[Reprinted from Psychoanalytic REview, v. 6 (no. 4): 379-390; Oct., 1919.]
DETERMINISM, CONDUCT AND FEAR PSYCHOLOGY
BY THEODORE SCHROEDER,
NEW YORK CITY
I have just read Prof. Jennings' article on “Experimental De-
terminism and Human Conduct.” I see determinism in a different
light, and will appreciate it if you will allow me to portray a part
of my concept.
I approach the problem of determinism from the viewpoint of
genetic psychology and in the setting of an evolutionary psychology,
as these coneepts are being developed upon the disclosures of psy-
choanalysts and of students of the autonomic system. Of course
psychoanalysts represent varying degrees of understanding and
have varying points of emphasis. Furthermore, psychoanalytic
theory is still in the making and therefore my indiscretions must
not be charged to that group as a whole.
It appears from the essay of Prof. Jennings that in their choice
of psychologic theory, he and others are influenced by fear, On
the one hand I see a desire to conform their psychologic theories
and their lives according to an understanding of determinism ac-
quired through experimental psychology. On the other hand, I
see a conflicting urge to conform psychologic theory and life to
moralistic standards of value, doubtless acquired during youth.
The psychoanalyst believes that he understands some of the psycho-
genic determinants of these conflicting impulses. Whenever that
understanding is offered in explanation of some one's choice of
theories or conduct, otherwise than in the privacy and regular order
of psychoanalytic work, then some one's autonomic system is sure to
be disturbed. The opinion that moral theories are important to
society, is by many of us believed to arise from a mere necessity for
maintaining a semblance of comfort in spite of considerable affec-
tive repression. When anyone questions the correctness or utility
of such moral theory, he threatens to rob the repressed individuals
of their phantasmal comfort. It seems as though one is taking
something away and giving nothing in return. So resentment
comes into being. This means the existence of emotional resist-
1 Jour. of Phil., Psych. and Scientific Method, 16, 180–183, March 17, 1919.
379
380 THEODORE SCHROEDER
ances which tend to prevent a comfortable adjustment to a course
of life in harmony with deterministic concepts of life. It also
means that there are some underlying suppressed fears belonging
to immaturity, but not outgrown, which are still a potent part of the
unconscious automatism controlling the action of today. This also
determines its inadequately enlightened self-explanation, by moral-
istic theories. In other words, the subconsciously conditioned con-
duct of today is functioning at archaic levels of defensive and aver-
tive impulse even in the choice of psychologic theory. These fear
emotions, thus carried over from the past, are an integral part of
the organism's behavior, and so inevitably remain part determinants
in the choice of psychologic theory. Thus they are also an inhibit-
ing influence, during any flirtations we may have with the doctrines
of determinists, or psychoanalysts.
In the past this fear-psychology generally explained itself in
terms of the relative omnipotence of some theologic ideas. Prof.
Jennings’ fears explain themselves in terms of the relative omnip-
otence of moral ideas, which it is hoped have been somewhat
modified since they were an integral part of the theologic system.
However, they seem to function in the same old way, and there-
fore they persist as a part of him. He appears to be almost as
much afraid of losing his delusions about the power of conscience-
theory or the theories about “criminal” responsibility, or of the
deterrent effect of punishment, as the medieval mind was afraid of
losing the supposed beneficence of demonic possession and punish-
ment of witches, or its brimstone hell, as a deterrent of “crime.”
Many people are now as much afraid of mere bolshevist doctrine
as other people were once afraid of the attacks which were made
by mere political democrats upon the theory that “criminals” were
responsible to the king “as a God upon the earth.” All these
theories look differently if we have fear-free ability to accept the
doctrine of a complete psychologic determinism, and can make fear-
free effort to understand the behavior of the cosmic stuff as that is
working in each person's autonomic apparatus in conjunction with
its immediate environment.
However, we are making progress. Formerly these conflicts
compelled the creation of heaven and hell. Our modern enlighten-
ment has reduced the severity of the subjective conflict. Now, for
the “worst” offenses, eternal punishment in a lake of fire and
brimstone has been reduced to electrocution and shooting. Formerly
when some ill-tempered dissenter uttered religious heresy against
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DETERMINISM CONDUCT AND FEAR PSYCHOLOGY 381
our idol of mammon, he was burned at the stake. Recently a
bolshevist blasphemer, who uttered a cry for aid for the Russian
revolutionists, received only twenty years in jail.” We have really
progressed. At this rate of progress it will take some time before
humanity will outgrow its subjective necessity for inflicting “re-
wards and punishment.” The present influence of college pro-
fessors in accelerating this growth is not dangerously effective.
