sexual instincts, for which the theory of the neuroses claims a position
apart, lead us to quite another point of view. Not all organisms have
yielded to the external compulsion driving them to an ever further
development. Many have succeeded in maintaining themselves on their low
level up to the present time: there are in existence to-day, if not all,
at all events many forms of life that must resemble the primitive stages
of the higher animals and plants. And, similarly, not all the elementary
organisms that make up the complicated body of a higher form of life
take part in the whole path of evolution to the natural end, i.e. death.
Some among them, the reproductive cells, probably retain the original
structure of the living substance and, after a given time, detach
themselves from the parent organism, charged as they are with all the
inherited and newly acquired instinctive dispositions. Possibly it is
just those two features that make their independent existence possible.
If brought under favourable conditions they begin to develop, that is,
to repeat the same cycle to which they owe their origin, the end being
that again one portion of the substance carries through its development
to a finish, while another part, as a new germinal core, again harks
back to the beginning of the development. Thus these reproductive cells
operate against the death of the living substance and are able to win
for it what must seem to us to be potential immortality, although
perhaps it only means a lengthening of the path to death. Of the highest
significance is the fact that the reproductive cell is fortified for
this function, or only becomes capable of it, by the mingling with
another like it and yet different from it.
There is a group of instincts that care for the destinies of these
elementary organisms which survive the individual being, that concern
themselves with the safe sheltering of these organisms as long as they
are defenceless against the stimuli of the outer world, and finally
bring about their conjunction with other reproductive cells. These are
collectively the sexual instincts. They are conservative in the same
sense as the others are, in that they reproduce earlier conditions of
the living substance, but they are so in a higher degree in that they
show themselves specially resistant to external influences; and they are
more conservative in a wider sense still, since they preserve life
itself for a longer time. They are the actual life-instincts; the fact
that they run counter to the trend of the other instincts which lead
towards death indicates a contradiction between them and the rest, one
which the theory of neuroses has recognised as full of significance.
There is as it were an oscillating rhythm in the life of organisms: the
one group of instincts presses forward to reach the final goal of life
as quickly as possible, the other flies back at a certain point on the
way only to traverse the same stretch once more from a given spot and
thus to prolong the duration of the journey. Although sexuality and the
distinction of the sexes certainly did not exist at the dawn of life,
nevertheless it remains possible that the instincts which are later
described as sexual were active from the very beginning and took up the
part of opposition to the rôle of the ‘ego-instincts’ then, and not only
at some later time.
Let us now retrace our steps for the first time, to ask whether all
these speculations are not after all without foundation. Are there
really, _apart from the sexual instincts_, no other instincts than those
which have as their object the reinstatement of an earlier condition,
none that strive towards a condition never yet attained? I am not aware
of any satisfactory example in the organic world running counter to the
characteristic I have suggested. The existence of a general impulse
towards higher development in the plant and animal world can certainly
not be established, though some such line of development is as a fact
unquestionable. But, on the one hand, it is often merely a question of
our own valuation when we pronounce one stage of development to be
higher than another, and, on the other hand, biology makes clear to us
that a higher development in one particular is often purchased with, or
balanced by, retrogression in another. Then there are plenty of animal
forms the youthful stages of which teach us that their development has
taken a retrograde character rather than otherwise. Higher development
and retrogression alike might well be the results of external forces
impelling towards adaptation, and the part played by the instincts might
be confined in both cases to retaining the enforced changes as sources
of pleasure.[18]
Many of us will also find it hard to abandon our belief that in man
himself there dwells an impulse towards perfection, which has brought
him to his present heights of intellectual prowess and ethical
sublimation, and from which it might be expected that his development
into superman will be ensured. But I do not believe in the existence of
such an inner impulse, and I see no way of preserving this pleasing
illusion. The development of man up to now does not seem to me to need
any explanation differing from that of animal development, and the
restless striving towards further perfection which may be observed in a
minority of human beings is easily explicable as the result of that
repression of instinct upon which what is most valuable in human culture
is built. The repressed instinct never ceases to strive after its
complete satisfaction which would consist in the repetition of a primary
experience of satisfaction: all substitution- or reaction-formations and
sublimations avail nothing towards relaxing the continual tension; and
out of the excess of the satisfaction demanded over that found is born
the driving momentum which allows of no abiding in any situation
presented to it, but in the poet’s words ‘urges ever forward, ever
unsubdued’ (Mephisto in ‘Faust’, Act 1. Faust’s study.). The path in the
other direction, back to complete satisfaction, is as a rule barred by
the resistances that maintain the repressions, and thus there remains
nothing for it but to proceed in the other, still unobstructed
direction, that of development, without, however, any prospect of being
able to bring the process to a conclusion or to attain the goal. What
occurs in the development of a neurotic phobia, which is really nothing
but an attempt at flight from the satisfaction of an instinct, gives us
the prototype for the origin of this ostensible ‘impulse towards
perfection’ which, however, we cannot possibly ascribe to all human
beings. The dynamic conditions are, it is true, quite generally present,
but the economic relations seem only in rare cases to favour the
phenomenon.
