{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76031/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76031","id":"gutenberg_76031","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76031","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Pleasure principle (Psychology)","Psychoanalysis"],"text":"THE INTERNATIONAL\n                           PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL\n                                LIBRARY\n\n                         EDITED BY ERNEST JONES\n\n                                 No. 4\n\n\n\n\n                     BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                        SIGM. FREUD, M.D., LL.D.\n\n\n                         AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION\n                     FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION\n                          BY C. J. M. HUBBACK\n\n[Illustration: [Logo]]\n\n               THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL PRESS\n                    LONDON      MCMXXII      VIENNA\n\n\n\n\n                             COPYRIGHT 1911\n\n\n\n\n                           EDITORIAL PREFACE\n\n\nI have revised this translation, so carefully made by Miss Hubback,\nseveral times, but I feel that it calls for special indulgence on the\npart of the reader. On account, doubtless, of the extreme complexity and\nremarkable novelty of the ideas which Professor Freud here expounds,\ncomprising as they do his thoughts on the ultimate problems of life, the\nstyle is one of exceptional difficulty. As it is more important to\nrender his ideas precisely than to clothe them in another garb, we\ndecided to adhere faithfully to the original even at the expense of some\nuncouthness as regards the English.\n\nThe word _Unlust_, as in the phrase pleasure-pain principle, has been\ntranslated as \u2018pain\u2019; pain without inverted commas signifies _Schmerz_\nin the original. The word _Besetzung_ (literally: state of being\noccupied), as in the expressions _Besetzungsenergie_ and\n_Energiebesetzung_ has been rendered by the words \u2018investment\u2019 or\n\u2018charge\u2019, the latter being taken from the analogy of electricity. These\nand other technical terms will be discussed in a Glossary which it is\nintended to publish as a supplement to the _International Journal of\nPsycho-Analysis_.\n\n\n\n\n                               BEYOND THE\n                                PLEASURE\n                               PRINCIPLE\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nIn the psycho-analytical theory of the mind we take it for granted\nthat the course of mental processes is automatically regulated by \u2018the\npleasure-principle\u2019: that is to say, we believe that any given process\noriginates in an unpleasant state of tension and thereupon determines\nfor itself such a path that its ultimate issue coincides with a\nrelaxation of this tension, i. e. with avoidance of \u2018pain\u2019 or with\nproduction of pleasure. When we consider the psychic processes under\nobservation in reference to such a sequence we are introducing into\nour work the _economic_ point of view. In our opinion a presentation\nwhich seeks to estimate, not only the _topographical_ and _dynamic_,\nbut also the economic element is the most complete that we can at\npresent imagine, and deserves to be distinguished by the term\n_metapsychological_.\n\nWe are not interested in examining how far in our assertion of the\npleasure-principle we have approached to or adopted any given\nphilosophical system historically established. Our approach to such\nspeculative hypotheses is by way of our endeavour to describe and\naccount for the facts falling within our daily sphere of observation.\nPriority and originality are not among the aims which psycho-analysis\nsets itself, and the impressions on which the statement of this\nprinciple is founded are of so unmistakable a kind that it is scarcely\npossible to overlook them. On the other hand, we should willingly\nacknowledge our indebtedness to any philosophical or psychological\ntheory that could tell us the meaning of these feelings of pleasure and\n\u2018pain\u2019 which affect us so powerfully. Unfortunately no theory of any\nvalue is forthcoming. It is the obscurest and least penetrable region of\npsychic life and, while it is impossible for us to avoid touching on it,\nthe most elastic hypothesis will be, to my mind, the best. We have\ndecided to consider pleasure and \u2018pain\u2019 in relation to the quantity of\nexcitation present in the psychic life\u2014and not confined in any way\u2014along\nsuch lines that \u2018pain\u2019 corresponds with an increase and pleasure with a\ndecrease in this quantity. We do not thereby commit ourselves to a\nsimple relationship between the strength of the feelings and the changes\ncorresponding with them, least of all, judging from psycho-physiological\nexperiences, to any view of a direct proportion existing between them;\nprobably the amount of diminution or increase in a given time is the\ndecisive factor for feeling. Possibly there is room here for\nexperimental work, but it is inadvisable for us analysts to go further\ninto these problems until we can be guided by quite definite\nobservations.\n\nWe cannot however profess the like indifference when we find that an\ninvestigator of such penetration as G. Th. Fechner has advocated a\nconception of pleasure and \u2018pain\u2019 which in essentials coincides with\nthat forced upon us by psycho-analytic work. Fechner\u2019s pronouncement is\nto be found in his short work \u2018Einige Ideen zur Sch\u00f6pfungs- und\nEntwicklungsgeschichte der Organismen\u2019, 1873 (Section XI, Note p. 94)\nand reads as follows: \u2018In so far as conscious impulses always bear a\nrelation to pleasure or \u201cpain\u201d, pleasure or \u201cpain\u201d may be thought of in\npsycho-physical relationship to conditions of stability and instability,\nand upon this may be based the hypothesis I intend to develop elsewhere,\nviz.: that every psycho-physical movement rising above the threshold of\nconsciousness is charged with pleasure in proportion as it\napproximates\u2014beyond a certain limit\u2014to complete equilibrium, and with\n\u201cpain\u201d in proportion as it departs from it beyond a certain limit; while\nbetween the two limits which may be described as the qualitative\nthresholds of \u201cpain\u201d or pleasure, there is a certain area of aesthetic\nindifference.\u2019\n\nThe facts that have led us to believe in the supremacy of the\npleasure-principle in psychic life also find expression in the\nhypothesis that there is an attempt on the part of the psychic apparatus\nto keep the quantity of excitation present as low as possible, or at\nleast constant. This is the same supposition only put into another form,\nfor, if the psychic apparatus operates in the direction of keeping down\nthe quantity of excitation, all that tends to increase it must be felt\nto be contrary to function, that is to say painful. The\npleasure-principle is deduced from the principle of constancy; in\nreality the principle of constancy was inferred from the facts that\nnecessitated our assumption of the pleasure-principle. On more detailed\ndiscussion we shall find further that this tendency on the part of the\npsychic apparatus postulated by us may be classified as a special case\nof Fechner\u2019s principle of the _tendency towards stability_ to which he\nhas related the pleasure-pain feelings.\n\nIn that event, however, it must be affirmed that it is not strictly\ncorrect to speak of a supremacy of the pleasure-principle over the\ncourse of psychic processes. If such existed, then the vast majority of\nour psychic processes would necessarily be accompanied by pleasure or\nwould conduce to it, while the most ordinary experience emphatically\ncontradicts any such conclusion. One can only say that a strong tendency\ntowards the pleasure-principle exists in the psyche, to which, however,\ncertain other forces or conditions are opposed, so that the ultimate\nissue cannot always be in accordance with the pleasure-tendency. Compare\nthe comment of Fechner in a similar connection.[1] \u2018Therewithal it is to\nbe noted that the tendency towards the goal does not imply the\nattainment of it and that in general the goal is only approximately\nattainable....\u2019 If we now address ourselves to the question of what\ncircumstances have the power to frustrate the successful carrying out of\nthe pleasure-principle we shall be treading on safer and better-known\nground, and we can draw in abundant measure on our analytical\nexperiences for the answer.\n\nThe first case of such a check on the pleasure-principle is perfectly\nfamiliar to us in the regularity of its occurrence. We know that the\npleasure-principle is adjusted to a primary mode of operation on the\npart of the psychic apparatus, and that for the preservation of the\norganism amid the difficulties of the external world it is ab initio\nuseless and indeed extremely dangerous. Under the influence of the\ninstinct of the ego for self-preservation it is replaced by the\n\u2018reality-principle\u2019, which without giving up the intention of ultimately\nattaining pleasure yet demands and enforces the postponement of\nsatisfaction, the renunciation of manifold possibilities of it, and the\ntemporary endurance of \u2018pain\u2019 on the long and circuitous road to\npleasure. The pleasure-principle however remains for a long time the\nmethod of operation of the sex-impulses, which are not so easily\neducable, and it happens over and over again that whether acting through\nthese impulses or operating in the ego itself it prevails over the\nreality-principle to the detriment of the whole organism.\n\nIt is at the same time indubitable that the replacement of the\npleasure-principle by the reality-principle can account only for a small\npart, and that not the most intense, of painful experiences. Another and\nno less regular source of \u2018pain\u2019 proceeds from the conflicts and\ndissociations in the psychic apparatus during the development of the ego\ntowards a more highly co-ordinated organisation. Nearly all the energy\nwith which the apparatus is charged comes from the inborn instincts, but\nnot all of these are allowed to develop to the same stage. On the way it\nover and again happens that particular instincts, or portions of them,\nprove irreconcilable in their aims or demands with others which can be\nwelded into the comprehensive unity of the ego. They are thereupon split\noff from this unity by the process of repression, retained on lower\nstages of psychic development, and for the time being cut off from all\npossibility of gratification. If they then succeed, as so easily happens\nwith the repressed sex-impulses, in fighting their way through\u2014along\ncircuitous routes\u2014to a direct or a substitutive gratification, this\nsuccess, which might otherwise have brought pleasure, is experienced by\nthe ego as \u2018pain\u2019. In consequence of the old conflict which ended in\nrepression the pleasure-principle has been violated anew, just at the\nmoment when certain impulses were at work on the achievement of fresh\npleasure in pursuance of the principle. The details of the process by\nwhich repression changes a possibility of pleasure into a source of\n\u2018pain\u2019 are not yet fully understood, or are not yet capable of clear\npresentation, but it is certain that all neurotic \u2018pain\u2019 is of this\nkind, is pleasure which cannot be experienced as such.\n\nThe two sources of \u2018pain\u2019 here indicated still do not nearly cover the\nmajority of our painful experiences, but as to the rest one may say with\na fair show of reason that their presence does not impugn the supremacy\nof the pleasure-principle. Most of the \u2018pain\u2019 we experience is of a\nperceptual order, perception either of the urge of unsatisfied instincts\nor of something in the external world which may be painful in itself or\nmay arouse painful anticipations in the psychic apparatus and is\nrecognised by it as \u2018danger\u2019. The reaction to these claims of impulse\nand these threats of danger, a reaction in which the real activity of\nthe psychic apparatus is manifested, may be guided correctly by the\npleasure-principle or by the reality-principle which modifies this. It\nseems thus unnecessary to recognise a still more far-reaching limitation\nof the pleasure-principle, and nevertheless it is precisely the\ninvestigation of the psychic reaction to external danger that may supply\nnew material and new questions in regard to the problem here treated.\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nAfter severe shock of a mechanical nature, railway collision or other\naccident in which danger to life is involved, a condition may arise\nwhich has long been recognised and to which the name \u2018traumatic\nneurosis\u2019 is attached. The terrible war that is just over has been\nresponsible for an immense number of such maladies and at least has put\nan end to the inclination to explain them on the basis of organic injury\nto the nervous system due to the operation of mechanical force.[2] The\nclinical picture of traumatic neurosis approaches that of hysteria in\nits wealth of similar motor symptoms, but usually surpasses it in its\nstrongly marked signs of subjective suffering\u2014in this resembling rather\nhypochondria or melancholia\u2014and in the evidences of a far more\ncomprehensive general weakening and shattering of the mental functions.\nNeither the war neuroses nor the traumatic neuroses of peace are as yet\nfully understood. With the war neuroses some light was contributed, but\nalso on the other hand a certain confusion introduced, by the fact that\nthe same type of malady could occasionally occur without the\ninterposition of gross mechanical force. In the traumatic neuroses there\nare two outstanding features which might serve as clues for further\nreflection: first that the chief causal factor seemed to lie in the\nelement of surprise, in the fright; and secondly that an injury or wound\nsustained at the same time generally tended to prevent the occurrence of\nthe neurosis. Fright, fear, apprehension are incorrectly used as\nsynonymous expressions: in their relation to danger they admit of quite\nclear distinction. Apprehension (_Angst_) denotes a certain condition as\nof expectation of danger and preparation for it, even though it be an\nunknown one; fear (_Furcht_) requires a definite object of which one is\nafraid; fright (_Schreck_) is the name of the condition to which one is\nreduced if one encounters a danger without being prepared for it; it\nlays stress on the element of surprise. In my opinion apprehension\ncannot produce a traumatic neurosis; in apprehension there is something\nwhich protects against fright and therefore against the fright-neurosis.\nWe shall return later to this dictum.\n\nThe study of dreams may be regarded as the most trustworthy approach to\nthe exploration of the deeper psychic processes. Now in the traumatic\nneuroses the dream life has this peculiarity: it continually takes the\npatient back to the situation of his disaster, from which he awakens in\nrenewed terror. This fact has caused less surprise than it merits. The\nobtrusion on the patient over and again, even in sleep, of the\nimpression made by the traumatic experience is taken as being merely a\nproof of its strength. The patient has so to speak undergone a psychical\nfixation as to the trauma. Fixations of this kind on the experience\nwhich has brought about the malady have long been known to us in\nconnection with hysteria. Breuer and Freud stated in 1893 that hysterics\nsuffer for the most part from reminiscences. In the war neuroses,\nobservers, such as Ferenczi and Simmel, have been able to explain a\nnumber of motor symptoms as fixation on the factor of the trauma.\n\nBut I am not aware that the patients suffering from traumatic neuroses\nare much occupied in waking life with the recollection of what happened\nto them. They perhaps strive rather not to think of it. To regard it as\nself-evident that the dream at night takes them back to the situation\nwhich has caused the trouble is to misunderstand the nature of dreams.\nIt would be more in correspondence with that nature if the patient were\npresented (in sleep) with images from the time of his normal health or\nof his hoped-for recovery. If we are not to go thoroughly astray as to\nthe wish-fulfilment tendency of the dream in consequence of these dreams\nof the shock neuroses, perhaps the expedient is left us of supposing\nthat in this condition the dream function suffers dislocation along with\nthe others and is diverted from its usual ends, or else we should have\nto think of the enigmatic masochistic tendencies of the ego.\n\nI propose now to leave the obscure and gloomy theme of the traumatic\nneuroses and to study the way in which the psychic apparatus works in\none of its earliest normal activities. I refer to the play of children.\n\nThe different theories of child-play have recently been collated by S.\nPfeifer in _Imago_[3] and their analytical value estimated; I may here\nrefer the reader to this work. These theories endeavour to conjecture\nthe motives of children\u2019s play, though without placing any special\nstress on the \u2018economic\u2019 point of view, i. e. consideration of the\nattainment of pleasure. Without the intention of making a comprehensive\nstudy of these phenomena I availed myself of an opportunity which\noffered of elucidating the first game invented by himself of a boy\neighteen months old. It was more than a casual observation, for I lived\nfor some weeks under the same roof as the child and his parents, and it\nwas a considerable time before the meaning of his puzzling and\ncontinually repeated performance became clear to me.