Perhaps after all Prof. Jennings’ fear of this collapse of “rewards
and punishment” was not objectively conditioned.
When one's concept of determinism is uninfluenced by the fear-
psychology of emotionally unsolved problems, and such a relatively
fear-free person has integrated into his autonomic-reaction system
a large understanding of the relations and behavior of things, in-
cluding human animals, then one is also quite unafraid of discover-
ing, or being, or of acknowledging just whatever kind of an animal
one in fact happens to be. Fear and vanity are but different aspects
of the same condition of emotional conflict. When the fear arising
from emotional conflict is gone, one is also so far free from its
part-determining influence in the automatic regulations of conduct
and of self-explanatory theory and self-defensive morality. That
is to say: with such a deterministic concept, free from the conflict-
ing subconscious influence of unsolved emotional problems a person
will comfortably ignore the unstandardized emotional and “moral”
valuations. These became important during immaturity, largely
because of the great affect-value of the juvenile erotic conflict from
which they arise, as the only known defense for one aspect of the
conflict. Without having outgrown that conflict itself, the indi-
vidual tends to cling to his “moralities” because these still seem to
neutralize the distress of the affective repressions of the autonomic
system. For those who think they need that sort of thing I should
think that it’s just the sort of thing which their thinking needs. But
the organism itself may need another kind of relief.
There was a time when the human animal found it necessary to
pass its moral judgments upon the non-human animal. The doc-
trine of free will and responsibility was part of God's plan and
could not be ignored. The tribunals of human animals sat in
* See, Sentenced to Twenty Years in Prison. New York Political Pris-
oner's Defense and Relief Com., 1919. The essence of this crime was: “The
Russian Revolution Calls to the Workers of the World for Help.” See also
my Free Speech for Radicals, Enl. Ed., for similar manifestations of hyster-
ical fears.
382 THEODORE SCEIROEDER
solemn judgment upon the conduct of non-human animals,” and
pronounced their stern death sentences probably with the same
feverish excitement, suppressed into the same austere formality,
which we now attach to the conviction of an I. W. W. agitator.
Neither beasts nor men are less “moral” because of the part dis-
appearance of capital punishment of animals or man. They still
are just what they are compelled to be.
Those who first proposed to treat even the extremely abnormal
human “criminal” as irresponsible, were opposed by the same fear-
psychology as that evinced by Prof. Jennings. Both fears are justi-
fied in substantially the same manner. Outgrowing predestination
and foreordination, together with the demonic-possession explana-
tions of “crime” has made it possible to remove a few “criminals.”
beyond the reach of “moral” vengeance, by placing them in
asylums. This has brought none of the predicted catastrophies. I
do not fear the enlargement of the class of recognized irrespon-
sibles. I would even exclude Prof. Jennings from moral respon-
sibility for his fear of outgrowing his present “moral” concepts.
The fear of social ills as a result of discouraging social ven-
geance is not founded in observed facts. Practically all anti-
social conduct is but an inefficient adjustment to the realities. This
inefficiency is mainly conditioned by exaggerated fears. Increas-
ing this fear of social vengeance increases the morbidity. That is
why punishment fails to deter those who are most prone to anti-
social behavior. This is shown quite conclusively by the fact that
as high as 65 to 90 per cent. of convicts are known to become second
offenders. It is further shown in the minor anti-social attitudes of
the hystericals. The therapeutic measures of the psychoanalysts
is largely a matter of ridding the patient of the moralistic fears of
vengeance, against which the patients ignorantly seeks protection
by more anti-social behavior. This “crime” producing fear is the
condition which other fearful persons like Prof. Jennings impose
from without, and their own fears compel them to invent a “deter-
rent” as a justification.
Dr. Bernard Glueck and others, working in psychiatric prison
clinics, show us that about 60 per cent. of those whom our “most
learned judges” sentence as “criminals” are in fact insane or
defectives according to present psychologic standards of judgment,
such as even Prof. Jennings would probably approve. Personally
* See The Criminal Prosecution and Punishment of Animals, by E. P.
