualifications, his power of endurance, his energy, his individual efforts for his achievements. “By his own efforts”—so runs the much-abused phrase—does each one want to get to the top.

      All want it—but how few really make it come true! Who can know to-day what is his own and what another’s? Who knows how much he had to take before he was able to give anything? But no one wants to stop for an accounting. Each one wants to owe everything to himself.

      Something of this is in every one of us. And this brings us to the deepest root of ingratitude. The feeling of being indebted to another clashes with our self-confidence; the unpleasant truth contrasts sharply with the normal’s deep-rooted delusions of greatness. In this conflict of emotions there is only an either … or. Either once for all to renounce this exaggerated self-consciousness, or to forget the occasion for gratitude, to repress this painful memory, to let the ulcerous wound on the proud body of the “ego” heal to a scar. (The exceptions that prove the rule in this matter, too, we shall consider later.)

      The first road that assures us eternal gratitude is chosen only by those who by the “bludgeonings of fate” have been wholly stunned, who are life-weary—feel themselves goaded to death—the wholly crushed. These unfortunates no longer need the play of their hidden psychic forces. The need of the body has strangled the cry of the soul. These are grateful, grateful from conviction, grateful from necessity. Their dreams are veritable orgies of benefactions. For them the benefactor is the deliverer from bodily torment. They see “dead souls” whom everyone who so desires may purchase.

      But one who has not for ever renounced the fulfillment of his inmost longings will rarely be capable of gratitude. His ego resents being indebted to anyone but himself. But this ego will never permit itself to face the naked brutal fact of its ingratitude. It seeks for causes and motives, for justification. In this case the proverb again proves true: “seek and you shall find,” the kindness is scrutinised from every side till a little point is found which reveals a bit of calculating egoism from which the kindness takes on a business aspect. And what human action does not permit of many interpretations? Our self-preservation impulse then chooses the interpretation that suits us best, the interpretation that relieves us of the oppressive feeling of gratitude. Such is the first step in the transformation of gratitude into ingratitude. Rarely does the matter rest there. Usually it requires also a transformation of the emotion into its opposite ere the galling feeling of gratitude can be eradicated. What execrable wretches would we not appear even to ourselves if we could not work out reasons for the changes in our feelings?

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