The Unconscious as a Product of the Nervous System

Carus was the first European scholar who insisted on the primacy of the unconscious in the human psyche. It grew out of the unity of the physiological (sensation to perception in the nervous system) and religious (Gottheit) levels where the emerging self-reflection is driven by the lower neural impulses upward, while the higher-order moral system reorganizes its dynamics. The wholistic ethos of Naturphilosophie made such focus on upwardly hierarchical system formation possible—the nature is a whole not only at one level but systemically across levels. The nervous system sets the stage for the emergence of the unconscious, which in its turn leads to the emergence of conscious organization of the soul. Each of these manifolds (Mannigfaltigkeit) relates to the other in a hierarchical system.