Evans. New York, Dutton & Co., 1906.
DETERMINISM CONDUCT AND FEAR PSYCHOLOGY 383
I am not afraid to act as though this 60 per cent. of convicts were
also irresponsible and to be placed beyond the reach of social
vengeance, even though that vengeance is disguised under the soft
sounding necessity for “moral rewards and punishment.” Nor am
I afraid to give a sympathetic understanding to the remaining 40
per cent. of convicts, who are labeled “normal” according to
present psychiatric and psychometric standards of judgments.
These standards are only partly founded upon genetic understand-
ing. In large measure these standards and decisions are still influ-
enced by antiquated theories, founded in a moralistic compulsion
to classify the human race as all being either possessed of God or
possessed by the devil; as being either absolutely black or absolutely
white. I am inclined to believe that this 40 per cent. of convicts
can be understood and explained as we now understand and explain
the hystericals. If intelligent, we no longer increase their fears by
threat of social vengeance, when we come to see with the psycho-
analysts that these artificial, and therefore emotionally exaggerated
fears are the most efficient means of promoting anti-social behavior.
Then we do indeed see that the desire to punish like the other anti-
social conduct of these “criminals” is only a different product of
fear-psychology, of immature emotional attitudes toward life. So
then we give even this last 40 per cent. of convicts and those fear-
ful “experimental determinists” who wish to punish them, a sym-
pathetic understanding and endeavor to replace social vengeance
by an intelligent reconditioning of the desires of both the punisher
and the punished, so that both will automatically function on a more
mature level of desires, of understanding and of mental processes.
I would not even exclude from that sympathetic understanding,
those numerous psychoanalysts who have not yet found their way
wholly out of the wilderness of “morality.”
I am a lawyer and know only a small part of the 40,000 laws
regulative of conduct in New York City, N. Y., U. S. A. If in
New York any adults think themselves not of the “criminal class”
I can only explain such delusions by their failure to coördinate all
penal regulations with the whole of their conduct. Personally I
have committed thousands of punishable offenses without danger
of punishment or of social rewards. Hereby I am not admitting
that I am less anti-social than others. I believe that I have given
4. Putnam, James J., Elements of strength and elements of weakness in
psychoanalytic doctrines. Psychoa NALYTIC REVIEW, 6 (no.2): 117–23; April,
I9I9.
384 THEODORE SCHROEDER
up more of the conventional satisfactions than any one I know of,
in order to make this world a better place to live in. The few times
when I came near arrest, was while I rendered the best social
service I am capable of, by promoting intellectual hospitality.
Judges and policemen are still too obsessed by their infantile fears
to understand a man who could be devoted to freedom of speech.
Prof. Jennings seems as fearful of losing the popular valuation
of conscience as a medieval monk was fearful of losing his personal
God. I confess a little disappointment at finding one who claims to
be any kind of a determinist yet justifying his fear by giving con-
science-thoughts and other conscienceless thoughts a potency all
their own. Of course I knew of Christian Scientists who believe in
the omnipotence of ideas and who label the disapproved idea as
“malicious animal magnetism,” and are as much afraid of it as
some children are afraid of a strange large animal. I also know
that such extreme mystics as Mulford, Atkinson and Walker, have
each written a book to prove to us materially minded determinists,
that “Thoughts are Things.” But I was inadequately prepared
to have an “experimental determinist” so overcome by his sub-
conscious fear that he must limit or regret belief in determinism,
or in its logical consequences, because he fears to lose the power and
social value of moral abstractions. When we have outgrown the
emotional conflict, its fears, and its urge which impels us uncon-
sciously toward the mystics formula that thoughts are things, then
we have acquired one of the “conditions” of preparedness (to wit:
open-mindedness) for the views of Dr. Kempf (clinical psychiatrist
of the Government Hospital for the Insane). He says: “It is no
more possible to wipe out a well concatinated system of reflexes, of
such potency as the erotogenic, by an ideal or moral criticism than
for a Christian Science healer to evaporate the appendix with local
applications of faith and new thought.”
