ABSTRACT
Conscious and unconscious motives. In the last two chapters we have seen how profoundly unconscious motives and complexes m ay influence our thoughts and actions; and in earlier chapters we saw th a t fundam ental innate tendencies m ay be a t work w ithin us even w hen they are so overlaid by the results of experience and so developed into habits th a t we are unaw are of their basic origins. W e m ust adm it then th a t we m ay often be mistaken in judging our own motives, and th a t we often tend to ‘rationalize’ them , th a t is, try to find good reasons for doing w hat we do because of unconscious or a t least obscured motives. Nevertheless, in the end we can only deal w ith our own or o ther people’s motives through the m edium of conscious analysis and thought. This is indeed recognized by the strongest adherents of psycho-analysis itself. Thus, one who was probably the best qualified exponent of psycho-analysis in this country, wrote as follows: ‘T he psycho-analyst m ust eventually content himself w ith seeing th a t the field is as far as possible clear for the full unham pered operation of the conscious force.’ 1
In this chapter on the co-ordination of innate tendencies we shall retu rn to a discussion of motive forces chiefly on a conscious level.