\n\nThe child was in no respect forward in his intellectual development; at\neighteen months he spoke only a few intelligible words, making besides\nsundry significant sounds which were understood by those about him. But\nhe made himself understood by his parents and the maid-servant, and had\na good reputation for behaving \u2018properly\u2019. He did not disturb his\nparents at night; he scrupulously obeyed orders about not touching\nvarious objects and not going into certain rooms; and above all he never\ncried when his mother went out and left him for hours together, although\nthe tie to his mother was a very close one: she had not only nourished\nhim herself, but had cared for him and brought him up without any\noutside help. Occasionally, however, this well-behaved child evinced the\ntroublesome habit of flinging into the corner of the room or under the\nbed all the little things he could lay his hands on, so that to gather\nup his toys was often no light task. He accompanied this by an\nexpression of interest and gratification, emitting a loud long-drawn-out\n\u2018o-o-o-oh\u2019 which in the judgement of the mother (one that coincided with\nmy own) was not an interjection but meant \u2018go away\u2019 (_fort_). I saw at\nlast that this was a game, and that the child used all his toys only to\nplay \u2018being gone\u2019 (_fortsein_) with them. One day I made an observation\nthat confirmed my view. The child had a wooden reel with a piece of\nstring wound round it. It never occurred to him, for example, to drag\nthis after him on the floor and so play horse and cart with it, but he\nkept throwing it with considerable skill, held by the string, over the\nside of his little draped cot, so that the reel disappeared into it,\nthen said his significant \u2018o-o-o-oh\u2019 and drew the reel by the string out\nof the cot again, greeting its reappearance with a joyful \u2018_Da_\u2019\n(there). This was therefore the complete game, disappearance and return,\nthe first act being the only one generally observed by the onlookers,\nand the one untiringly repeated by the child as a game for its own sake,\nalthough the greater pleasure unquestionably attached to the second\nact.[4]\n\nThe meaning of the game was then not far to seek. It was connected with\nthe child\u2019s remarkable cultural achievement\u2014the foregoing of the\nsatisfaction of an instinct\u2014as the result of which he could let his\nmother go away without making any fuss. He made it right with himself,\nso to speak, by dramatising the same disappearance and return with the\nobjects he had at hand. It is of course of no importance for the\naffective value of this game whether the child invented it himself or\nadopted it from a suggestion from outside. Our interest will attach\nitself to another point. The departure of the mother cannot possibly\nhave been pleasant for the child, nor merely a matter of indifference.\nHow then does it accord with the pleasure-principle that he repeats this\npainful experience as a game? The answer will perhaps be forthcoming\nthat the departure must be played as the necessary prelude to the joyful\nreturn, and that in this latter lay the true purpose of the game. As\nagainst this, however, there is the observation that the first act, the\ngoing away, was played by itself as a game and far more frequently than\nthe whole drama with its joyful conclusion.\n\nThe analysis of a single case of this kind yields no sure conclusion: on\nimpartial consideration one gains the impression that it is from another\nmotive that the child has turned the experience into a game. He was in\nthe first place passive, was overtaken by the experience, but now brings\nhimself in as playing an active part, by repeating the experience as a\ngame in spite of its unpleasing nature. This effort might be ascribed to\nthe impulse to obtain the mastery of a situation (the \u2018power\u2019 instinct),\nwhich remains independent of any question of whether the recollection\nwas a pleasant one or not. But another interpretation may be attempted.\nThe flinging away of the object so that it is gone might be the\ngratification of an impulse of revenge suppressed in real life but\ndirected against the mother for going away, and would then have the\ndefiant meaning: \u2018Yes, you can go, I don\u2019t want you, I am sending you\naway myself.\u2019 The same child a year later than my observations used to\nthrow on the floor a toy which displeased him, and to say \u2018Go to the\nwar!\u2019 He had been told that his absent father was at the war, and he did\nnot miss him at all, giving the clearest indications that he did not\nwish to be disturbed in the sole possession of his mother.[5] It is\nknown of other children also that they can give vent to similar hostile\nfeelings by throwing objects away in place of people.[6] Thus one is\nleft in doubt whether the compulsion to work over in psychic life what\nhas made a deep impression, to make oneself fully master of it, can\nexpress itself primarily and independently of the pleasure-principle. In\nthe case discussed here, however, the child might have repeated a\ndisagreeable impression in play only because with the repetition was\nbound up a pleasure gain of a different kind but more direct.\n\nNor does the further pursuit of the question of play resolve our\nhesitations between two conceptions. We see that children repeat in\ntheir play everything that has made a great impression on them in actual\nlife, that they thereby abreact the strength of the impression and so to\nspeak make themselves masters of the situation. But on the other hand it\nis clear enough that all their play is influenced by the dominant wish\nof their time of life: viz. to be grown-up and to be able to do what\ngrown-up people do. It is also observable that the unpleasing character\nof the experience does not always prevent its being utilised as a game.\nIf a doctor examines a child\u2019s throat, or performs a small operation on\nhim, the alarming experience will quite certainly be made the subject of\nthe next game, but in this the pleasure gain from another source is not\nto be overlooked. In passing from the passivity of experience to the\nactivity of play the child applies to his playfellow the unpleasant\noccurrence that befell himself and so avenges himself on the person of\nthis proxy.\n\nFrom this discussion it is at all events evident that it is unnecessary\nto assume a particular imitation impulse as the motive of play. We may\nadd the reminder that the dramatic and imitative art of adults, which\ndiffers from the behaviour of children in being directed towards the\nspectator, does not however spare the latter the most painful\nimpressions, e. g. in tragedy, and yet can be felt by him as highly\nenjoyable. This convinces us that even under the domination of the\npleasure-principle there are ways and means enough of making what is in\nitself disagreeable the object of memory and of psychic pre-occupation.\nA theory of aesthetics with an economic point of view should deal with\nthese cases and situations ending in final pleasure gain: for our\npurposes they are of no help, since they presuppose the existence and\nsupremacy of the pleasure-principle and bear no witness to the operation\nof tendencies beyond the pleasure-principle, that is to say, tendencies\nwhich might be of earlier origin and independent of this.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nFive-and-twenty years of intensive work have brought about a complete\nchange in the more immediate aims of psycho-analytic technique. At first\nthe endeavours of the analytic physician were confined to divining the\nunconscious of which his patient was unaware, effecting a synthesis of\nits various components and communicating it at the right time.\nPsychoanalysis was above all an art of interpretation. Since the\ntherapeutic task was not thereby accomplished, the next aim was to\ncompel the patient to confirm the reconstruction through his own memory.\nIn this endeavour the chief emphasis was on the resistances of the\npatient; the art now lay in unveiling these as soon as possible, in\ncalling the patient\u2019s attention to them, and by human influence\u2014here\ncame in suggestion acting as \u2018transference\u2019\u2014teaching him to abandon the\nresistances.\n\nIt then became increasingly clear, however, that the aim in view, the\nbringing into consciousness of the unconscious, was not fully attainable\nby this method either. The patient cannot recall all of what lies\nrepressed, perhaps not even the essential part of it, and so gains no\nconviction that the conclusion presented to him is correct. He is\nobliged rather to _repeat_ as a current experience what is repressed,\ninstead of, as the physician would prefer to see him do, _recollecting_\nit as a fragment of the past.[7] This reproduction appearing with\nunwelcome fidelity always contains a fragment of the infantile sex-life,\ntherefore of the Oedipus complex and its off-shoots, and is played\nregularly in the sphere of transference, i. e. the relationship to the\nphysician. When this point in the treatment is reached, it may be said\nthat the earlier neurosis is now replaced by a fresh one, viz. the\ntransference-neurosis. The physician makes it his concern to limit the\nscope of this transference-neurosis as much as he can, to force into\nmemory as much as possible, and to leave as little as possible to\nrepetition. The relation established between memory and reproduction is\ndifferent for every case. As a rule the physician cannot spare the\npatient this phase of the cure; he must let him live through a certain\nfragment of his forgotten life, and has to see to it that some measure\nof ascendency remains, in the light of which the apparent reality is\nalways recognised as a reflection of a forgotten past. If this is\nsuccessfully accomplished then conviction on the part of the patient is\nattained, and with it the therapeutic result that depends on it.\n\nIn order to render more comprehensible this \u2018repetition-compulsion\u2019\nwhich appears in the psycho-analytic treatment of neurotics, we must\nabove all get entirely rid of the erroneous idea that in this struggle\nwith resistances we are concerned with any resistance on the part of the\nunconscious. The unconscious, i. e. the \u2018repressed\u2019 material, offers no\nresistance whatever to the curative efforts; indeed it has no other aim\nthan to force its way through the pressure weighing on it, either to\nconsciousness or to discharge by means of some real action. The\nresistance in the treatment proceeds from the same higher levels and\nsystems in the psychic life that in their time brought about the\nrepression. But since the motives of the resistances, and indeed the\nresistances themselves, are found in the process of the treatment to be\nunconscious, we are well advised to amend an inadequacy in our mode of\nexpression. We escape ambiguity if we contrast not the conscious and the\nunconscious, but the coherent ego and the repressed. Much in the ego is\ncertainly unconscious itself, just what may be called the kernel of the\nego; only a part of it comes under the category of preconscious. After\nthus replacing a purely descriptive method of expression by a systematic\nor dynamic one, we may say that the resistance on the part of the\nanalysed person proceeds from his ego, and then we at once see that the\n\u2018repetition-compulsion\u2019 must be ascribed to the repressed element in the\nunconscious. It probably could not find expression till the work of the\ntreatment coming to meet it had loosened the repression.\n\nThere is no doubt that the resistance of the conscious and preconscious\nego subserves the pleasure-principle; it is trying to avoid the \u2018pain\u2019\nthat would be aroused by the release of the repressed material, and our\nefforts are directed to effecting an entry for such painful feeling by\nan appeal to the reality-principle. In what relation to the\npleasure-principle then does the repetition-compulsion stand, that which\nexpresses the force of what is repressed? It is plain that most of what\nis revived by the repetition-compulsion cannot but bring discomfort to\nthe ego, for it promotes the bringing to light of the activities of\nrepressed impulses; but that is a discomfort we have already taken into\naccount and without subversion of the pleasure-principle, since it is\n\u2018pain\u2019 in respect of one system and at the same time satisfaction for\nthe other. The new and remarkable fact, however, that we have now to\ndescribe is that the repetition-compulsion also revives experiences of\nthe past that contain no potentiality of pleasure, and which could at no\ntime have been satisfactions, even of impulses since repressed.\n\nThe efflorescence of infantile sex-life was, by reason of the\nirreconcilability of its wishes with reality and the inadequacy of the\nchildhood stage of development reached, destined to pass away. It\nperished in most painful circumstances and with feelings of a deeply\ndistressing nature. Loss and failure in the sphere of the affections\nleft behind on the ego-feeling marks of injury comparable to a\nnarcissistic scar, which, according to my experience and the exposition\ngiven by Marcinowski,[8] yields the most important contribution to the\n\u2018inferiority complex\u2019 common among neurotics. The sex-quest to which the\nphysical development of the child set limits could be brought to no\nsatisfying conclusion; hence the plaint in later life: \u2018I can\u2019t do\nanything, I am never successful.\u2019 The bonds of tenderness linking the\nchild more especially to the parent of the opposite sex succumbed to\ndisappointment, to the vain expectation of satisfaction, and to the\njealousy aroused by the birth of a new child, unmistakable proof as it\nis of the faithlessness of the loved parent; the child\u2019s attempt,\nundertaken with tragic seriousness, to produce another such child\nhimself met with humiliating failure; while the partial withdrawal of\nthe tenderness lavished on the little one, the more exacting demands of\ndiscipline and education, severe words and an occasional punishment\nfinally revealed to him the whole extent of the disdain which is his\nportion. Some few regularly recurring types are to be found, according\nto the way in which the typical love of this period was brought to an\nend.\n\nAll these undesired happenings and painful affective situations are\nrepeated by neurotics in the \u2018transference\u2019 stage and re-animated with\nmuch ingenuity. They struggle to break off the unfinished treatment,\nthey know how to re-create the feeling of being disdained, how to force\nthe physician to adopt brusque speech and a chilling manner towards\nthem, they find suitable objects for their jealousy, they substitute for\nthe ardently desired child of early days the promise of some great gift\nwhich becomes as little real as that was. Nothing of all this could ever\nhave afforded any pleasure; one would suppose it ought to bring somewhat\nless \u2018pain\u2019 if revealed as memory rather than if lived through as a new\nexperience. It is a question naturally of the action of impulses that\nshould lead to satisfaction, but the experience that instead of this\nthey even then brought \u2018pain\u2019 has borne no result. The act is repeated\nin spite of everything; a powerful compulsion insists on it.\n\nThat which psycho-analysis reveals in the transference phenomena with\nneurotics can also be observed in the life of normal persons. It here\ngives the impression of a pursuing fate, a daemonic trait in their\ndestiny, and psycho-analysis has from the outset regarded such a life\nhistory as in a large measure self-imposed and determined by infantile\ninfluences. The compulsion which thereby finds expression is in no way\ndifferent from the repetition-compulsion of neurotics, even though such\npersons have never shown signs of a neurotic conflict resulting in\nsymptoms. Thus one knows people with whom every human relationship ends\nin the same way: benefactors whose prot\u00e9g\u00e9s, however different they may\notherwise have been, invariably after a time desert them in ill-will, so\nthat they are apparently condemned to drain to the dregs all the\nbitterness of ingratitude; men with whom every friendship ends in the\nfriend\u2019s treachery; others who indefinitely often in their lives invest\nsome other person with authority either in their own eyes or generally,\nand themselves overthrow such authority after a given time, only to\nreplace it by a new one; lovers whose tender relationships with women\neach and all run through the same phases and come to the same end, and\nso on. We are less astonished at this \u2018endless repetition of the same\u2019\nif there is involved a question of active behaviour on the part of the\nperson concerned, and if we detect in his character an unalterable trait\nwhich must always manifest itself in the repetition of identical\nexperiences. Far more striking are those cases where the person seems to\nbe experiencing something passively, without exerting any influence of\nhis own, and yet always meets with the same fate over and over again.\nOne may recall, for example, the story of the woman who married three\nmen in succession, each of whom fell ill after a short time and whom she\nhad to nurse till their death.[9] Tasso gives a singularly affecting\npoetical portrayal of such a trend of fate in the romantic epic:\n\u2018Gerusalemme liberata.\u2019 The hero, Tancred, has unwittingly slain\nClorinda, the maiden he loved, who fought with him disguised in the\narmour of an enemy knight. After her burial he penetrates into the\nmysterious enchanted wood, the bane of the army of the crusaders. Here\nhe hews down a tall tree with his sword, but from the gash in the trunk\nblood streams forth and the voice of Clorinda whose soul is imprisoned\nin the tree cries out to him in reproach that he has once more wrought a\nbaleful deed on his beloved.\n\nIn the light of such observations as these, drawn from the behaviour\nduring transference and from the fate of human beings, we may venture\nto make the assumption that there really exists in psychic life a\nrepetition-compulsion, which goes beyond the pleasure-principle. We\nshall now also feel disposed to relate to this compelling force the\ndreams of shock-patients and the play-impulse in children. We must of\ncourse remind ourselves that only in rare cases can we recognise the\nworkings of this repetition-compulsion in a pure form, without the\nco-operation of other motives. As regards children\u2019s play we have\nalready pointed out what other interpretations its origin permits. The\nrepetition-compulsion and direct pleasurable satisfaction of impulse\nseem there to be inextricably intertwined. The transference phenomena\nobviously subserve the purpose of the resistance made by the ego\npersisting in its repression: the repetition-compulsion is, as it\nwere, called to the aid of the ego, which is resolved to hold fast to\nthe pleasure-principle. In what one might call the destiny compulsion\nmuch appears capable of rational explanation, so that no need is felt\nto establish a new and mysterious impulse. The least suspicious case\nis perhaps that of the shock-dream, but on closer examination it must\nbe admitted that in the other examples too the state of affairs is not\ncompletely explained by the operation of the motives known to us.\nThere remains enough over to justify the assumption of a\nrepetition-compulsion, and this seems to us more primitive, more\nelementary, more instinctive than the pleasure-principle which is\ndisplaced by it. But if there is such a repetition-compulsion in\npsychic life, we should naturally like to know with what function it\ncorresponds, under what conditions it may appear, and in what relation\nit stands to the pleasure-principle, to which we have heretofore\nascribed the domination over the course of the processes of excitation\nin the psychic life.