VI
Our discussion so far results in the establishing of a sharp antithesis
between the ‘ego-instincts’ and the sexual instincts, the former
impelling towards death and the latter towards the preservation of life,
a result which we ourselves must surely find in many respects far from
adequate. Further, only for the former can we properly claim the
conservative—or, better, regressive—character corresponding to a
repetition-compulsion. For according to our hypothesis the ego-instincts
spring from the vitalising of inanimate matter, and have as their aim
the reinstatement of lifelessness. As to the sexual instincts on the
other hand: it is obvious that they reproduce primitive states of the
living being, but the aim they strive for by every means is the union of
two germ cells which are specifically differentiated. If this union does
not take place, then the germ cell dies like all other elements of the
multicellular organism. Only on this condition can the sexual function
prolong life and lend it the semblance of immortality. Of what important
happening then in the process of development of the living substance is
sexual reproduction, or its forerunner, the copulation of two individual
protozoa, the repetition? That question we do not know how to answer,
and therefore we should feel relieved if the whole structure of our
arguments were to prove erroneous. The opposition of ego- (or death-)
instincts and sexual (life-) instincts would then disappear, and the
repetition-compulsion would thereupon also lose the significance we have
attributed to it.
Let us turn back therefore to one of the assumptions we interpolated, in
the expectation that it will permit of exact refutation. We built up
further conclusions on the basis of the assumption that all life must
die from internal causes. We made this assumption so light-heartedly
because it does not seem to us to be one. We are accustomed so to think,
and every poet encourages us in the idea. Perhaps we have resolved so to
think because there lies a certain consolation in this belief. If man
must himself die, after first losing his most beloved ones by death, he
would prefer that his life be forfeit to an inexorable law of nature,
the sublime Ἀνάγκη, than to a mere accident which perhaps could have
been in some way avoided. But perhaps this belief in the incidence of
death as the necessary consequence of an inner law of being is also only
one of those illusions that we have fashioned for ourselves ‘so as to
endure the burden of existence’. It is certainly not a primordial
belief: the idea of a ‘natural death’ is alien to primitive races; they
ascribe every death occurring among themselves to the influence of an
enemy or an evil spirit. So let us not neglect to turn to biological
science to test the belief.
If we do so, we may be astonished to find how little agreement exists
among biologists on the question of natural death, that indeed the very
conception of death altogether eludes them. The fact of a certain
average length of life, at least among the higher animals, is of course
an argument for death from inner causes, but the circumstance that
certain large animals and giant trees reach a very great age, one not to
be computed up to now, once more removes this impression. According to
the grandiose conception of W. Fliess all the vital phenomena—and
certainly also death—are linked with the accomplishment of certain
periods of time, among which there finds expression the dependence of
two living substances, one male and one female, upon the solar year. But
observations of how easily and extensively the influences of external
forces can alter vital manifestations, especially in the plant world, as
to their occurrence in time, can hasten or retard them, militate against
the rigidity of the formulae laid down by Fliess and leaves at least
doubtful the universality of the laws he sought to establish.
The treatment of these themes, death and the duration of life among
organisms, in the works of A. Weismann[19] possesses the greatest
interest for us. This investigator originated the distinction of living
substance into a mortal and an immortal half; the mortal is the body in
the narrower sense, the soma, which alone is subject to natural death;
while the germ cells are potentially immortal, in so far as they are
capable under certain favourable conditions of developing into a new
individual, or expressed otherwise, of surrounding themselves with a new
soma.[20]
What here arrests our attention is the unexpected analogy with our
conception developed along so different a line of thought. Weismann, who
is considering living substance morphologically, recognises in it a
constituent which is the prey of death, the soma, the body viewed apart
from sex or heredity elements, and, on the other hand, an immortal part,
the germ-plasm, which serves the purpose of preservation of the species,
of propagation. We have fixed our attention not on the living matter,
but on the forces active in it, and have been led to distinguish two
kinds of instincts: those the purpose of which is to guide life towards
death, and the others, the sexual instincts, which perpetually strive
for, and bring about, the renewal of life. This sounds like a dynamic
corollary to Weismann’s morphological theory.