Indeed the concept is an important factor in psychoanalytic
therapeutics. Furthermore, the efficiency of the analyst with some
classes of subjects depends very largely upon how much of the
detailed understanding he incorporates into the concept symbolized
by the quoted words. Another factor of this efficiency is dependent
upon how thoroughly he has integrated this super-moral concept
into his personality toward the state of development in which the
autonomic function reacts in harmony with that understanding, as
a very part of its unconscious automatism. Those who care for a
* PsychoanaLYTIC REVIEW, 4, 128.
DETERMINISM CONDUCT AND FEAR PSYCHIOLOGY 385
picture of that kind of determinism in action should read Dr.
Edward J. Kempf's: “The Autonomic Functions and the Person-
ality.” There some will get a view of psychobiologic determinism
with the old distinction of mind and body quite thoroughly
eliminated.
What then is the place or use of ideas in such a scheme of
determinism? Here is where my concept of evolutionary psychol-
ogy comes into play. From this point of view we have little con-
cern for the creeds or conscience which a person may profess or
otherwise manifest. The psychoanalyst has seen too many well-
sounding creeds and fine-looking consciences in fashionably garbed
moralities, all chosen and most fervently and ostentatiously pro-
claimed in obedience to a morbid emotional conflict. We know that
whatever may be the professed creed or the conscientious conduct,
or whatever may be the fervency with which these are maintained,
they are merely tools by which the autonomic system accomplishes
its ends, very few of which (in their subjective aspects) ever enter
consciousness. Observation of the behavior of humans, acting
under the influence of emotional conflicts, has made it clear to most
psychoanalysts that the more fervently one professes attachment to
an ideal the stronger is his temptation to violate it. His ideal is
but the intellectualization of that aspect of his conflict which he
wishes the world to see, and the ideal seems useful to him only
because it tends to neutralize his fear by concealing the other aspect
of his conflicting impulses. It is this psychoanalytic” insight into
the behavior of the emotions impelling to the choice of creeds and
ideals that compels some of us to discredit them utterly as determi-
nants of conduct.
It is socially useless to study neurology and psychiatry if one's
emotional conflict (of inferiority-grandeur) is so morbid that the
resultant defensive (or compensatory) moral vanity inhibits the
expert from treating the insane as sick persons. Likewise experi-
mental psychology does not lead to character maturing if the psy-
chologic understanding does not check those childhood's defensive
reactions which are still functioning with a deluding “moral” valua-
tion. The psychoanalyst functioning on the level of a small vision,
5a Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Monog. Se. No. 28.
* For an enlarged but dogmatic statement of this behavior of the conflict
see: Matricide and Maryolatry; Medico-Legal Journal, 36 (No. 1): 4–Io.
For case of sado-masochist conflict see Wildisbuch Crucified Saint, Psycho-
ANALYTIc REVIEw, I (No. 2), 129–148. Here, however, the theoretic explana-
tion of facts recited exhibits my inadequate understanding of that time.
386 THEODORE SCEIROEDER
or under the compulsion of hurry, may be content to relieve arti-
ficial fears by suggestions which induce the patient to live nearer to
the conventional moralities. This can be accomplished almost as
well by the hypnotist or Christian Scientist and in some cases it
relieves the tension sufficiently to insure better social adjustments.
Where a present objective problem is an immediate and chief
cause of the emotional disturbance then even permanent good may
come from such superficial treatment. However, oftentimes the
inability (without expert assistance) to find a solution of the pres-
ent objective problem is due to antecedent emotional conflict, re-
mote in origin and often quite successfully crowded into the uncon-
scious. At other times only one aspect of the conflict has been ex-
cluded from consciousness and the other aspect has been long in-
tellectualized into an obsessively persistent moralistic creed. Under
such circumstances the superficial treatment above referred to will
be of little use. Now there must be a more thorough understand-
ing of genetic psychology and of the mental mechanism of sublima-
tion. The false sublimations sometimes suggested by psycho-
analysts and others, who still flounder in the bogs of conventional
or unconventional moralities, cannot aid the afflicted one to a solu-
tion of the problem on a level of understanding above that of
moralistic contention. Nothing short of the post-morality state of
development can ever be a true and complete sublimation, or solu-
tion of a subjective conflict.