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nWhat follows now is speculation, speculation often far-fetched, which\neach will according to his particular attitude acknowledge or neglect.\nOr one may call it the exploitation of an idea out of curiosity to see\nwhither it will lead.\n\nPsycho-analytic speculation starts from the impression gained on\ninvestigating unconscious processes that consciousness cannot be the\nmost general characteristic of psychic processes, but merely a special\nfunction of them. Metapsychologically expressed, it asserts that\nconsciousness is the functioning of a particular system which may be\ncalled Bw. Since consciousness essentially yields perceptions of\nexcitations coming from without and feelings (_Empfindungen_) of\npleasure and \u2018pain\u2019 which can only be derived from within the psychic\napparatus, we may allot the system W-Bw.[10] (= perceptual\nconsciousness) a position in space. It must lie on the boundary between\nouter and inner, must face towards the outer world, and must envelop the\nother psychic systems. We then note that in this assumption we have\nventured nothing new, but are in agreement with the localising\ntendencies of cerebral anatomy, which places the \u2018seat\u2019 of consciousness\nin the cortical layer, the outermost enveloping layer of the central\norgan. Cerebral anatomy does not need to wonder why\u2014anatomically\nspeaking\u2014consciousness should be accomodated on the surface of the\nbrain, instead of being safely lodged somewhere in the deepest recesses\nof it. Perhaps we may carry matters a little further than this in our\ndeduction of such a position for our system W-Bw.\n\nConsciousness is not the only peculiar feature that we ascribe to the\nprocesses in this system. Our impressions gained by psycho-analytic\nexperience lead us to the supposition that all excitation processes in\nthe other systems leave in them permanent traces forming the foundations\nof memory-records which have nothing to do with the question of becoming\nconscious. They are often strongest and most enduring when the process\nthat left them behind never reached consciousness at all. But we find it\ndifficult to believe that such lasting traces of excitation are formed\nalso in the system W-Bw. itself. If they remained permanently in\nconsciousness they would very soon limit the fitness of the system for\nregistration of new excitations;[11] on the other hand, if they became\nunconscious we should be confronted with the task of explaining the\nexistence of unconscious processes in a system whose functioning is\notherwise accompanied by the phenomenon of consciousness. We should, so\nto speak, have gained nothing and altered nothing by our supposition\nwhich relegates to a special system the process of becoming conscious.\nThough this may not be an absolutely binding consideration, it may at\nany rate lead us to conjecture that becoming conscious and leaving\nbehind a memory-trace are processes incompatible with each other in the\nsame system. We should thus be able to say: in the system Bw. the\nprocess of excitation becomes conscious but it leaves behind no lasting\ntrace; all the traces of it on which memory relies would come about in\nthe next systems inwards from the propagation of the excitation on to\nthem. It is on these lines that the scheme is sketched which I inserted\ninto the speculative section of my \u2018Traumdeutung\u2019 in 1900. If one\nreflects how little we know from other sources about the origin of\nconsciousness the pronouncement that _consciousness arises in the place\nof the memory-trace_ must be conceded at least the importance of a\nstatement which is to some extent definite.\n\nThe system Bw. would thus be characterised by the peculiarity that the\nexcitation process does not leave in it, as it does in all other psychic\nsystems, a permanent alteration of its elements, but is as it were\ndischarged in the phenomenon of becoming conscious and vanishes. Such a\ndeparture from the general rule requires an explanation on the ground of\na factor which comes into account in this one system only: this factor\nwhich is absent from all other systems might well be the exposed\nsituation of the Bw. system\u2014its immediate contact with the outer world.\n\nLet us imagine the living organism in the simplest possible form as an\nundifferentiated vesicle of sensitive substance: then its surface,\nexposed as it is to the outer world, is by its very position\ndifferentiated and serves as an organ for receiving stimuli. Embryology,\nrepeating as it does the history of evolution, does in fact show that\nthe central nervous system arises from the ectoderm; the grey cortex of\nthe brain remains a derivative of the primitive superficial layer and\nmay have inherited essential properties from this. It would then be\neasily conceivable that, owing to the constant impact of external\nstimuli on the superficies of the vesicle, its substance would undergo\nlasting alteration to a certain depth, so that its excitation process\ntakes a different course from that taken in the deeper layers. Thus a\nrind would be formed which would finally have been so burned through by\nthe effects of stimulation that it presents the most favourable\nconditions for the reception of stimuli and is incapable of any further\nmodification. Applying this idea to the system Bw., this would mean that\nits elements are not susceptible of any further lasting alteration from\nthe passage of the excitation, because they are already modified to the\nuttermost in that respect. But they are then capable of giving rise to\nconsciousness. In what exactly these modifications of the substance and\nof the excitation process in it consist many views may be held which as\nyet cannot be tested. It may be assumed that the excitation has, in its\ntransmission from one element to another, to overcome a resistance, and\nthat this diminution of the resistance itself lays down the permanent\ntrace of the excitation (a path): in system Bw. there would no longer\nexist any such resistance to transmission from one element to another.\nWe may associate with this conception Breuer\u2019s distinction between\nquiescent (bound) and free-moving \u2018investment-energy\u2019 in the elements of\nthe psychic systems;[12] the elements of the system Bw. would then\nconvey no \u2018bound\u2019 energy, only free energy capable of discharge. In my\nopinion, however, it is better for the present to express oneself as to\nthese conditions in the least committal way. At any rate by these\nspeculations we should have brought the origin of consciousness into a\ncertain connection with the position of the system Bw. and with the\npeculiarities of the excitation process to be ascribed to this.\n\nWe have more to say about the living vesicle with its receptive outer\nlayer. This morsel of living substance floats about in an outer world\nwhich is charged with the most potent energies, and it would be\ndestroyed by the operation of the stimuli proceeding from this world if\nit were not furnished with a protection against stimulation\n(_Reizschutz_). It acquires this through its outermost layer\u2014which gives\nthe structure that belongs to living matter\u2014becoming in a measure\ninorganic, and this now operates as a special integument or membrane\nthat keeps off the stimuli, i. e. makes it impossible for the energies\nof the outer world to act with more than a fragment of their intensity\non the layers immediately below which have preserved their vitality.\nThese are now able under cover of the protecting layer to devote\nthemselves to the reception of those stimulus masses that have been let\nthrough. But the outer layer has by its own death secured all the deeper\nlayers from a like fate\u2014at least so long as no stimuli present\nthemselves of such a strength as to break through the protective\nbarrier. For the living organism protection against stimuli is almost a\nmore important task than reception of stimuli; the protective barrier is\nequipped with its own store of energy and must above all endeavour to\nprotect the special forms of energy-transformations going on within\nitself from the equalising and therefore destructive influence of the\nenormous energies at work in the outer world. The reception of stimuli\nserves above all the purpose of collecting information about the\ndirection and nature of the external stimuli, and for that it must\nsuffice to take little samples of the outer world, to taste it, so to\nspeak, in small quantities. In highly developed organisms the receptive\nexternal layer of what was once a vesicle has long been withdrawn into\nthe depths of the body, but portions of it have been left on the surface\nimmediately beneath the common protective barrier. These portions form\nthe sense organs, which essentially comprise arrangements for the\nreception of specific stimuli, but also possess special arrangements\nadapted for a fresh protection against an overwhelming amount of\nstimulus, and for warding off unsuitable kinds of stimuli. It is\ncharacteristic of them that they assimilate only very small quantities\nof the outer stimulus, and take in only samples of the outer world; one\nmight compare them to antennae which touch at the outer world and then\nconstantly withdraw from it again.\n\nAt this point I shall permit myself to touch cursorily upon a theme\nwhich would deserve the most thorough treatment. The Kantian proposition\nthat time and space are necessary modes of thought may be submitted to\ndiscussion to-day in the light of certain knowledge reached through\npsycho-analysis. We have found by experience that unconscious mental\nprocesses are in themselves \u2018timeless\u2019. That is to say to begin with:\nthey are not arranged chronologically, time alters nothing in them, nor\ncan the idea of time be applied to them. These are negative\ncharacteristics, which can be made plain only by instituting a\ncomparison with conscious psychic processes. Our abstract conception of\ntime seems rather to be derived wholly from the mode of functioning of\nthe system W-Bw., and to correspond with a self-perception of it. In\nthis mode of functioning of the system another form of protection\nagainst stimulation probably comes into play. I know that these\nstatements sound very obscure, but I must confine myself to these few\nhints.\n\nSo far we have got to the point that the living vesicle is equipped with\na protection against stimuli from the outer world. Before that, we had\ndecided that the cortical layer next to it must be differentiated as the\norgan for reception of external stimuli. But this sensitive layer (what\nis later the system Bw.) also receives excitations from within: the\nposition of the system between outer and inner and the difference in the\nconditions under which this receptivity operates on the two sides become\ndeciding factors for the functioning of the system and of the whole\npsychic apparatus. Towards the outer world there is a barrier against\nstimuli, and the mass of excitations coming up against it will take\neffect only on a reduced scale; towards what is within no protection\nagainst stimuli is possible, the excitations of the deeper layers pursue\ntheir way direct and in undiminished mass into the system, while certain\ncharacteristics of their course produce the series of pleasure-pain\nfeelings. Naturally the excitations coming from within will, in\nconformity with their intensity and other qualitative characteristics\n(or possibly their amplitude), be more proportionate to the mode of\noperation of the system than the stimuli streaming in from the outer\nworld. Two things are, however, decisively determined by these\nconditions: first the preponderance over all outer stimuli of the\npleasure and \u2018pain\u2019 feelings, which are an index for processes within\nthe mechanism; and secondly a shaping of behaviour towards such inner\nexcitations as bring with them an overplus of \u2018pain\u2019. There will be a\ntendency to treat them as though they were acting not from within but\nfrom without, in order for it to be possible to apply against them the\ndefensive measures of the barrier against stimuli (_Reizschutz_). This\nis the origin of projection, for which so important a part is reserved\nin the production of pathological states.\n\nI have the impression that by these last considerations we have\napproached nearer to a comprehension of the supremacy of the\npleasure-principle, but we have not attained to an explanation of those\ncases which are opposed to it. Let us therefore go a step further. Such\nexternal excitations as are strong enough to break through the barrier\nagainst stimuli we call traumatic. In my opinion the concept of trauma\ninvolves such a relationship to an otherwise efficacious barrier. An\noccurrence such as an external trauma will undoubtedly provoke a very\nextensive disturbance in the workings of the energy of the organism, and\nwill set in motion every kind of protective measure. But the\npleasure-principle is to begin with put out of action here. The flooding\nof the psychic apparatus with large masses of stimuli can no longer be\nprevented: on the contrary, another task presents itself\u2014to bring the\nstimulus under control, to \u2018bind\u2019 in the psyche the stimulus mass that\nhas broken its way in, so as to bring about a discharge of it.\n\nProbably the specific discomfort of bodily pain is the result of some\nlocal breaking through of the barrier against stimuli. From this point\nin the periphery there stream to the central psychic apparatus continual\nexcitations such as would otherwise come only from within.[13] What are\nwe to expect as the reaction of the psychic life to this invasion? From\nall sides the \u2018charging energy\u2019 is called on in order to create all\nround the breach correspondingly high \u2018charges\u2019 of energy. An immense\n\u2018counter-charge\u2019 is set up, in favour of which all the other psychic\nsystems are impoverished, so that a wide-spread paralysis or diminution\nof other psychic activity follows. We endeavour to learn from examples\nsuch as these to base our metapsychological conjectures on such\nprototypes. Thus from this behaviour we draw the conclusion that even a\nhighly charged system is able to receive new energy streaming in, to\nconvert it into a \u2018quiescent charge\u2019, thus to \u2018bind\u2019 it psychically. The\nmore intense is the intrinsic quiescent charge the greater is its\nbinding force: and conversely the lower the charge of the system the\nless capable is it of receiving the energy that streams in, and so the\nmore violent are the consequences when the barrier against stimuli is\nbroken through. It is not a valid objection to this view that the\nintensifying of the charges round the place of irruption could be much\nmore simply explained as the direct action of the oncoming mass of\nexcitation. If that were so, the psychic apparatus would merely undergo\nan increase of its energy charges, and the paralysing character of pain,\nwith the impoverishment of all the other systems, would remain without\nexplanation. Nor do the very violent discharge effects of pain\ninvalidate our explanation, for they happen in a reflex manner, that is\nto say, they follow without the interposition of the psychic apparatus.\nThe indefinite nature of all the discussions that we term\nmetapsychological naturally comes from the fact that we know nothing\nabout the nature of the excitation process in the elements of the\npsychic systems and do not feel justified in making any assumption about\nit. Thus we are all the time operating with a large X, which we carry\nover into every new formula. That this process is accomplished with\nenergies which differ quantitatively is an easily admissible postulate,\nthat it also has more than one quality (e.g. in the direction of\namplitude) may be regarded as probable: the new consideration we have\nbrought in is Breuer\u2019s proposition that we have to do with two ways in\nwhich a system may be filled with energy, so that a distinction has to\nbe made between a \u2018charging\u2019 of the psychic systems (or its elements)\nthat is free-flowing and striving to be discharged and one that is\nquiescent. Perhaps we may admit the conjecture that the binding of the\nenergy streaming into the psychic apparatus consists in a translating of\nit from the free-flowing to the quiescent state.\n\nI think one may venture (tentatively) to regard the ordinary traumatic\nneurosis as the result of an extensive rupture of the barrier against\nstimuli. In this way the old na\u00efve doctrine of \u2018shock\u2019 would come into\nits own again, apparently in opposition to a later and psychologically\nmore pretentious view which ascribes aetiological significance not to\nthe effect of the mechanical force, but to the fright and the menace to\nlife. But these opposing views are not irreconcilable, and the\npsycho-analytic conception of the traumatic neurosis is far from being\nidentical with the crudest form of the \u2018shock\u2019 theory. While the latter\ntakes the essential nature of the shock as residing in the direct injury\nto the molecular structure, or even to the histological structure, of\nthe nervous elements, we seek to understand the effect of the shock by\nconsidering the breaking through of the barrier with which the psychic\norgan is provided against stimuli, and from the tasks with which this is\nthereby faced. Fright retains its meaning for us too. What conditions it\nis the failure of the mechanism of apprehension to make the proper\npreparation, including the over-charging of the systems first receiving\nthe stimulus. In consequence of this lower degree of charging these\nsystems are hardly in a position to bind the oncoming masses of\nexcitation, and the consequences of the breaking through of the\nprotective barrier appear all the more easily. We thus find that the\napprehensive preparation, together with the over-charging of the\nreceptive systems, represents the last line of defence against stimuli.\nFor a great number of traumata the difference between the unprepared\nsystems and those prepared by over-charging may turn the scale as to the\noutcome: with a trauma beyond a certain strength such a difference may\nno longer be of any importance. When the dreams of patients suffering\nfrom traumatic neuroses so regularly take them back to the situation of\nthe disaster they do not thereby, it is true, serve the purpose of\nwish-fulfilment, the hallucinatory conjuring up of which has, under the\ndomination of the pleasure-principle, become the function of dreams. But\nwe may assume that they thereby subserve another purpose, which must be\nfulfilled before the pleasure-principle can begin its sway. These dreams\nare attempts at restoring control of the stimuli by developing\napprehension, the pretermission of which caused the traumatic neurosis.