This appearance of an important correspondence vanishes as soon as we
examine Weismann’s pronouncement on the problem of death. For Weismann
admits the differentiation between the mortal soma and the immortal
germ-plasm only in relation to multicellular organisms; with the
unicellular beings the individual and the reproductive cell are still
one and the same.[21] The unicellular he thus affirms to be potentially
immortal; death appears only among the metazoa, the multicellular. This
death of the higher organisms is, it is true, a natural one, a death
from inner causes, but it does not depend on an inherent quality of the
living substance,[22] is not to be conceived as an absolute necessity
based on the nature of life.[23] Death is rather a purposive
contrivance, a phenomenon of adaptation to the external conditions of
life, because after the differentiation of the corporeal cells into soma
and germ-plasm the indefinite prolongation of the life of the individual
would have become a quite inexpedient luxury. With the appearance of
this differentiation among multicellular organisms death became possible
and expedient. Since then the soma of the higher organisms dies after a
certain time from internal causes; the protozoa, however, remain
immortal. Propagation, on the other hand, was not first introduced with
death; it is on the contrary a primordial property of living matter like
growth, in which it originated, and life has gone on uninterruptedly
from its inception on the earth.[24]
It is easy to see that to concede natural death to the higher organisms
does not greatly help our case. If death is a late acquisition of life,
then death instincts traceable to the beginning of life on this planet
no longer come into question. Multicellular organisms may continue to
die from internal causes, whether defect of differentiation or
imperfections of their metabolism; it possesses no interest for the
inquiry on which we are engaged. Such a conception and derivation of
death certainly more nearly approaches the ordinary human view of it
than the unwonted assumption of ‘death-instincts’.
The discussion which has centred round Weismann’s assertations has in my
opinion had no decisive result in any direction.[25] Many writers have
reverted to the standpoint of Goette (1883) who saw in death the direct
consequence of propagation. Hartmann does not regard as the
characteristic of death the appearance of a ‘corpse’, a piece of living
substance which has ‘died off’, but defines it as the ‘definitive end of
individual development’. In this sense protozoa are also subject to
death; with them death invariably coincides with propagation, but it is,
so to speak, disguised by the latter, for the whole substance of the
parent organism may be absorbed directly into the new individuals.[26]
The interest of the inquiry was soon directed towards testing
experimentally the asserted immortality of living substance in
unicellular beings. An American, named Woodruff, instituted a culture of
a ciliated infusorium, a ‘slipper-animalcule’, which reproduces itself
by division into two individuals; each time he isolated one of the
products and put it into fresh water. He traced the propagation to the
3029th generation, when he discontinued the experiment. The last
descendant of the first slipper-animalcule was just as lively as its
original ancestor, without any sign of age or degeneration: if such
numbers are convincing, the immortality of protozoa seemed thus
experimentally demonstrable.[27]
Other investigators have arrived at other results. Maupas, Calkins,
etc., found, in contradiction to Woodruff, that even these infusoria
after a certain number of divisions become weaker, decrease in size,
lose a portion of their organisation, and finally die if they do not
encounter certain invigorating influences. According to this, protozoa
die after a phase of senile decay just like higher animals, in direct
contravention of what is maintained by Weismann, who recognises in death
a late acquisition of living organisms.
Taking the net result of these researches together, we note two facts
which seem to afford us a firm foothold. First: if the animalculae, at a
time when they as yet show no signs of age, have the opportunity of
mingling with each other, of ‘conjugating’—afterwards again
separating—then they remain exempt from age, they have been
‘rejuvenated’. This conjugation is doubtless the prototype of sexual
propagation of higher organisms: as yet it has nothing to do with
multiplication, it is confined to the mingling of the substances of both
individuals (Weismann’s Amphimixis). The invigorating influence of
conjugation can also be replaced, however, by certain modes of
stimulation, changes in the composition of the nutrient fluid, raising
of temperature, or shaking. The famous experiment of J. Loeb will be
recalled, who by the application of certain chemical stimuli to the ova
of sea-urchins brought about processes of division which usually take
place only after fertilisation.
