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PAGE 86
JONES
proved that a far greater number of these processes than is
commonly surmised arise from origins that he never suspects.
Man's belief that he is a self-conscious animal, alive to the
desires that impel or inhibit his actions, and aware of all of the
springs of his conduct, is the last stronghold of that anthropo-
morphic outlook on life which so long has dominated his
philosophy, his theology and, above all, his psychology. In
other words, the tendency to take man at his own valuation is
rarely resisted, and we assume that the surest way of finding
out why a person does a given thing is simply to ask him,
relying on the knowledge that he, like ourselves in a like cir-
cumstance, will feel certain of the answer and will infallibly
provide a plausible reason for his conduct. Special objective
methods of penetrating into obscure mental processes, however,
disclose the most formidable obstacles in the way of this
direct introspective route, and reveal powers of self-deception
in the human mind to which a limit has yet to be found. If
I may be allowed to quote from a former paper:1 "We are
beginning to see man not as the smooth, self-acting agent he
pretends to be, but as he really is, a creature only dimly con-
scious of the various influences that mould his thought and
action, and blindly resisting with all the means at his command
the forces that are making for a higher and fuller conscious-
ness."
That Hamlet is suffering from an internal conflict, the es-
sential nature of which is inaccessible to his introspection, is
evidenced by the following considerations. Throughout the
play we have the clearest picture of a man who sees his duty
plain before him, but who shirks it at every opportunity, and
suffers in consequence the most intense remorse. To para-
phrase Sir James Paget's famous description of hysterical
paralysis: Hamlet's advocates say he cannot do his duty, his
detractors say he will not, whereas the truth is that he cannot
will. Further than this, the defective will-power is localised
to the one question of killing his uncle; it is what may be
termed a specific aboulia. Now instances of such specific
aboulias in real life invariably prove, when analysed, to be
due to an unconscious repulsion against the act that cannot
be performed. In other words, whenever a person cannot
bring himself to do something that every conscious considera-
tion tells him he should do, it is always because for some rea-
son he doesn't want to do it; this reason he will not own to
himself and is only dimly if at all aware of. That is exactly
the case with Hamlet. Time and again he works himself up,
1Rationalisation in Every Day Life. Journal of Abnormal Psychol-
ogy, Aug.--Sept., 1908, Vol. III, p. 168.
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