\nThey thus afford us an insight into a function of the psychic apparatus,\nwhich without contradicting the pleasure-principle is nevertheless\nindependent of it, and appears to be of earlier origin than the aim of\nattaining pleasure and avoiding \u2018pain\u2019.\n\nThis is therefore the moment to concede for the first time an\nexception to the principle that the dream is a wish-fulfilment.\nAnxiety dreams are no such exception, as I have repeatedly and in\ndetail shown; nor are the \u2018punishment dreams\u2019, for they merely put in\nthe place of the interdicted wish-fulfilment the punishment\nappropriate to it, and are thus the wish-fulfilment of the sense of\nguilt reacting on the contemned impulse. But the dreams mentioned\nabove of patients suffering from traumatic neuroses do not permit of\nclassification under the category of wish-fulfilment, nor do the\ndreams occurring during psycho-analysis that bring back the\nrecollection of the psychic traumata of childhood. They obey rather\nthe repetition-compulsion, which in analysis, it is true, is supported\nby the (not unconscious) wish to conjure up again what has been\nforgotten and repressed. Thus the function of the dream, viz. to do\naway with the motives leading to interruption of sleep by presenting\nwish-fulfilments of the disturbing excitations, would not be its\noriginal one; the dream could secure control of this function only\nafter the whole psychic life had accepted the domination of the\npleasure-principle. If there is a \u2018beyond the pleasure-principle\u2019 it\nis logical to admit a prehistoric past also for the wish-fulfilling\ntendency of the dream, though to do so is no contradiction of its\nlater function. Now, when this tendency is once broken through, there\narises the further question: are such dreams, which in the interests\nof the psychical binding of traumatic impressions follow the\nrepetition-compulsion, not possible apart from analysis? The answer is\ncertainly in the affirmative.\n\nWith regard to the war neuroses, so far as the term has any significance\napart from a reference to the occasion of the appearance of the illness,\nI have explained elsewhere that they might very well be traumatic\nneuroses which have arisen the more easily on account of an\nego-conflict.[14] The fact mentioned on page 9, viz. that a severe\ninjury inflicted at the same time by the trauma lessens the chance of a\nneurosis arising, is no longer difficult to understand if two\ncircumstances emphasised by psycho-analytic research are borne in mind.\nFirst that mechanical concussion must be recognised as one of the\nsources of sexual excitation (cp. the remarks: \u2018The effects of swinging\nand railway travelling\u2019 in Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 4.\nAuflage 1920); and, secondly, that a painful and feverish illness exerts\nfor the time it lasts a powerful influence on the distribution of the\nlibido. Thus the mechanical force of the trauma would set free the quota\nof sexual excitation which, in consequence of the lacking preparation by\napprehension, has a traumatic effect: but, on the other hand, the\ncontemporaneous bodily injury would bind the surplus excitation by the\nputting in of a claim to a narcissistic over-charging of the injured\npart (see \u2018Zur Einf\u00fchrung des Narzissmus\u2019, Sammlung kleiner Schriften\nzur Neurosenlehre, IV. Folge, 1918). It is also known, though the idea\nhas not been sufficiently made use of in the Libido theory, that\ndisturbances in the distribution of the libido so severe as those of\nmelancholia may be removed for a time by an intercurrent organic\ndisease; in fact even the condition of a fully developed dementia\npraecox is capable of a transitory improvement in these circumstances.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nThe fact that the sensitive cortical layer has no protective barrier\nagainst excitations emanating from within will have one inevitable\nconsequence: viz. that these transmissions of stimuli acquire increased\neconomic significance and frequently give rise to economic disturbances\ncomparable to the traumatic neuroses. The most prolific sources of such\ninner excitations are the so-called instincts of the organism, the\nrepresentatives of all forces arising within the body and transmitted to\nthe psychic apparatus\u2014the most important and most obscure element in\npsychological research.\n\nPerhaps we shall not find it too rash an assumption that the excitations\nproceeding from the instincts do not conform to the type of the \u2018bound\u2019\nbut of the free-moving nerve processes that are striving for discharge.\nThe most trustworthy knowledge we have of these processes comes from the\nstudy of dreams. There we found that the processes in the unconscious\nsystems are fundamentally different from those in the (pre)conscious;\nthat in the unconscious \u2018charges\u2019 may easily be completely transferred,\ndisplaced or condensed, while if this happened with preconscious\nmaterial only defective results would be obtained. This is the reason\nfor the well-known peculiarities of the manifest dream, after the\npreconscious residues of the day before have undergone elaboration\naccording to the laws of the unconscious. I termed this kind of process\nin the unconscious the psychic \u2018primary process\u2019 in contradistinction to\nthe secondary process valid in our normal waking life. Since the\nexcitations of instincts all affect the unconscious systems, it is\nscarcely an innovation to say that they follow the lines of the primary\nprocess, and little more so to identify the psychic primary process with\nthe freely mobile charge, the secondary process with changes in Breuer\u2019s\nbound or tonic charge.[15] It would then be the task of the higher\nlayers of the psychic apparatus to bind the instinct-excitation that\nreaches the primary process. The failure to effect this binding would\nevoke a disturbance analogous to the traumatic neuroses; it is only\nafter the binding had been successfully accomplished that the\npleasure-principle (and its modification the reality-principle) would\nhave an opportunity to assert its sway without hindrance. Till then, the\nother task of the psychic apparatus would take precedence, viz. to\nobtain control of or to bind the excitation, not in opposition to the\npleasure-principle but independently of it and in part without regard to\nit.\n\nThe expressions of a repetition-compulsion which we have described,\nboth in the early activities of infantile psychic life and in the\nexperiences of psycho-analytic treatment, show in a high degree an\ninstinctive character, and, where they come into contrast with the\npleasure-principle, a daemonic character. In the play of children we\nseem to arrive at the conclusion that the child repeats even the\nunpleasant experiences because through his own activity he gains a far\nmore thorough mastery of the strong impression than was possible by\nmere passive experience. Every fresh repetition seems to strengthen\nthis mastery for which the child strives; even with pleasurable\nexperiences the child cannot do enough in the way of repetition and\nwill inexorably insist on the identity of the impression. This\ncharacteristic is destined later to disappear. A witticism heard for\nthe second time will almost fail of effect; a theatrical performance\nwill never make the same impression the second time that it did on the\nfirst occasion; indeed it is hard to persuade the adult to read again\nat all soon a book he has enjoyed. Novelty is always the necessary\ncondition of enjoyment. The child, however, never gets tired of\ndemanding from a grown-up the repetition of a game he has played with\nhim before or has shown him, till at last the grown-up refuses,\nutterly worn out; similarly if he has been told a pretty story, he\nwants always to hear the same story instead of a new one, insists\ninexorably on exact repetition and corrects each deviation which the\nnarrator lets slip by mistake, which perhaps he even thought to gain\nnew merit by inserting. Here there is no contradiction of the\npleasure-principle: it is evident that the repetition, the rediscovery\nof the identity, is itself a source of pleasure. In the case of a\npatient in analysis, on the other hand, it is plain that the\ncompulsion to repeat in the transference the occurrences of his\ninfantile life disregards _in every way_ the pleasure-principle. The\npatient behaves in this respect completely like a child, and thus\nmakes it clear to us that the repressed memory-traces of his primitive\nexperience are not present in a \u2018bound\u2019 form, are indeed, in a sense,\nnot capable of the secondary process. To this fact of their not being\nbound they owe their power to weave a wish-phantasy that will be\nrepresented in a dream, by adhering to the residues from waking\nexperiences. We frequently encounter the same repetition-compulsion as\na therapeutic obstacle, when at the end of the treatment we wish to\nbring about complete detachment from the physician; and it may be\nsupposed that the vague dread with which those who are unfamiliar with\nit view analysis, as though they feared to wake what they think is\nbetter left to sleep, is at root a fear of the appearance of this\ndaemonic compulsion.\n\nIn what way is the instinctive connected with the compulsion to\nrepetition? At this point the idea is forced upon us that we have\nstumbled on the trace of a general and hitherto not clearly\nrecognised\u2014or at least not expressly emphasised\u2014characteristic of\ninstinct, perhaps of all organic life. According to this, _an instinct\nwould be a tendency innate in living organic matter impelling it towards\nthe reinstatement of an earlier condition_, one which it had to abandon\nunder the influence of external disturbing forces\u2014a kind of organic\nelasticity, or, to put it another way, the manifestation of inertia in\norganic life.[16]\n\nThis conception of instinct strikes us as strange, since we are\naccustomed to see in instinct the factor urging towards change and\ndevelopment, and now we find ourselves required to recognise in it the\nvery opposite, viz. the expression of the conservative nature of living\nbeings. On the other hand, we soon think of those examples in animal\nlife which appear to confirm the idea of instinct having been\nhistorically conditioned. When certain fish undertake arduous journeys\nat spawning-time, in order to deposit the spawn in certain definite\nwaters far removed from their usual habitats, according to the\ninterpretation of many biologists they are only seeking the earlier\nhomes of their kind, which in course of time they have exchanged for\nothers. The same is said to be true of the migratory flights of birds of\npassage, but the search for further examples becomes superfluous when we\nremember that in the phenomena of heredity and in the facts of\nembryology we have the most imposing proofs of the organic compulsion to\nrepetition. We see that the germ cell of a living animal is obliged to\nrepeat in its development\u2014although in a fleeting and curtailed\nfashion\u2014the structures of all the forms from which the animal is\ndescended, instead of hastening along the shortest path to its own final\nshape. A mechanical explanation of this except in some trifling\nparticulars is impossible, and the historical explanation cannot be\ndisregarded. In the same way we find extending far upwards in the animal\nkingdom a power of reproduction whereby a lost organ is replaced by the\ngrowth of a new one exactly like it.\n\nThe obvious objection, that it may well be that besides the conservative\ninstincts compelling repetition there are others which press towards new\nformation and progress, should certainly not be left unnoticed; it will\nbe considered at a later stage of our discussion. But we may first be\ntempted to follow to its final consequences the hypothesis that all\ninstincts have as their aim the reinstatement of an earlier condition.\nIf what results gives an appearance of \u2018profundity\u2019 or bears a\nresemblance to mysticism, still we know ourselves to be clear of the\nreproach of having striven after anything of the sort. We are in search\nof sober results of investigation or of reflections based upon it, and\nthe only character we wish for in these results is that of certainty.\n\nIf then all organic instincts are conservative, historically acquired,\nand are directed towards regression, towards reinstatement of something\nearlier, we are obliged to place all the results of organic development\nto the credit of external, disturbing and distracting influences. The\nrudimentary creature would from its very beginning not have wanted to\nchange, would, if circumstances had remained the same, have always\nmerely repeated the same course of existence. But in the last resort it\nmust have been the evolution of our earth, and its relation to the sun,\nthat has left its imprint on the development of organisms. The\nconservative organic instincts have absorbed every one of these enforced\nalterations in the course of life and have stored them for repetition;\nthey thus present the delusive appearance of forces striving after\nchange and progress, while they are merely endeavouring to reach an old\ngoal by ways both old and new. This final goal of all organic striving\ncan be stated too. It would be counter to the conservative nature of\ninstinct if the goal of life were a state never hitherto reached. It\nmust rather be an ancient starting point, which the living being left\nlong ago, and to which it harks back again by all the circuitous paths\nof development. If we may assume as an experience admitting of no\nexception that everything living dies from causes within itself, and\nreturns to the inorganic, we can only say \u2018_The goal of all life is\ndeath_\u2019, and, casting back, \u2018_The inanimate was there before the\nanimate_.\u2019\n\nAt one time or another, by some operation of force which still\ncompletely baffles conjecture, the properties of life were awakened in\nlifeless matter. Perhaps the process was a prototype resembling that\nother one which later in a certain stratum of living matter gave rise to\nconsciousness. The tension then aroused in the previously inanimate\nmatter strove to attain an equilibrium; the first instinct was present,\nthat to return to lifelessness. The living substance at that time had\ndeath within easy reach; there was probably only a short course of life\nto run, the direction of which was determined by the chemical structure\nof the young organism. So through a long period of time the living\nsubstance may have been constantly created anew, and easily\nextinguished, until decisive external influences altered in such a way\nas to compel the still surviving substance to ever greater deviations\nfrom the original path of life, and to ever more complicated and\ncircuitous routes to the attainment of the goal of death. These\ncircuitous ways to death, faithfully retained by the conservative\ninstincts, would be neither more nor less than the phenomena of life as\nwe now know it. If the exclusively conservative nature of the instincts\nis accepted as true, it is impossible to arrive at any other\nsuppositions with regard to the origin and goal of life.\n\nIf these conclusions sound strangely in our ears, equally so will those\nwe are led to make concerning the great groups of instincts which we\nregard as lying behind the vital phenomena of organisms. The postulate\nof the self-preservative instincts we ascribe to every living being\nstands in remarkable contrast to the supposition that the whole life of\ninstinct serves the one end of bringing about death. The theoretic\nsignificance of the instincts of self-preservation, power and\nself-assertion, shrinks to nothing, seen in this light; they are\npart-instincts designed to secure the path to death peculiar to the\norganism and to ward off possibilities of return to the inorganic other\nthan the immanent ones, but the enigmatic struggle of the organism to\nmaintain itself in spite of all the world, a struggle that cannot be\nbrought into connection with anything else, disappears. It remains to be\nadded that the organism is resolved to die only in its own way; even\nthese watchmen of life were originally the myrmidons of death. Hence the\nparadox comes about that the living organism resists with all its energy\ninfluences (dangers) which could help it to reach its life-goal by a\nshort way (a short circuit, so to speak); but this is just the behaviour\nthat characterises a pure instinct as contrasted with an intelligent\nstriving.[17]\n\nBut we must bethink ourselves: this cannot be the whole truth. The\nsexual instincts, for which the theory of the neuroses claims a position\napart, lead us to quite another point of view. Not all organisms have\nyielded to the external compulsion driving them to an ever further\ndevelopment. Many have succeeded in maintaining themselves on their low\nlevel up to the present time: there are in existence to-day, if not all,\nat all events many forms of life that must resemble the primitive stages\nof the higher animals and plants. And, similarly, not all the elementary\norganisms that make up the complicated body of a higher form of life\ntake part in the whole path of evolution to the natural end, i.e. death.\nSome among them, the reproductive cells, probably retain the original\nstructure of the living substance and, after a given time, detach\nthemselves from the parent organism, charged as they are with all the\ninherited and newly acquired instinctive dispositions. Possibly it is\njust those two features that make their independent existence possible.\nIf brought under favourable conditions they begin to develop, that is,\nto repeat the same cycle to which they owe their origin, the end being\nthat again one portion of the substance carries through its development\nto a finish, while another part, as a new germinal core, again harks\nback to the beginning of the development. Thus these reproductive cells\noperate against the death of the living substance and are able to win\nfor it what must seem to us to be potential immortality, although\nperhaps it only means a lengthening of the path to death. Of the highest\nsignificance is the fact that the reproductive cell is fortified for\nthis function, or only becomes capable of it, by the mingling with\nanother like it and yet different from it.