Instead of thinking that we know the real character of a person
by his profession of creed, a real determinist will treat it as a mere
symptom from which (with other data) we seek to discover at what
evolutionary level his choice of creed or conscience was condi-
tioned. Here we have in mind an evolutionary scaling of the psy-
chologic aspect of desires, of mental process, and of the understand-
ing of the relations and behavior among things (including the
organism called man) in so far as these are integrated as an affec-
tive part-determinant of his choices. If Prof. Jennings’ fear-at-
tachment to his moralities had been less potent he might not have
been precluded from the discovery of an evolutionary concept of
the psyche which would have made his “morality” seem to be a
mere delusional tool of the childhood psyche. Developed out of the
antecedent fears this concept would give him comfort. If we have
an evolutionary concept of these aspects of the psychic life and if
we have outgrown our childhood and pubescent moral-emotional
conflicts, we are not afraid even of the word “fatalism,” or any other
DETERMINISM CONDUCT AND FEAR PSYCHOLOGY 387
label that others have pleasure in applying. We live in comfortable
relations with our environment because we understand ourselves
psychogenetically and understand much of the environment, with-
out having any emotional attitudes toward it. Consequently we are
quite void of anxiety about our adjustments to it. This means
that we are expending our energies in efficient and satisfying self-
expression. We live for that particular kind of character develop-
ment in ourselves and in others, and for nothing else. Now we
see the progress of the race dependent, not upon formulae, creeds,
morals, churches or political institutions, but upon democratic and
democratizing character-evolution in the mass of humanity, and this
according to an evolutionary concept of the psyche, which I cannot
here take the space to formulate. Efficient living in harmony with
such a concept of psychic determinism is quite enough to justify
life. tº e
The quality of our moral judgments and valuations, is condi-
tioned upon the quality of our past or present moral conflicts. Our
emphasis on the importance of moral values is conditioned upon
the intensity of our past or present moral conflicts. It is the dif-
ferent objective contributions to the conflict and in the different
degrees of the associated emotional intensity that we find the im-
portant determinants for differences of character. In its pathologic
development we see the inefficiency of some extreme victims of
multiple personality. In its more usual form it may only leave an
“experimental determinist” afraid of his determinism, because by
subconsciously active determinants, he is inhibited from giving up
his “moral” values. Because unacquainted with the psycho-
genetics of this inhibition, such a person, like the Christian Scientist,
is compelled to assert that “thought determines action.” If he
understood the psychogenetics which compelled his choice of thought
he might even change his thought about the potency of thought.
I suggest that Prof. Jennings submit himself to personal psycho-
analysis by some analyst sufficiently free from conflicts to have out-
grown moral judgments.
For some of us who have gone through the psychoanalytic
process to acquire self-understanding, abstract thoughts as such
have lost their potency. For us thoughts never determine action,
tout are determined as our action is determined, by the push of the
autonomic system. This is operating only partly under the specific
determining stimuli from without, and mostly from the affect com-
plexes of the past, working from within. Ethical abstractions are
388 TEIEODORE SCHROEDER
only the expression of defensive self-explanation, self-justification,
or mode of apology.
Even a thorough understanding of the concrete behavior of
things is often as impotent as ethical abstractions and ideals. Look
at the habitual drunkard with temperance ideals, who knows all the
ills of excessive drinking; the gourmond who knows the ills of ex-
cessive eating; the drug-habitue who knows the final agony of
persisting in his habit; the professional purist who knows his secret
excessive lasciviousness; the millionaire, who knows his secret fear
of poverty or starvation; the philanthropist who knows his hatred
of the welfare aspirations of the proletarian bolshevist. All these
may know the facts of their own life which contradict their under-
standing and discredit their impotent thinking. Yet psychologically
these are not essentially unlike Prof. Jennings. He too thinks
thoughts that he cannot live up to, determinism for example. In-
tellectually, he is a determinist, even as intellectually the purist is
sexless. In both cases the autonomic system has its way in spite of
beliefs that “thoughts determine action.” Prof. Jennings con-
fessedly cannot give up the satisfaction of his “moral” judgments
at the behest of his understanding of determinism, any more than
the professional purist can give up the secret satisfaction of his
physical or psychic sensualism. Our understanding becomes an
effective determinant of conduct only in so far as it is efficiently
integrated with our affective life to make it an integral part of our
autonomic function.