\n\nThere is a group of instincts that care for the destinies of these\nelementary organisms which survive the individual being, that concern\nthemselves with the safe sheltering of these organisms as long as they\nare defenceless against the stimuli of the outer world, and finally\nbring about their conjunction with other reproductive cells. These are\ncollectively the sexual instincts. They are conservative in the same\nsense as the others are, in that they reproduce earlier conditions of\nthe living substance, but they are so in a higher degree in that they\nshow themselves specially resistant to external influences; and they are\nmore conservative in a wider sense still, since they preserve life\nitself for a longer time. They are the actual life-instincts; the fact\nthat they run counter to the trend of the other instincts which lead\ntowards death indicates a contradiction between them and the rest, one\nwhich the theory of neuroses has recognised as full of significance.\nThere is as it were an oscillating rhythm in the life of organisms: the\none group of instincts presses forward to reach the final goal of life\nas quickly as possible, the other flies back at a certain point on the\nway only to traverse the same stretch once more from a given spot and\nthus to prolong the duration of the journey. Although sexuality and the\ndistinction of the sexes certainly did not exist at the dawn of life,\nnevertheless it remains possible that the instincts which are later\ndescribed as sexual were active from the very beginning and took up the\npart of opposition to the r\u00f4le of the \u2018ego-instincts\u2019 then, and not only\nat some later time.\n\nLet us now retrace our steps for the first time, to ask whether all\nthese speculations are not after all without foundation. Are there\nreally, _apart from the sexual instincts_, no other instincts than those\nwhich have as their object the reinstatement of an earlier condition,\nnone that strive towards a condition never yet attained? I am not aware\nof any satisfactory example in the organic world running counter to the\ncharacteristic I have suggested. The existence of a general impulse\ntowards higher development in the plant and animal world can certainly\nnot be established, though some such line of development is as a fact\nunquestionable. But, on the one hand, it is often merely a question of\nour own valuation when we pronounce one stage of development to be\nhigher than another, and, on the other hand, biology makes clear to us\nthat a higher development in one particular is often purchased with, or\nbalanced by, retrogression in another. Then there are plenty of animal\nforms the youthful stages of which teach us that their development has\ntaken a retrograde character rather than otherwise. Higher development\nand retrogression alike might well be the results of external forces\nimpelling towards adaptation, and the part played by the instincts might\nbe confined in both cases to retaining the enforced changes as sources\nof pleasure.[18]\n\nMany of us will also find it hard to abandon our belief that in man\nhimself there dwells an impulse towards perfection, which has brought\nhim to his present heights of intellectual prowess and ethical\nsublimation, and from which it might be expected that his development\ninto superman will be ensured. But I do not believe in the existence of\nsuch an inner impulse, and I see no way of preserving this pleasing\nillusion. The development of man up to now does not seem to me to need\nany explanation differing from that of animal development, and the\nrestless striving towards further perfection which may be observed in a\nminority of human beings is easily explicable as the result of that\nrepression of instinct upon which what is most valuable in human culture\nis built. The repressed instinct never ceases to strive after its\ncomplete satisfaction which would consist in the repetition of a primary\nexperience of satisfaction: all substitution- or reaction-formations and\nsublimations avail nothing towards relaxing the continual tension; and\nout of the excess of the satisfaction demanded over that found is born\nthe driving momentum which allows of no abiding in any situation\npresented to it, but in the poet\u2019s words \u2018urges ever forward, ever\nunsubdued\u2019 (Mephisto in \u2018Faust\u2019, Act 1. Faust\u2019s study.). The path in the\nother direction, back to complete satisfaction, is as a rule barred by\nthe resistances that maintain the repressions, and thus there remains\nnothing for it but to proceed in the other, still unobstructed\ndirection, that of development, without, however, any prospect of being\nable to bring the process to a conclusion or to attain the goal. What\noccurs in the development of a neurotic phobia, which is really nothing\nbut an attempt at flight from the satisfaction of an instinct, gives us\nthe prototype for the origin of this ostensible \u2018impulse towards\nperfection\u2019 which, however, we cannot possibly ascribe to all human\nbeings. The dynamic conditions are, it is true, quite generally present,\nbut the economic relations seem only in rare cases to favour the\nphenomenon.\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n\n\nOur discussion so far results in the establishing of a sharp antithesis\nbetween the \u2018ego-instincts\u2019 and the sexual instincts, the former\nimpelling towards death and the latter towards the preservation of life,\na result which we ourselves must surely find in many respects far from\nadequate. Further, only for the former can we properly claim the\nconservative\u2014or, better, regressive\u2014character corresponding to a\nrepetition-compulsion. For according to our hypothesis the ego-instincts\nspring from the vitalising of inanimate matter, and have as their aim\nthe reinstatement of lifelessness. As to the sexual instincts on the\nother hand: it is obvious that they reproduce primitive states of the\nliving being, but the aim they strive for by every means is the union of\ntwo germ cells which are specifically differentiated. If this union does\nnot take place, then the germ cell dies like all other elements of the\nmulticellular organism. Only on this condition can the sexual function\nprolong life and lend it the semblance of immortality. Of what important\nhappening then in the process of development of the living substance is\nsexual reproduction, or its forerunner, the copulation of two individual\nprotozoa, the repetition? That question we do not know how to answer,\nand therefore we should feel relieved if the whole structure of our\narguments were to prove erroneous. The opposition of ego- (or death-)\ninstincts and sexual (life-) instincts would then disappear, and the\nrepetition-compulsion would thereupon also lose the significance we have\nattributed to it.\n\nLet us turn back therefore to one of the assumptions we interpolated, in\nthe expectation that it will permit of exact refutation. We built up\nfurther conclusions on the basis of the assumption that all life must\ndie from internal causes. We made this assumption so light-heartedly\nbecause it does not seem to us to be one. We are accustomed so to think,\nand every poet encourages us in the idea. Perhaps we have resolved so to\nthink because there lies a certain consolation in this belief. If man\nmust himself die, after first losing his most beloved ones by death, he\nwould prefer that his life be forfeit to an inexorable law of nature,\nthe sublime \u1f08\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7, than to a mere accident which perhaps could have\nbeen in some way avoided. But perhaps this belief in the incidence of\ndeath as the necessary consequence of an inner law of being is also only\none of those illusions that we have fashioned for ourselves \u2018so as to\nendure the burden of existence\u2019. It is certainly not a primordial\nbelief: the idea of a \u2018natural death\u2019 is alien to primitive races; they\nascribe every death occurring among themselves to the influence of an\nenemy or an evil spirit. So let us not neglect to turn to biological\nscience to test the belief.\n\nIf we do so, we may be astonished to find how little agreement exists\namong biologists on the question of natural death, that indeed the very\nconception of death altogether eludes them. The fact of a certain\naverage length of life, at least among the higher animals, is of course\nan argument for death from inner causes, but the circumstance that\ncertain large animals and giant trees reach a very great age, one not to\nbe computed up to now, once more removes this impression. According to\nthe grandiose conception of W. Fliess all the vital phenomena\u2014and\ncertainly also death\u2014are linked with the accomplishment of certain\nperiods of time, among which there finds expression the dependence of\ntwo living substances, one male and one female, upon the solar year. But\nobservations of how easily and extensively the influences of external\nforces can alter vital manifestations, especially in the plant world, as\nto their occurrence in time, can hasten or retard them, militate against\nthe rigidity of the formulae laid down by Fliess and leaves at least\ndoubtful the universality of the laws he sought to establish.\n\nThe treatment of these themes, death and the duration of life among\norganisms, in the works of A. Weismann[19] possesses the greatest\ninterest for us. This investigator originated the distinction of living\nsubstance into a mortal and an immortal half; the mortal is the body in\nthe narrower sense, the soma, which alone is subject to natural death;\nwhile the germ cells are potentially immortal, in so far as they are\ncapable under certain favourable conditions of developing into a new\nindividual, or expressed otherwise, of surrounding themselves with a new\nsoma.[20]\n\nWhat here arrests our attention is the unexpected analogy with our\nconception developed along so different a line of thought. Weismann, who\nis considering living substance morphologically, recognises in it a\nconstituent which is the prey of death, the soma, the body viewed apart\nfrom sex or heredity elements, and, on the other hand, an immortal part,\nthe germ-plasm, which serves the purpose of preservation of the species,\nof propagation. We have fixed our attention not on the living matter,\nbut on the forces active in it, and have been led to distinguish two\nkinds of instincts: those the purpose of which is to guide life towards\ndeath, and the others, the sexual instincts, which perpetually strive\nfor, and bring about, the renewal of life. This sounds like a dynamic\ncorollary to Weismann\u2019s morphological theory.\n\nThis appearance of an important correspondence vanishes as soon as we\nexamine Weismann\u2019s pronouncement on the problem of death. For Weismann\nadmits the differentiation between the mortal soma and the immortal\ngerm-plasm only in relation to multicellular organisms; with the\nunicellular beings the individual and the reproductive cell are still\none and the same.[21] The unicellular he thus affirms to be potentially\nimmortal; death appears only among the metazoa, the multicellular. This\ndeath of the higher organisms is, it is true, a natural one, a death\nfrom inner causes, but it does not depend on an inherent quality of the\nliving substance,[22] is not to be conceived as an absolute necessity\nbased on the nature of life.[23] Death is rather a purposive\ncontrivance, a phenomenon of adaptation to the external conditions of\nlife, because after the differentiation of the corporeal cells into soma\nand germ-plasm the indefinite prolongation of the life of the individual\nwould have become a quite inexpedient luxury. With the appearance of\nthis differentiation among multicellular organisms death became possible\nand expedient. Since then the soma of the higher organisms dies after a\ncertain time from internal causes; the protozoa, however, remain\nimmortal. Propagation, on the other hand, was not first introduced with\ndeath; it is on the contrary a primordial property of living matter like\ngrowth, in which it originated, and life has gone on uninterruptedly\nfrom its inception on the earth.[24]\n\nIt is easy to see that to concede natural death to the higher organisms\ndoes not greatly help our case. If death is a late acquisition of life,\nthen death instincts traceable to the beginning of life on this planet\nno longer come into question. Multicellular organisms may continue to\ndie from internal causes, whether defect of differentiation or\nimperfections of their metabolism; it possesses no interest for the\ninquiry on which we are engaged. Such a conception and derivation of\ndeath certainly more nearly approaches the ordinary human view of it\nthan the unwonted assumption of \u2018death-instincts\u2019.\n\nThe discussion which has centred round Weismann\u2019s assertations has in my\nopinion had no decisive result in any direction.[25] Many writers have\nreverted to the standpoint of Goette (1883) who saw in death the direct\nconsequence of propagation. Hartmann does not regard as the\ncharacteristic of death the appearance of a \u2018corpse\u2019, a piece of living\nsubstance which has \u2018died off\u2019, but defines it as the \u2018definitive end of\nindividual development\u2019. In this sense protozoa are also subject to\ndeath; with them death invariably coincides with propagation, but it is,\nso to speak, disguised by the latter, for the whole substance of the\nparent organism may be absorbed directly into the new individuals.[26]\n\nThe interest of the inquiry was soon directed towards testing\nexperimentally the asserted immortality of living substance in\nunicellular beings. An American, named Woodruff, instituted a culture of\na ciliated infusorium, a \u2018slipper-animalcule\u2019, which reproduces itself\nby division into two individuals; each time he isolated one of the\nproducts and put it into fresh water. He traced the propagation to the\n3029th generation, when he discontinued the experiment. The last\ndescendant of the first slipper-animalcule was just as lively as its\noriginal ancestor, without any sign of age or degeneration: if such\nnumbers are convincing, the immortality of protozoa seemed thus\nexperimentally demonstrable.[27]\n\nOther investigators have arrived at other results. Maupas, Calkins,\netc., found, in contradiction to Woodruff, that even these infusoria\nafter a certain number of divisions become weaker, decrease in size,\nlose a portion of their organisation, and finally die if they do not\nencounter certain invigorating influences. According to this, protozoa\ndie after a phase of senile decay just like higher animals, in direct\ncontravention of what is maintained by Weismann, who recognises in death\na late acquisition of living organisms.\n\nTaking the net result of these researches together, we note two facts\nwhich seem to afford us a firm foothold. First: if the animalculae, at a\ntime when they as yet show no signs of age, have the opportunity of\nmingling with each other, of \u2018conjugating\u2019\u2014afterwards again\nseparating\u2014then they remain exempt from age, they have been\n\u2018rejuvenated\u2019. This conjugation is doubtless the prototype of sexual\npropagation of higher organisms: as yet it has nothing to do with\nmultiplication, it is confined to the mingling of the substances of both\nindividuals (Weismann\u2019s Amphimixis). The invigorating influence of\nconjugation can also be replaced, however, by certain modes of\nstimulation, changes in the composition of the nutrient fluid, raising\nof temperature, or shaking. The famous experiment of J. Loeb will be\nrecalled, who by the application of certain chemical stimuli to the ova\nof sea-urchins brought about processes of division which usually take\nplace only after fertilisation.\n\nSecondly: it is after all probable that the infusoria are brought to a\nnatural death through their own vital process, for the contradiction\nbetween Woodruff\u2019s findings and those of others arises from Woodruff\nhaving placed each generation in fresh nutrient fluid. When he refrained\nfrom doing so he observed, as did the other investigators, that the\ngenerations showed signs of age. He concluded that the animalculae were\ninjured by the products of metabolism which they gave off into the\nsurrounding fluid, and was then able to prove convincingly that only the\nproducts of _its own_ metabolism had this effect in bringing about the\ndeath of the generation. For in a solution over-saturated with waste\nproducts of a distantly related species the very same animalculae throve\nexcellently which when allowed to accumulate in their own nutrient fluid\ninevitably perished. Thus, left to itself, the infusorium dies a natural\ndeath from the imperfect disposal of its own metabolic products: perhaps\nall higher animals die ultimately from the same inability.\n\nAt this point the doubt may then occur to us whether any good purpose\nhas been served in looking for the answer to the question as to natural\ndeath in the study of the protozoa. The primitive organisation of these\nforms of life may conceal from us important conditions which are present\nin them too, but can be recognised only among the higher animals where\nthey have achieved for themselves a morphological expression. If we\nabandon the morphological point of view for the dynamic, it may be a\nmatter of entire indifference to us whether the natural death of the\nprotozoa can be proved or not. With them the substance later recognised\nas immortal has not yet separated itself in any way from the part\nsubject to death. The instinctive forces which endeavour to conduct life\nto death might be active in them too from the beginning and yet their\neffect might be so obscured by that of the forces tending to preserve\nlife that any direct evidence of their existence becomes hard to\nestablish. We have heard, it is true, that the observations of\nbiologists allow us to assume such death-ward tending inner processes\nalso among the protozoa. But even if the protozoa prove to be immortal\nin Weismann\u2019s sense, his assertion that death is a late acquisition\nholds good only of the outward manifestations of death, and does not\ninvalidate any hypothesis as to such processes as impel towards death.\nOur expectation that biology would entirely put out of court any\nrecognition of the death-instincts has not been fulfilled. It is open to\nus to occupy ourselves further with this possibility, if we have other\nreasons for doing so. The striking resemblance between Weismann\u2019s\nseparation of soma and germ-plasm and our distinction between the death\nand the life-instincts remains unshaken, moreover, and retains its\nvalue.\n\nLet us dwell for a moment on this exquisitely dualistic conception of\nthe instinctive life. According to E. Hering\u2019s theory of the processes\nin living matter there course through it uninterruptedly two kinds of\nprocesses of opposite direction, one anabolic, assimilatory, the other\nkatabolic, disintegrating. Shall we venture to recognise in these two\ndirections of the vital processes the activity of our two instinctive\ntendencies, the life-instincts and the death-instincts? And we cannot\ndisguise another fact from ourselves, that we have steered unawares into\nthe haven of Schopenhauer\u2019s philosophy for whom death is the \u2018real\nresult\u2019 of life[28] and therefore in so far its aim, while the sexual\ninstinct is the incarnation of the will to live.\n\nLet us boldly try to go a step further. According to general opinion the\nunion of numerous cells into one vital connection, the multicellularity\nof organisms, has become a means to the prolongation of their span of\nlife. One cell helps to preserve the life of the others, and the\ncell-community can go on living even if single cells have to perish. We\nhave already heard that also conjugation, the temporary mingling of two\nunicellular entities, has a preservative and rejuvenating effect on\nboth. The attempt might consequently be made to transfer the Libido\ntheory yielded by psycho-analysis to the relationship of the cells to\none another and to imagine that it is the vital or sexual instincts\nactive in every cell that take the other cells for their \u2018object\u2019,\npartially neutralise their death-instincts, i. e. the processes\nstimulated by these, and so preserve those cells in life, while other\ncells do the same for them, and still others sacrifice themselves in the\nexercise of this libidinous function. The germ cells themselves would\nbehave in a completely \u2018narcissistic\u2019 fashion, as we are accustomed to\ndescribe it in the theory of the neuroses when an individual\nconcentrates his libido on the ego, and gives out none of it for the\ncharging of objects. The germ cells need their libido\u2014the activity of\ntheir vital instincts\u2014for themselves as a provision for their later\nenormous constructive activity. Perhaps the cells of the malignant\ngrowths that destroy the organism can also be considered to be\nnarcissistic in the same sense. Pathology is indeed prepared to regard\nthe kernels of them as congenital in origin and to ascribe embryonal\nattributes to them. Thus the Libido of our sexual instincts would\ncoincide with the Eros of poets and philosophers, which holds together\nall things living.\n\nAt this point opportunity offers of reviewing the gradual development of\nour Libido theory. The analysis of the transference-neuroses forced on\nour notice in the first place the opposition between \u2018sexual instincts\u2019\nwhich are directed towards an object and other instincts which we only\nimperfectly discerned and provisionally described as \u2018ego-instincts\u2019.\nAmong the latter those which subserve the self-preservation of the\nindividual had the first claim for recognition. What other distinctions\nwere to be made, it was impossible to say. No knowledge would have been\nso important for the establishment of a sound psychology as some\napproximate understanding of the common nature and possible differences\nof the instincts. But in no department of psychology did one grope more\nin the dark. Everyone posited as many instincts or \u2018fundamental\ninstincts\u2019 as he pleased, and contrived with them just as the ancient\nGreek philosophers did with their four elements: earth, air, fire and\nwater. Psycho-Analysis, which could not dispense with some kind of\nhypothesis as to the instincts, adhered to begin with to the popular\ndistinction, typically represented by the phrase \u2018hunger and love\u2019. It\nwas at least no new arbitrary creation. With this one adequately covered\na considerable distance in the analysis of the psychoneuroses. The\nconception of \u2018sexuality\u2019\u2014and therewith that of a sexual\ninstinct\u2014certainly had to Be extended, till it included much that did\nnot come into the category of the function of propagation, and this led\nto outcry enough in a severe and superior or merely hypocritical world.\n\nThe next step followed when Psycho-Analysis was able to feel its way a\nlittle nearer to the psychological ego, which was at first known to us\nonly as a repressing, censoring agency, capable of constituting\ndefences and reaction-formations. Critical and other far-seeing minds\nhad indeed for a long time raised objections to the narrowing of the\nlibido concept down to the energy of the sexual instinct as directed\nto the object. But they omitted to say whence they obtained this\nfuller comprehension, and failed to deduce anything from it of value\nfor Psycho-Analysis. In the course of more deliberate advance it came\nunder psycho-analytic observation how regularly libido is withdrawn\nfrom the object and directed towards the ego (introversion), and\nthrough the study of the libido-development of the child in its\nearliest phases it became clear that the ego is the true and original\nreservoir of the libido, which is extended to the object only from\nthis. The ego took its place as one of the sexual objects and was\nimmediately recognised as the choicest among them. Where the libido\nthus remained attached to the ego it was termed \u2018narcissistic\u2019.[29]\nThis narcissistic libido was naturally also the expression of the\nenergy of sexual instincts in the analytical sense which now had to be\nidentified with the \u2018instincts of self-preservation\u2019, the existence of\nwhich was admitted from the first. Whereupon the original antithesis\nbetween the ego-instincts and the sexual instincts became inadequate.\nA part of the ego-instincts was recognised as libidinous: in the ego\nsexual instincts were found to be active\u2014probably in addition to\nothers; nevertheless one is justified in saying that the old formula,\nviz. that a psychoneurosis arises out of a conflict between the\nego-instincts and the sexual instincts, contained nothing that we\nshould have to reject to-day. Only, the difference of the two kinds of\ninstincts which was supposed originally to be in some kind of way\nqualitative has now to be defined otherwise, namely on a topographical\nbasis. In particular the transference-neurosis, the real object of\npsycho-analytic study, is still seen to be the result of a conflict\nbetween the ego and libidinous investment of an object.\n\nWe are the more compelled now to accentuate the libidinous character of\nthe self-preservative instincts, since we are venturing on the further\nstep of recognising the sexual instinct as the Eros, the all-sustaining,\nand of deriving the narcissistic libido of the ego from the sum of the\nlibido quantities that bring about the mutual adherence of the somatic\ncells. But we now find ourselves suddenly confronted with this question:\nIf the self-preservative instincts are also of a libidinous kind, then\nperhaps we have no other instincts at all than libidinous ones. There\nare at least no others apparent. In that event we must admit the critics\nto be in the right who from the first have suspected that\npsycho-analysis makes sexuality the explanation of everything, or the\ninnovators like Jung who, quickly making up their mind, have used\n\u2018libido\u2019 as a synonym for \u2018instinctive force\u2019 in general. Is that not\nso?\n\nThis result was at all events one not intended by us. On the contrary,\nwe took as our starting point a sharp distinction between the\nego-instincts (= death-instincts) and the sexual instincts (=\nlife-instincts). We were prepared indeed to reckon even the alleged\nself-preservative instincts of the ego among death-instincts, a position\nwhich we have since corrected and withdrawn from. Our standpoint was a\ndualistic one from the beginning, and is so to-day more sharply than\nbefore, since we no longer call the contrasting tendencies egoistic and\nsexual instincts, but life-instincts and death-instincts. Jung\u2019s libido\ntheory, on the other hand, is a monistic one; that he has applied the\nterm libido to his only instinctive energy was bound to create\nconfusion, but should not have any further effect on us. We suspect that\nthere are in the ego other instincts than those of self-preservation;\nonly we ought to be in a position to demonstrate them. Unfortunately so\nlittle progress has been made in the analysis of the ego that this proof\nbecomes extraordinarily difficult of attainment. The libidinous\ninstincts of the ego may indeed be conjoined in a special way with other\nego-instincts of which we as yet know nothing. Before ever we had\nclearly recognised narcissism, the conjecture was already present in the\nminds of psychoanalysts that the \u2018ego-instincts\u2019 had drawn libidinous\ncomponents to themselves. But these are merely vague possibilities which\nour opponents will hardly take into account. It remains an awkward fact\nthat analysis up to now has only put us in the position of demonstrating\nlibidinous impulses. The conclusion that therefore there are no others\nis one to which we do not assent.\n\nIn the obscurity that at present shrouds the theory of instinct, we\nshall certainly not do well to reject any idea that promises to throw\nlight. We have made the antithesis between the life and death-instincts\nour point of departure. Object-love itself displays a second such\npolarity, that of love (tenderness) and hate (aggression). What if we\ncould succeed in bringing these two polarities into relation with each\nother, in tracing the one to the other! We have long recognised a\nsadistic component of the sexual instinct:[30] it can, as we know,\nattain independence, and as a perversion, dominate the whole sexual\ntrend of a person. In one of the organisations which I have termed\n\u2018pregenital\u2019 it appears as a dominating part-instinct. But how is one to\nderive the sadistic impulse, which aims at the injury of the object,\nfrom the life-sustaining Eros! Does not the assumption suggest itself\nthat this sadism is properly a death-instinct which is driven apart from\nthe ego by the influence of the narcissistic libido, so that it becomes\nmanifest only in reference to the object? It then enters the service of\nthe sexual function; at the oral stage of organisation of the libido,\namorous possession is still one and the same as annihilation of the\nobject; later the sadistic impulse separates itself, and at last at the\nstage of the genital primacy it takes over with the aim of propagation\nthe function of so far overpowering the sex-object as the carrying out\nof the sexual act demands. One might even say that the sadism expelled\nfrom the ego has acted as guide to the libidinous components of the\nsexual instinct; these later press on towards the object. Where the\noriginal sadism experiences no abatement or fusion, the well-known\nhate-love ambivalence of the love-life is set up.\n\nIf the above assumption is justifiable then we have met the challenge of\ndemonstrating an example of a death-instinct\u2014though a displaced one.\nThis conception, however, is far from being evident, and creates a\nfrankly mystical impression. We incur the suspicion of having attempted\nat all costs to find a way out of an _impasse_. We may appeal against\nthis verdict by saying that the assumption is no new one, that we have\nonce before made it when there was no question of an _impasse_. Clinical\nobservations forced upon us the view that the part-instinct of\nmasochism, the one complementary to sadism, is to be understood as a\nrecoil of the sadism on to the ego itself.[31] A turning of the instinct\nfrom the object to the ego is, however, essentially the same as a\nturning from the ego to the object, which is just now the new idea in\nquestion. Masochism, the turning of the instinct against the self, would\nthen be in reality a return to an earlier phase of this, a regression.\nThe exposition I then gave of masochism needs correction in one respect\nas being too exclusive: masochism may also be what I was there concerned\nto deny, primary.[32]\n\nLet us return, however, to the life-sustaining sexual instincts. We have\nalready learned from the investigation of the protozoa that the mingling\nof two individuals without consequent partition, just as copulation\nbetween two individuals which soon after separate, has a strengthening\nand rejuvenating effect (v. s. Lipsch\u00fctz). There is no sign of\ndegeneration in their descendents, and they also seem to have gained the\ncapacity for withstanding for a longer time the injurious results of\ntheir own metabolism. I think that this one observation may be taken as\na prototype of the effect of sexual intercourse also. But in what way\ndoes the blending of two slightly different cells bring about such a\nrenewal of life? The experiment which substitutes for conjugation among\nprotozoa the effect of chemical or even of mechanical stimuli[33] admits\nof our giving a reply with certainty: it comes about by the introduction\nof new stimulus masses. This is in close agreement with the hypothesis\nthat the life-process of an individual leads, from internal causes, to\nthe equalising of chemical tensions: i. e. to death, while union with an\nindividually different living substance increases these tensions\u2014so to\nspeak, introduces new vital differentia, which then have to be again\nlived out. For this difference between the two there must naturally be\none or more optima. Our recognition that the ruling tendency of psychic\nlife, perhaps of nerve life altogether, is the struggle for reduction,\nkeeping at a constant level, or removal of the inner stimulus tension\n(the Nirvana-principle, as Barbara Low terms it)\u2014a struggle which comes\nto expression in the pleasure-principle\u2014is indeed one of our strongest\nmotives for believing in the existence of death-instincts.\n\nBut the course of our argument is still disturbed by an uneasy feeling\nthat just in the case of the sexual instinct we are unable to\ndemonstrate that character of a repetition-compulsion which first put us\non the track of the death-instincts. It is true that the realm of\nembryonic developmental processes offers an abundance of such repetition\nphenomena\u2014the two germ cells of sexual propagation and their life\nhistory are themselves only repetitions of the beginning of organic\nlife: but the essential feature in the processes designed by the sexual\ninstinct is nevertheless the mingling of two cells. Only by this is the\nimmortality of the living substance among the higher forms of life\nassured.\n\nTo put it in other words: we have to make enquiry into the origin of\nsexual propagation and the source of the sexual instincts in general, a\ntask before which the lay mind quails and which even specialists have\nnot yet been able to solve. Let us, therefore, make a condensed\nselection from all the conflicting accounts and opinions of whatever can\nbe brought into relation with our train of thought.\n\nOne view deprives the problem of propagation of its mysterious\nattraction by representing it as part of the phenomenon of growth\n(multiplication by division, germination, budding). The arising of\npropagation by means of germ cells sexually differentiated might be\nconceived, in accordance with the sober Darwinian mode of thought, as a\nway of maintaining and utilising for further development the advantage\nof the amphimixis which resulted in the first instance from the\nfortuitous conjugation of two protozoa.[34] \u2018Sex\u2019 would not thus be of\nvery ancient origin and the extraordinarily powerful instincts which aim\nat bringing about sexual union would thereby repeat something which once\nchanced to happen and since became established as being advantageous.\n\nThe same question now recurs as arose in respect of death\u2014namely,\nwhether the protozoa can be credited with anything beyond what they\nexhibit, and whether we may assume that forces and processes which\nbecome perceptible only in the case of the higher animals did first\narise in the more primitive. For our purpose the view of sexuality\nmentioned above helps very little. The objection may be raised against\nit that it presupposes the existence of life-instincts as already\noperative in the simplest forms of life, for otherwise conjugation,\nwhich works against the expiration of life and makes the task of dying\nharder, would not have been retained and elaborated, but would have been\navoided. If, then, we are not to abandon the hypothesis of\ndeath-instincts maintained, we must associate them with life-instincts\nfrom the beginning. But we must admit that we are working here at an\nequation with two unknown quantities. Anything else that science can\ntell us of the origin of sexuality amounts to so little that this\nproblem may be likened to an obscurity into which not even the ray of an\nhypothesis has penetrated. In quite another quarter, however, we\nencounter such an hypothesis, but it is of so fantastic a kind\u2014assuredly\na myth rather than a scientific explanation\u2014that I should not venture to\nbring it forward if it did not exactly fulfil the one condition for the\nfulfilment of which we are labouring. That is to say, it derives an\ninstinct from the _necessity for the reinstatement of an earlier\nsituation_.\n\nI refer, of course, to the theory that Plato in his Symposium puts into\nthe mouth of Aristophanes and which deals not only with the origin of\nthe sexual instinct but also with its most important variations in\nrelation to the object. \u2018Human nature was once quite other than now.\nOriginally there were three sexes, three and not as to-day two: besides\nthe male and the female there existed a third sex which had an equal\nshare in the two first.... In these beings everything was double: thus,\nthey had four hands and four feet, two faces, two genital parts, and so\non. Then Zeus allowed himself to be persuaded to cut these beings in\ntwo, as one divides pears to stew them.... When all nature was divided\nin this way, to each human being came the longing for his own other\nhalf, and the two halves embraced and entwined their bodies _and desired\nto grow together again_.\u2019[35]\n\nAre we to follow the clue of the poet-philosopher and make the daring\nassumption that living substance was at the time of its animation rent\ninto small particles, which since that time strive for reunion by means\nof the sexual instincts? That these instincts\u2014in which the chemical\naffinity of inanimate matter is continued\u2014passing through the realm of\nthe protozoa gradually overcome all hindrances set to their striving by\nan environment charged with stimuli dangerous to life, and are impelled\nby it to form a protecting covering layer? And that these dispersed\nfragments of living substance thus achieve a multicellular organisation,\nand finally transfer to the germ cells in a highly concentrated form the\ninstinct for reunion? I think this is the point at which to break off.