If Prof. Jennings’ abstract generalizations about determinism
do not control his cencrete behavior toward “crime” and “crim-
inals,” as admittedly it does not, then whence comes his conviction
that thought controls action? The psychoanalyst might attempt a
deterministic explanation based upon considerable observation.
The professor's convictions but answer to a need for maintaining
with comfort some affective repressions. I forego details to mini-
mize the emotional effect of this criticism. Prof. Jennings’ con-
flicts will probably impel him to split his theory of determinism into
two theories and then place them in different, verbally independent,
air-tight and water-tight compartments, as if then they were no
longer mere different aspects of himself.
In this universe of eternal flux we leave professional phi-
losophers to quarrel about the meaning of words and about theoretic
distinctions among inseparable entities, which distinctions seem to
have meanings only so long as our conflicts compel us to disas-
DETERMINISM CONDUCT AND FEAR PSYCHOLOGY 389
sociate them from things in the process of behaving. In another
stage of development we concern ourselves only with trying to
secure a larger understanding of that behavior. Thus some of us
are compelled to see an evolving determinism, in which universal
flux our own infinitesimal self is also in process of evolution, is
itself a minute evolving determinant; that is, an ever changing in-
teracting factor in an everchanging universe. At this stage of
evolution, we are not even afraid of losing our feeling of re-
sponsibility for making effort or taking thought of or for the
tomorrow. We will make such effort as we must whether we con-
sciously think “effort” or not. We are concerned to face the fact
as to whether or not that feeling exists, and if so why and how
that energy is behaving as it does, or how and why so conditioned
when we feel thus or otherwise. What philosophers think about
it is of little importance, because thoughts are not things, even
though they are the thoughts of philosophers. If there are those
who think they need such theories, to supply neutralizing explana-
tions for their fear-psychology, then we would think that that was
just the sort of theory they need.
Our infinitesimal contribution toward consciously directing the
evolutionary course of the universe is almost too unimportant to
be material. In this stage of development we desire little more than
to make the most intelligent adjustment to the understandable part
of our environment. Those whose feelings are in actual harmony
with a large understanding of the relations and behavior among
things and humans, will probably be impelled to act as though the
best interhuman adjustment could be achieved as more and more
humans outgrow their childhood emotional conflicts between
“morals” and objective reality, and as they approach nearer to a
mutuality of understanding. Again this latter is possible only in
so far as we bring to our effort at mutual interpretation an ap-
proximate equality of understanding as to the relations and behavior
among things. So some of us are compelled to act (and compelled
to believe) that we can best serve the comfort of our own auto-
nomic apparatus by acquiring and using a maximum of intelligence
to promote democracy in education, and education consciously so
conditioned as to accelerate the democratization of labor and of
welfare. Having outgrown the fear-psychology of infancy and
adolescence, we are not even afraid of this kind of democratization.
So we live our deterministic lives just as all other things and
humans live theirs, that is: as we must. Perhaps some have in
390 TEIEODORE SCHROEDER
consciousness a trifling larger understanding of the behavior of
psycho-biologic factors that enter into human determinants. If in
addition we are relatively free from emotional disturbances then
our psycho-genetic understanding (without the aid of our “free
will”) is integrated as a part of our unified personality and it has
probably (and if so inevitably) modified our characters. Anyway,
by some such process, some of us determinists are wholly reconciled
to the loss of our “morality” through the acquisition of a larger
understanding. We have outgrown “moral” judgments for evolu-
tionary classifications of desire and of mental processes. We hold
no one “morally ” responsible and hope soon social vengeance will
disappear. For jails we would substitute hospitals and schools.
The hangmen we would replace by psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and
educators. For the culturine of our schools we would substitute
a knowledge of the relations and behavior among things; we ask no
rewards and hope only for coöperation. We discountenance punish-
ment, so fear none. If we understand the behavior of the de-
terminants of yesterday and are so free from emotional conflicts
that this understanding operates to recondition our desires of today,
then the inevitable of tomorrow's human nature and status may be
something a little bit different and more comfortable, than was the
inevitable of day before yesterday. Thus the joy of efficient (in-
telligent) self-expression is sometimes increased by the added
pleasure of conscious power to improve human conditions and rela-
tions. Yet all is determined by the infinite undesigned flux of the
universe.