\n\nBut not without a few words of critical reflection in conclusion. I\nmight be asked whether I am myself convinced of the views here set\nforward, and if so how far. My answer would be that I am neither\nconvinced myself, nor am I seeking to arouse conviction in others.\nMore accurately: I do not know how far I believe in them. It seems to\nme that the affective feature \u2018conviction\u2019 need not come into\nconsideration at all here. One may surely give oneself up to a line of\nthought, and follow it up as far as it leads, simply out of scientific\ncuriosity, or\u2014if you prefer\u2014as advocatus diaboli, without, however,\nmaking a pact with the devil about it. I am perfectly aware that the\nthird step in the theory of instinct which I am taking here cannot\nclaim the same certainty as the two former ones, viz. the extending of\nthe conception of sexuality and the establishing of narcissism. These\ninnovations were direct translations of observation into theory,\nsubject to no greater sources of error than is inevitable in anything\nof the kind. The assertion of the regressive character of instinct\nrests also, it is true, on observed material, namely on the facts of\nthe repetition-compulsion. But perhaps I have over-estimated their\nsignificance. At all events there is no way of working out this idea\nexcept by combining facts with pure imagination many times in\nsuccession, and thereby departing far from observation. We know that\nthe final result becomes the more untrustworthy the oftener one does\nthis in the course of building up a theory, but the precise degree of\nuncertainty is not ascertainable. One may thereby have made a\nbrilliant discovery or one may have gone ignominiously astray. In such\nwork I trust little to so-called intuition: what I have seen of it\nseems to me to be the result of a certain impartiality of the\nintellect\u2014only that people unfortunately are seldom impartial where\nthey are concerned with the ultimate things, the great problems of\nscience and of life. My belief is that there everyone is under the\nsway of preferences deeply rooted within, into the hands of which he\nunwittingly plays as he pursues his speculation. Where there are such\ngood grounds for distrust, only a tepid feeling of indulgence is\npossible towards the results of one\u2019s own mental labours. But I hasten\nto add that such self-criticism does not render obligatory any special\ntolerance of divergent opinions. One may inexorably reject theories\nthat are contradicted by the very first steps in the analysis of\nobservation and yet at the same time be aware that those one holds\noneself have only a tentative validity. Were we to appraise our\nspeculations upon the life and death-instincts it would disturb us but\nlittle that so many processes go on which are surprising and hard to\npicture, such as one instinct being expelled by others, or turning\nfrom the ego to an object, and so on. This comes only from our being\nobliged to operate with scientific terms, i. e. with the metaphorical\nexpressions peculiar to psychology (or more correctly: psychology of\nthe deeper layers). Otherwise we should not be able to describe the\ncorresponding processes at all, nor in fact even to have remarked\nthem. The shortcomings of our description would probably disappear if\nfor the psychological terms we could substitute physiological or\nchemical ones. These too only constitute a metaphorical language, but\none familiar to us for a much longer time and perhaps also simpler.\n\nOn the other hand we wish to make it quite clear that the uncertainty of\nour speculation is enhanced in a high degree by the necessity of\nborrowing from biological science. Biology is truly a realm of limitless\npossibilities; we have the most surprising revelations to expect from\nit, and cannot conjecture what answers it will offer in some decades to\nthe questions we have put to it. Perhaps they may be such as to\noverthrow the whole artificial structure of hypotheses. If that is so,\nsomeone may ask why does one undertake such work as the one set out in\nthis article, and why should it be communicated to the world? Well, I\ncannot deny that some of the analogies, relations and connections\ntherein traced appeared to me worthy of consideration.[36]\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n\n\nIf this attempt to reinstate an earlier condition really is so universal\na characteristic of the instincts, we should not find it surprising that\nso many processes in the psychic life are performed independently of the\npleasure-principle. This characteristic would communicate itself to\nevery part-instinct and would in that case concern a harking back to a\ndefinite point on the path of development. But all that the\npleasure-principle has not yet acquired power over is not therefore\nnecessarily in opposition to it, and we have not yet solved the problem\nof determining the relation of the instinctive repetition processes to\nthe domination of the pleasure-principle.\n\nWe have recognised that one of the earliest and most important functions\nof the psychic apparatus is to \u2018bind\u2019 the instreaming instinctive\nexcitations, to substitute the \u2018secondary process\u2019 for the \u2018primary\nprocess\u2019 dominating them, and to transform their freely mobile\nenergy-charge into a predominantly quiescent (tonic) charge. During this\ntransformation no attention can be paid to the development of \u2018pain\u2019,\nbut the pleasure-principle is not thereby annulled. On the contrary, the\ntransformation takes place in the service of the pleasure-principle; the\nbinding is an act of preparation, which introduces and secures its\nsovereignty.\n\nLet us distinguish function and tendency more sharply than we have\nhitherto done. The pleasure-principle is then a tendency which subserves\na certain function\u2014namely, that of rendering the psychic apparatus as a\nwhole free from any excitation, or to keep the amount of excitation\nconstant or as low as possible. We cannot yet decide with certainty for\neither of these conceptions, but we note that the function so defined\nwould partake of the most universal tendency of all living matter\u2014to\nreturn to the peace of the inorganic world. We all know by experience\nthat the greatest pleasure it is possible for us to attain, that of the\nsexual act, is bound up with the temporary quenching of a greatly\nheightened state of excitation. The \u2018binding\u2019 of instinct-excitation,\nhowever, would be a preparatory function, which would direct the\nexcitation towards its ultimate adjustment in the pleasure of discharge.\n\nIn the same connection, the question arises whether the sensations of\npleasure and \u2018pain\u2019 can emanate as well from the bound as from the\n\u2018unbound\u2019 excitation processes. It appears quite beyond doubt that the\n\u2018unbound\u2019, the primary, processes give rise to much more intense\nsensations in both directions than the bound ones, those of the\n\u2018secondary processes\u2019. The primary processes are also the earlier in\npoint of time; at the beginning of mental life there are no others, and\nwe may conclude that if the pleasure-principle were not already in\naction in respect to them, it would not establish itself in regard to\nthe later processes. We thus arrive at the result which at bottom is not\na simple one, that the search for pleasure manifests itself with far\ngreater intensity at the beginning of psychic life than later on, but\nless unrestrictedly: it has to put up with repeated breaches. At a\nmaturer age the dominance of the pleasure-principle is very much more\nassured, though this principle as little escapes limitations as all the\nother instincts. In any case, whatever it is in the process of\nexcitation that engenders the sensations of pleasure and \u2018pain\u2019 must be\nequally in existence when the secondary process is at work as with the\nprimary process.\n\nThis would seem to be the place to institute further studies. Our\nconsciousness conveys to us from within not only the sensations of\npleasure and \u2018pain\u2019, but also those of a peculiar tension, which again\nmay be either pleasurable or painful in itself. Now is it the \u2018bound\u2019\nand \u2018unbound\u2019 energy processes that we have to distinguish from each\nother by the help of these sensations, or is the sensation of tension to\nbe related to the absolute quantity, perhaps to the level of the charge,\nwhile the pleasure-pain series refers to the changes in the quantity of\ncharge in the unit of time? We must also be struck with the fact that\nthe life-instincts have much more to do with our inner perception, since\nthey make their appearance as disturbers of the peace, and continually\nbring along with them states of tension the resolution of which is\nexperienced as pleasure; while the death-instincts, on the other hand,\nseem to fulfil their function unostentatiously. The pleasure-principle\nseems directly to subserve the death-instincts; it keeps guard, of\ncourse, also over the external stimuli, which are regarded as dangers by\nboth kinds of instincts, but in particular over the inner increases in\nstimulation which have for their aim the complication of the task of\nliving. At this point innumerable other questions arise to which no\nanswer can yet be given. We must be patient and wait for other means and\nopportunities for investigation. We must hold ourselves too in readiness\nto abandon the path we have followed for a time, if it should seem to\nlead to no good result. Only such \u2018true believers\u2019 as expect from\nscience a substitute for the creed they have relinquished will take it\namiss if the investigator develops his views further or even transforms\nthem.\n\nFor the rest we may find consolation in the words of a poet for the slow\nrate of progress in scientific knowledge:\n\n            Whither we cannot fly, we must go limping.\n                   \u00b7       \u00b7       \u00b7       \u00b7       \u00b7\n            The Scripture saith that limping is no sin.[37]\n\n\n\n\n                                 INDEX\n\n\n Acquired instinctive dispositions, 49.\n\n Adaptation, 52.\n   Death a phenomenon of, 58.\n\n Ambivalence, hate-love, 69.\n\n Amphimixis, 60, 72.\n\n Anabolic processes, 63.\n\n Angst, 9.\n\n Animalculae, 60, 61.\n\n Anxiety dreams, 38.\n\n Apprehension, 9, 37, 39.\n\n _Aristophanes_, 74.\n\n\n Barrier against stimuli, 33, 34, 36\u20137.\n\n Binding, psychical, 30, 34\u20137, 39, 42, 44, 80\u20132.\n\n _Breuer, J._, 10, 27, 30, 36, 42.\n\n\n _Calkins_, 60.\n\n Charge, 34\u20137, 80, 82.\n   Breuer\u2019s bound or tonic, 42.\n   Counter-, 34.\n   Free-flowing, 36, 42, 80.\n   of object, 64.\n   Over-, 37, 39\u201340.\n   Quiescent, 35\u20136, 80.\n\n Children, play of, 11, 16, 43.\n\n Compulsion, 22, 49.\n   Daemonic, 44.\n   Destiny-, 24.\n   Repetition-. _See_ Repetition-compulsion.\n   to repeat, 44.\n\n Conjugation, 60, 63, 71\u20133.\n\n Conscious:\n   Becoming, 27, 28.\n   ego, 19\u201320.\n   impulses, 3.\n   psychic processes, 32.\n   The, 19.\n\n Consciousness, 3, 17, 19, 26\u20139, 47, 82.\n   Origin of, 28, 30.\n   Perceptual, 26.\n   Seat of, 27.\n   Threshold of, 3.\n\n Conservative:\n   instincts. _See under_ Instincts.\n   nature of living beings, 45.\n\n Constancy, principle of, 4.\n\n\n Daemonic:\n   character, 43.\n   compulsion, 44.\n\n Danger, 7, 9, 49, 83.\n\n Death, 47\u201350, 54\u201363, 71, 73.\n   consequence of propagation, 59.\n   from inner causes, 56, 58.\n   Goal of. _See under_ Goal.\n   Impulsion towards, 70.\n   instincts. _See under_ Instincts.\n   Natural, 55, 56, 58, 61\u20132.\n   of higher animals, 61.\n   phenomenon of adaptation, 58.\n\n Destiny, 22.\n   -compulsion, 24.\n\n _Deussen_, 75.\n\n Development, 45, 47, 49\u201354, 59, 72, 80.\n   Impulse towards higher, 51.\n   Libido-, 66.\n   Organic, 46.\n\n _Doflein, Franz_, 59.\n\n Dreams, 9\u201310, 37\u20139, 41, 44.\n   Anxiety-, 38.\n   during psycho-analysis, 38.\n   Function of, 37\u20138.\n   in traumatic neuroses, 37\u20138.\n   -life, 9.\n   of shock-patients, 24.\n   Punishment, 38.\n   Wish-fulfilment tendency of, 10.\n\n Dualistic standpoint of psycho-analysis, 67.\n\n Dynamic, 1, 19, 53, 57, 62.\n\n\n Economic, 1, 11, 16, 41, 53.\n\n Ego, 5, 6, 19, 20, 24, 64, 66\u201370, 75, 78\u20139.\n   Analysis of, 68, 69.\n   Coherent, 19.\n   -conflict, 39.\n   Conscious, 19, 20.\n   -feeling, 20.\n   instinct. _See under_ Instinct.\n   Kernel of, 19.\n   Libidinous components of, 68.\n   Libido directed towards, 65\u20136.\n   Masochistic tendencies of, 10.\n   Preconscious, 19, 20.\n   Psychological, 65.\n\n Embryology, 29, 45.\n\n Energy, 5, 31, 36.\n   Binding of, 36.\n   Bound, 30, 82.\n   charges, 34, 35.\n   Charging, 34.\n   Free, 30.\n   Free-flowing, 36, 80.\n   Instinctive, 67.\n   Propagation of, 28.\n   -transformations, 31.\n   Unbound, 82.\n   Quiescent, 36, 80.\n\n Eros, 64, 67, 69, 79.\n\n Excitation, 29, 33, 34, 39, 41, 42, 81, 82.\n   Barrier against, 41.\n   Bound, 81.\n   Disturbing, 38.\n   External, 34.\n   from within, 32, 33.\n   Heightened state of, 81.\n   Inner, 4.\n   Instinct, 42, 81.\n   Instinctive, 80.\n   Mass of, 33, 35, 37.\n   Quantity of, 2, 3, 81.\n   Perceptions of, 26.\n   processes, 25, 27\u201330, 35.\n   Propagation of, 28.\n   Sexual, 39.\n   Traces of, 27, 30.\n   Traumatic, 34.\n   Unbound, 81.\n\n Experiences:\n   Painful, 6, 13;\n     repeated as a game, 13, 15, 43.\n   Pleasurable, 43.\n   Primary e. of satisfaction, 53.\n   Repetition of identical, 22, 23.\n   Revival of past, 20.\n   Traumatic, 10.\n\n\n Fate, 22, 23, 24.\n\n Fear, 9.\n\n _Fechner, G. Th._, 3, 4.\n\n Feeling, 2.\n   Ego-, 20.\n   Hostile, 15.\n   of \u2018pain\u2019, 26, 33.\n   of pleasure, 26, 33.\n   Painful, 20.\n   Pleasure-pain, 4, 33.\n\n _Ferenczi_, 10, 52.\n\n Fixation, 20.\n\n _Fliess, W._, 56.\n\n Fright, 9, 36, 37.\n   -neurosis, 9.\n\n Furcht, 9.\n\n\n Game:\n   Child\u2019s, 12.\n   Meaning of, 13.\n   Painful experience repeated as, 13, 15, 43.\n   Repetition of, 43.\n\n Genital primacy, 69.\n\n Germ cell, 45, 54, 56, 64, 72, 76.\n   Narcissistic behaviour of, 63.\n\n Germ-plasm, 57, 58, 62.\n\n Goal, 47, 53.\n   Life-, 49.\n   Tendency towards, 4.\n   of life, 47\u20139, 51.\n   of organic striving, 47.\n\n _Goette_, 59.\n\n _Gomperz, Prof. Hein._, 74.\n\n\n _Hartmann, Max_, 59.\n\n Hate, 68, 69.\n\n Heredity, 45, 57.\n\n _Hering, E._, 62.\n\n \u2018Hunger and Love\u2019, 65.\n\n\n Imitation impulse, 16.\n\n Immortality, 50, 54, 56\u201362, 72.\n   of protozoa, 60.\n   of unicellular beings, 59.\n\n Impulse, 7, 14, 22, 51.\n   Conscious, 3.\n   Contemned, 38.\n   Imitation, 16.\n   Libidinous, 68.\n   of revenge, 14.\n   Play, 24.\n   Repressed, 20.\n   Sadistic, 69.\n   Stages of, 51.\n   towards higher development, 51.\n   towards perfection, 52\u20133.\n\n Inertia, in organic life, 45.\n\n Infantile:\n   influences, 22.\n   life, 44.\n   psychic life, 43.\n   sex-life, 18, 20.\n\n Inferiority complex, 21.\n\n Inheritance tendencies, 73.\n\n Inherited instinctive dispositions, 49.\n\n Instability, conditions of, 3.\n\n Instinct, 5, 6, 41, 46, 48\u201353, 64\u20138, 70, 73\u20134, 77, 79\u201380, 82\u20133.\n   Aim of, 46.\n   compelling repetition, 46.\n   Conception of, 44\u20135.\n   Conservative, 46, 48;\n     c. ego-, 54;\n     c. organic, 47;\n     c. sexual, 50.\n   Death-, 54\u20135, 58\u20139, 62\u20133, 67\u20139, 71\u20133, 77, 79, 82\u20133.\n   Destruction-, 79.\n   Ego-, 51, 54\u20135, 64, 66\u20138, 79;\n   Libidinous nature of, 79.\n   Egoistic-, 79.\n   excitations, 42, 81.\n   First, 47.\n   Foregoing the satisfaction of, 13.\n   for reunion, 76.\n   Inborn, 5.\n   Libidinous, 67\u20138, 79.\n   Life-, 50\u20131, 54\u20135, 57, 62\u20133, 67\u20138, 73, 77, 79, 82.\n   Narcissistic, 79.\n   Nature of, 44.\n   Object-, 79.\n   of self-assertion, 48.\n   Part-, 48, 69, 70, 80.\n   Power-, 14, 48.\n   Regressive character of, 76.\n   Repression of, 52.\n   Self-preservative, 5, 48, 49, 64, 66, 67, 68, 79.\n   Sexual, 49\u201351, 54, 55, 57, 63\u20138, 70, 72, 78, 79;\n     libidinous, 79,\n     libidinous components of, 69,\n     origin of, 74.\n   Theory of, 68, 70, 76.\n   Two kinds of, 57.\n   Unsatisfied, 6.\n   Vital, 63, 64.\n\n Introversion, 66.\n\n Investment-energy, quiescent (bound) and free-moving, 30.\n   _See_ Charge.\n\n\n Jealousy, 14, 21, 22.\n\n _Jung, C. G._, 23, 67.\n\n\n Katabolic processes, 63.\n\n\n Libido, 64\u20137, 79.\n   concept, 65, 70, 79.\n   development, 66.\n   directed towards the ego, 65\u20136.\n   distribution, 39\u201340.\n   Narcissistic, 66\u20137, 69, 79.\n   Oral stages of, 69.\n   quantities, 67.\n   Reservoir of, 66.\n   theory, 40, 63, 64, 67.\n\n Life, 47\u20138, 50, 55, 58, 62, 63.\n   Beginnings of, 79.\n   Dawn of, 51.\n   Forces tending to preserve, 62.\n   Goal of. _See under_ Goal.\n   -instincts. _See under_ Instincts.\n   Instinctive, 62.\n   Length of, 56.\n   Love-, 69.\n   Menace to, 36.\n   process, 71.\n   Prolongation of, 54, 58, 63, 73.\n   Properties of, 47.\n   Renewal of, 57, 71, 73.\n   Rhythm in, 50\u20131.\n   Stimuli dangerous to, 76.\n\n _Lipsch\u00fctz, Alex._, 59, 60, 71.\n\n _Loeb, J._, 61.\n\n Love, 21, 68, 69.\n\n _Low, Barbara_, 71.\n\n\n _Marcinowski_, 21.\n\n Masochistic tendencies of the ego, 10.\n\n Masochism, 70.\n   primary, 70.\n\n _Maupas_, 60.\n\n Mechanical:\n   concussion, 39.\n   force, 39.\n   shock, 8.\n   stimuli, 7.\n\n Memory, 22, 28.\n   -records, 27.\n   -traces, 27\u20138;\n     repressed, 44.\n\n Metabolism, 58, 61, 71.\n\n Metapsychology, 1, 26, 35.\n\n Metazoa, 57.\n\n Multicellular organisms, 57\u20138, 63, 76.\n\n\n Narcissism, 68, 76.\n\n Narcissistic:\n   behaviour of germ cells, 63.\n   instincts, 79.\n   libido, 66, 67, 69, 79.\n   over-charging of the injured part, 39\u201340.\n   scar, 20.\n\n Neuroses, 8\u20139, 18, 39.\n   Fright-, 9.\n   Shock, 10.\n   Theory of the, 49, 50, 64.\n\n Nirvana-principle, 71.\n\n\n Object, 63\u20136, 69, 70, 74, 78\u20139.\n   Annihilation of, 69.\n   Charging of, 64.\n   Injury of, 69.\n   -instinct, 79.\n   Libidinous investment of, 66.\n   -love, 68.\n   Sex-, 69.\n\n Oedipus complex, 18.\n\n Oral stage of libido, 69.\n\n Organic:\n   compulsion to repetition, 45.\n   development, 47.\n\n\n Pain, 35.\n   Bodily, 34.\n\n \u2018Pain\u2019, 1\u20133, 5\u20136, 20, 22, 26, 33, 38, 80\u20132.\n   Avoidance of, 1, 38.\n   feelings, 33.\n   Feelings (_Empfindungen_) of, 26.\n   Neurotic, 6.\n   Sensations of, 81.\n\n Part-instinct, 48, 69, 70, 80.\n\n Perfection, impulse towards, 52.\n\n _Pfeifer, S._, 11.\n\n Philosophy, 1, 2, 63, 65.\n\n _Plato_, 74\u20135.\n\n Play:\n   -impulse, 24.\n   of children, 11\u201316, 43.\n   Motive of, 16.\n\n Pleasure, 1\u20136, 11, 15, 16, 22, 26, 33, 38, 52, 81.\n\n Pleasure-pain, 4, 33, 82.\n\n Pleasure-principle, 1\u20137, 13, 15\u201316, 20, 24\u20135, 34, 37\u20139, 42\u20134, 71, 80\u20133.\n   Beyond the, 16, 24, 38.\n   Dominance of, 82.\n   Frustration of, 4\u20136.\n   Replaced by reality-principle, 5.\n   Supremacy of, 3.\n   Tendencies beyond, 16.\n\n Pleasure-tendency, 4.\n\n Power-instinct, 14.\n\n Preconscious, 19, 41.\n   ego, 19, 20.\n   material, 42.\n   residues, 42.\n\n Pregenital organisation, 69.\n\n Primary:\n   experience of satisfaction, 53.\n   Masochism, 70.\n   process, 80, 81.\n\n Projection, 33.\n\n Propagation, 57\u20139, 65, 69, 72.\n   and death, 59.\n   Death the consequence of, 59.\n   Function of, 79.\n   of energy, 28.\n   Sexual, 60, 72.\n\n Protective barrier, 31, 37, 41, 76.\n\n Protozoa, 55, 58\u201362, 70\u20131, 73, 76.\n   Immortality of, 60.\n\n Psychic:\n   apparatus, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 26, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42, 80, 81.\n   life, 2, 3, 15, 19, 24, 25, 34, 38, 71, 80, 82.\n   processes, 1, 4, 9, 26;\n     conscious, 32,\n     primary, 42,\n     secondary, 42.\n   systems, 27, 28, 30, 34, 35, 36.\n\n Punishment dreams, 38.\n\n _Pythagoras_, 75.\n\n\n _Rank_, 70.\n\n Reaction-formation, 53, 65.\n\n Reality-principle, 5, 7, 20, 42.\n   Pleasure-principle replaced by, 5.\n\n Regression, 46, 52, 70.\n\n Regressive character of:\n   ego-instincts, 54.\n   instincts, 76.\n\n Re-incarnation, 75.\n\n Reinstatement of:\n   earlier condition, 44, 46, 51, 74, 80.\n   lifelessness, 54.\n\n Rejuvenation, 60, 63, 71, 73.\n\n Repetition, 18, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 52, 55, 72.\n   Endless r. of the same, 23.\n   Instincts compelling, 46.\n   of identical experiences, 22\u20133,\n   processes, 80.\n\n Repetition-compulsion, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 38, 39, 42, 44, 55, 72, 76.\n   Organic, 45.\n\n Repressed:\n   impulses, 20.\n   instinct, 52.\n   material, 19, 20.\n   memory-traces, 44.\n   sex-impulses, 6.\n   The, 19, 38.\n\n Repressing agency, 65.\n\n Repression, 6, 18, 19, 24, 53.\n   of instinct, 52.\n\n Reproductive cells, 49, 50, 57.\n\n Resistance, 17, 19, 20, 24, 30, 53.\n\n Retrogression, 51\u20132.\n\n Return to:\n   lifelessness, 47.\n   the inorganic, 48, 81.\n\n _R\u00fcckert_, 83.\n\n\n Sadism, 69, 70.\n\n _Schopenhauer_, 63.\n\n Secondary process, 44, 80, 81, 82.\n\n Self-preservation:\n   Instinct of, 5, 48, 49, 64, 66, 68, 79.\n   Libidinous character of, 67.\n\n Sex, 57, 73, 78.\n   distinction, 51.\n   impulses, 5;\n     repressed, 6.\n   -life, infantile, 18, 20.\n   -object, 69.\n   -quest, 21.\n\n Sexuality, 51, 65, 57.\n   Conception of, 76.\n   Origin of, 73.\n\n Shock, 36.\n   -dream, 24.\n   Dreams of s. patients, 24.\n   Mechanical, 8.\n   neuroses, 10.\n   theory, 36.\n\n _Simmel_, 10.\n\n _Spielrein, Sabina_, 70.\n\n Stability:\n   Conditions of, 3.\n   Tendency towards, 4.\n\n _St\u00e4rcke, A._, 70.\n\n Stimulation, 83.\n   Protection against, 30, 32.\n\n Stimuli, 29\u201334, 37, 41, 50, 52, 76, 83.\n   Barrier against, 33, 34, 36, 37.\n   Chemical, 71.\n   Control of, 37.\n   dangerous to life, 76.\n   Defence against, 37.\n   Mechanical, 71.\n   Protection against, 31, 33.\n   Reception of, 29, 31, 32.\n\n Stimulus masses, 31, 34, 71.\n\n Sublimation, 52, 53.\n\n System:\n   Bw., 26, 28, 29.\n   W-Bw., 26, 27, 32.\n\n\n _Tasso_, 23.\n\n Tension, 82.\n   Unpleasant state of, 1.\n   Chemical, 71.\n   Relaxation of, 1, 53.\n\n Trauma, 34, 37, 39.\n   External, 34.\n   Fixation on, 10.\n\n Traumatic:\n   excitation, 34.\n   experiences, 10.\n   impressions, 39.\n   neurosis, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42;\n     dreams in, 37, 38.\n   neurosis of peace, 8.\n\n\n Unconscious, 17, 19, 27.\n   charges, 41.\n   mental process \u2018timeless\u2019, 32.\n   processes, 26, 27.\n   resistances, 19.\n   Systems, 41\u20132.\n   The, 19, 42.\n\n Unicellular beings, 57, 59, 63.\n   Immortality of, 59.\n\n Upanishads, 75.\n\n\n Vesicle, 29, 30, 31, 32.\n\n\n War neuroses, 8, 9, 10, 39.\n\n W-Bw., the system, 26\u20137, 32.\n\n _Weismann, A._, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 73.\n\n Wish-fulfilment, 37, 38.\n   tendency of dreams, 10;\n     prehistoric past of, 38.\n\n _Woodruff_, 59, 60, 61.\n\n\n _Ziegler, K._, 75.\n\n-----\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  op. cit., p. 90.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  Cp. Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses, by Ferenczi, Abraham, Simmel\n  and Ernest Jones; No. 2 of the International Psycho-Analytical\n  Library, 1921.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  1919, Bd. V, S. 243.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  This interpretation was fully established by a further observation.\n  One day when the mother had been out for some hours she was greeted on\n  her return by the information \u2018Baby o-o-o-o\u2019 which at first remained\n  unintelligible. It soon proved that during his long lonely hours he\n  had found a method of bringing about his own disappearance. He had\n  discovered his reflection in the long mirror which nearly reached to\n  the ground and had then crouched down in front of it, so that the\n  reflection was \u2018_fort_\u2019.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  When the child was five and three-quarter years old his mother died.\n  Now, when she was really \u2018gone\u2019 (o-o-o), the boy showed no grief for\n  her. A second child had, it is true, been born in the meantime and had\n  aroused his strongest jealousy.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  Cp. \u2018Eine Kindheitserinnerung aus \u201cDichtung und Wahrheit\u201d.\u2019 _Imago_,\n  1917, Bd. V, S. 49.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  See \u2018Zur Technik der Psychoanalyse. II. Erinnern, Wiederholen und\n  Durcharbeiten.\u2019 Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre. IV.\n  Folge, 1918, S. 441.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  Marcinowski: \u2018Die erotischen Quellen der Minderwertigkeitsgef\u00fchle\u2019,\n  _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Sexualwissenschaft_, 1918, IV.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  Cp. the pertinent observations of C. G. Jung in his article \u2018Die\n  Bedeutung des Vaters f\u00fcr das Schicksal des Einzelnen\u2019. _Jahrbuch f\u00fcr\n  psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen_, 1901, Bd. I.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  Thus named after the German words _Wahrnehmung_ (= perception) and\n  _Bewu\u00dftsein_ (= consciousness).\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  Here I follow throughout J. Breuer\u2019s exposition in the theoretical\n  section of the \u2018Studien \u00fcber Hysterie\u2019, 1895.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  J. Breuer and S. Freud: Studien \u00fcber Hysterie.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  Cp. \u2018Triebe und Triebschicksale\u2019, Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur\n  Neurosenlehre. IV. Folge, 1918.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses. Introduction. International\n  Psycho-Analytical Library. No. 2, 1921.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  Cp. Section VII, \u2018Psychology of the Dream-Processes\u2019 in my\n  \u2018Traumdeutung\u2019.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  I have little doubt that similar conjectures about the nature of\n  instinct have been already repeatedly put forward.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n  Compare the subsequent criticism of this extreme view of the\n  self-preservative instincts.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n  By a different route Ferenczi has arrived at the possibility of this\n  conception. (\u2018Stages of Development in the Sense of Reality\u2019. Ch. VIII\n  of his Contributions to Psycho-Analysis, 1916.) He writes: \u2018By\n  following through this process of thought logically one is obliged to\n  gain familiarity with the idea of a tendency to persistence or\n  regression governing organic life also, while the tendency to progress\n  in development, adaptation, etc. is manifested only as against\n  external stimuli.\u2019\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n  \u00dcber die Dauer des Lebens, 1882; \u00dcber Leben und Tod, 2. Aufl., 1892;\n  Das Keimplasma, 1892, etc.\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n  \u00dcber Leben und Tod, 2. Aufl., S. 20.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n  \u00dcber die Dauer des Lebens, S. 38.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n  \u00dcber Leben und Tod, 2. Aufl., S. 67.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n  \u00dcber die Dauer des Lebens, S. 33.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n  \u00dcber Leben und Tod. Conclusion.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n  Cp. Max Hartmann: Tod und Fortpflanzung, 1906; Alex. Lipsch\u00fctz: \u2018Warum\n  wir sterben\u2019, _Kosmosb\u00fccher_, 1914; Franz Doflein: Das Problem des\n  Todes und der Unsterblichkeit bei den Pflanzen und Tieren, 1919.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n  Hartmann: loc. cit., S. 29.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n  For this and what follows see Lipsch\u00fctz: Loc. cit., S. 26 and 52 ff.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n  \u2018\u00dcber die anscheinende Absichtlichkeit im Schicksale des Einzelnen\u2019.\n  Gro\u00dfherzog Wilhelm Ernst Auflage, Bd. IV, S. 268.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n  \u2018Zur Einf\u00fchrung des Narzissmus\u2019, _Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse_, Bd. VI,\n  1914, and Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, IV. Folge,\n  1918.\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n  Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, from the First Edition, 1905,\n  onwards.\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n  See Sexualtheorie, 4. Aufl., 1920, and \u2018Triebe und Triebschicksale\u2019 in\n  Sammlung kleiner Schriften, IV. Folge.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n  A considerable part of this speculation has been anticipated in a work\n  which is full of valuable matter and ideas but is unfortunately not\n  entirely clear to me: (Sabina Spielrein: \u2018Die Destruktion als Ursache\n  des Werdens\u2019, _Jahrbuch f\u00fcr Psychoanalyse_, IV, 1912). She designates\n  the sadistic component as \u2018destructive\u2019. In still another way A.\n  St\u00e4rcke (Inleiding by de vertaling von S. Freud, De sexuele\n  beschavingsmoral etc., 1914) has attempted to identify the libido\n  concept itself with the biological concept of an impulsion towards\n  death which is to be assumed on theoretical grounds (Cp. also Rank:\n  \u2018Der K\u00fcnstler\u2019). All these attempts, as the one in the text, indicate\n  how much the need is felt for a clarification in the theory of\n  instinct which we do not yet possess.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n  loc. cit.\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n  Although Weismann (Das Keimplasma, 1892) denies even this advantage:\n  \u2018Fertilisation in no way signifies a rejuvenation or renewing of\n  life,\u2014it is in no way necessary for the prolongation of life; it is\n  nothing but a device for making possible the blending of two different\n  inheritance tendencies.\u2019 Still, he considers an increase of\n  variability in living organisms to be the result of such blending.\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n  I am indebted to Prof. Heinrich Gomperz of Vienna for the following\n  indications as to the origin of the Platonic myth, which I repeat\n  partly in his own words: I should like to call attention to the fact\n  that essentially the same theory is also to be found in the\n  Upanishads. The Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad 1, 4, 3 (Deussen, 60\n  Upanishads des Veda, S. 393), where the creation of the world from the\n  \u00c2tman (the self or ego) is described, has the following passage \u2018Nor\n  did he (the \u00c2tman, the self or ego) experience any joy, and for that\n  reason no one has joy when he is alone. So he longed for a partner. He\n  was as big as a woman and a man together when they embrace. He divided\n  himself into two parts, which made a husband and a wife. This body is\n  therefore one half of the self, according to Yajnavalkya. And for the\n  same reason this empty space here becomes filled by the woman.\u2019\n\n  The Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad is the oldest of all the Upanishads, and\n  no expert authority would date it later than 800 B.C. In opposition to\n  the prevailing opinion I should not like definitely to deny the\n  possibility of Plato having been dependent, even though very\n  indirectly, on these Indian thoughts, for this possibility cannot be\n  absolutely put aside even for the doctrine of re-incarnation. A\n  dependence of this sort, first conveyed through Pythagoras, would\n  scarcely detract from the significance of the coincidence in thought,\n  for Plato would not have adopted any such story conveyed in some way\n  from Oriental traditions, let alone have given it such an important\n  place, had he not himself felt the truth contained in it to be\n  illuminating.\n\n  In an article by K. Ziegler (\u2018Menschen- und Weltwerden\u2019, _Neue\n  Fahrb\u00fccher f\u00fcr das klassische Altertum_, 1913, Band XXXI), which\n  contains a systematic investigation of the thought in question, it is\n  traced back to Babylonian ideas.\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n  I would here subjoin a few words to clarify our nomenclature, one\n  which has undergone a certain development in the course of our\n  discussion. What \u2018sexual instincts\u2019 are, we knew through their\n  relation to the sexes and to the function of propagation. We then\n  retained this term when the findings of psycho-analysis compelled us\n  to regard its relation to propagation as less close. With the\n  discovery of narcissistic libido, and the extension of the libido\n  concept to the individual cells, the sexual instinct became for us\n  transformed into the Eros that endeavours to impel the separate parts\n  of living matter to one another and to hold them together; what is\n  commonly called the sexual instinct appears as that part of the Eros\n  that is turned towards the object. Our speculation then supposes that\n  this Eros is at work from the beginnings of life, manifesting itself\n  as the \u2018life-instinct\u2019 in contradistinction to the \u2018death-instinct\u2019\n  which developed through the animation of the inorganic. It endeavours\n  to solve the riddle of life by the hypothesis of these two instincts\n  striving with each other from the very beginning. The transformation\n  which the concept of the \u2018ego-instincts\u2019 has undergone is perhaps\n  harder to review. Originally we applied this term to all those\n  instinct-directions\u2014not better known to us\u2014which can be distinguished\n  from the sexual instincts that have the object as their aim, thus\n  contrasting the ego-instincts with the sexual ones, the expression of\n  which is the libido. Later on we approached the analysis of the ego\n  and saw that a part also of the \u2018ego-instincts\u2019 is of a libidinous\n  nature, having taken its own self as an object. These narcissistic\n  instincts of self-preservation therefore had now to be reckoned to the\n  libidinous sexual instincts. The contrast between egoistic and sexual\n  instincts was now converted into one between egoistic and\n  object-instincts, both libidinous in nature. In its place, however,\n  arose a new contrast between libidinous (ego and object) instincts and\n  others whose existence can be determined in the ego and can perhaps be\n  detected in the destruction-instincts. Speculation transforms this\n  contrast into that of life-instincts (Eros) and death-instincts.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n  R\u00fcckert in the \u2018Makamen des Hariri.\u2019\n\n\n\n\n         PRINTED IN VIENNA BY THE SOCIETY FOR GRAPHIC INDUSTRY\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n              THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL LIBRARY\n\n                         Edited by ERNEST JONES\n\n    No. 1. ADDRESSES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. By J. J. PUTNAM, M.D. Emeritus\n           Professor of Neurology, Harvard University. With a Preface by\n           SIGM. FREUD, M.D., LL.D.\n\n    No. 2. PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND THE WAR NEUROSES. By DRS. S. FERENCZI\n           (Budapest), KARL ABRAHAM (Berlin), ERNST SIMMEL (Berlin) and\n           ERNEST JONES (London). INTRODUCTION by Professor SIGM. FREUD\n           (Vienna).\n\n     No. 3 THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC STUDY OF THE FAMILY. By J. C. FL\u00dcGEL,\n           B.A.\n\n    No. 4. BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE. By SIGM. FREUD M.D., LL.D.\n           Authorized Translation from the second German Edition by C.\n           J. M. HUBBACK.\n\n    No. 5. ESSAYS IN APPLIED PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. By ERNEST JONES M.D.\n           President of the International Psycho-Analytical Association.\n\n    No. 6. GROUP PSYCHOLOGY AND THE ANALYSIS OF THE EGO. By SIGM. FREUD\n           M.D., LL.D. Authorized Translation from the German by JAMES\n           STRACHEY.\n\n\n              THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS\n                        Directed by SIGM. FREUD\n\n                         Official Organ of the\n              INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL ASSOCIATION\n\n                         Edited by ERNEST JONES\n                      President of the Association\n\n                         With the Assistance of\n                  DOUGLAS BRYAN, J. C. FL\u00dcGEL (London)\n          A. A. BRILL, H. W. FRINK, C. P. OBERNDORF (New York)\n\n                          --------------------\n\n                            Issued Quarterly\n\n Subscription 30s. or $6.\u2014 per Volume of Four Parts (_c._ 500 pp.), the\n                    parts not being sold separately.\n\n               THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL PRESS\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n \u25cf Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.\n \u25cf Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last\n     chapter.\n \u25cf Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"Beyond the pleasure principle","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":23075}