Secondly: it is after all probable that the infusoria are brought to a
natural death through their own vital process, for the contradiction
between Woodruff’s findings and those of others arises from Woodruff
having placed each generation in fresh nutrient fluid. When he refrained
from doing so he observed, as did the other investigators, that the
generations showed signs of age. He concluded that the animalculae were
injured by the products of metabolism which they gave off into the
surrounding fluid, and was then able to prove convincingly that only the
products of _its own_ metabolism had this effect in bringing about the
death of the generation. For in a solution over-saturated with waste
products of a distantly related species the very same animalculae throve
excellently which when allowed to accumulate in their own nutrient fluid
inevitably perished. Thus, left to itself, the infusorium dies a natural
death from the imperfect disposal of its own metabolic products: perhaps
all higher animals die ultimately from the same inability.
At this point the doubt may then occur to us whether any good purpose
has been served in looking for the answer to the question as to natural
death in the study of the protozoa. The primitive organisation of these
forms of life may conceal from us important conditions which are present
in them too, but can be recognised only among the higher animals where
they have achieved for themselves a morphological expression. If we
abandon the morphological point of view for the dynamic, it may be a
matter of entire indifference to us whether the natural death of the
protozoa can be proved or not. With them the substance later recognised
as immortal has not yet separated itself in any way from the part
subject to death. The instinctive forces which endeavour to conduct life
to death might be active in them too from the beginning and yet their
effect might be so obscured by that of the forces tending to preserve
life that any direct evidence of their existence becomes hard to
establish. We have heard, it is true, that the observations of
biologists allow us to assume such death-ward tending inner processes
also among the protozoa. But even if the protozoa prove to be immortal
in Weismann’s sense, his assertion that death is a late acquisition
holds good only of the outward manifestations of death, and does not
invalidate any hypothesis as to such processes as impel towards death.
Our expectation that biology would entirely put out of court any
recognition of the death-instincts has not been fulfilled. It is open to
us to occupy ourselves further with this possibility, if we have other
reasons for doing so. The striking resemblance between Weismann’s
separation of soma and germ-plasm and our distinction between the death
and the life-instincts remains unshaken, moreover, and retains its
value.
Let us dwell for a moment on this exquisitely dualistic conception of
the instinctive life. According to E. Hering’s theory of the processes
in living matter there course through it uninterruptedly two kinds of
processes of opposite direction, one anabolic, assimilatory, the other
katabolic, disintegrating. Shall we venture to recognise in these two
directions of the vital processes the activity of our two instinctive
tendencies, the life-instincts and the death-instincts? And we cannot
disguise another fact from ourselves, that we have steered unawares into
the haven of Schopenhauer’s philosophy for whom death is the ‘real
result’ of life[28] and therefore in so far its aim, while the sexual
instinct is the incarnation of the will to live.
Let us boldly try to go a step further. According to general opinion the
union of numerous cells into one vital connection, the multicellularity
of organisms, has become a means to the prolongation of their span of
life. One cell helps to preserve the life of the others, and the
cell-community can go on living even if single cells have to perish. We
have already heard that also conjugation, the temporary mingling of two
unicellular entities, has a preservative and rejuvenating effect on
both. The attempt might consequently be made to transfer the Libido
theory yielded by psycho-analysis to the relationship of the cells to
one another and to imagine that it is the vital or sexual instincts
active in every cell that take the other cells for their ‘object’,
partially neutralise their death-instincts, i. e. the processes
stimulated by these, and so preserve those cells in life, while other
cells do the same for them, and still others sacrifice themselves in the
exercise of this libidinous function. The germ cells themselves would
behave in a completely ‘narcissistic’ fashion, as we are accustomed to
describe it in the theory of the neuroses when an individual
concentrates his libido on the ego, and gives out none of it for the
charging of objects. The germ cells need their libido—the activity of
their vital instincts—for themselves as a provision for their later
enormous constructive activity. Perhaps the cells of the malignant
growths that destroy the organism can also be considered to be
narcissistic in the same sense. Pathology is indeed prepared to regard
the kernels of them as congenital in origin and to ascribe embryonal
attributes to them. Thus the Libido of our sexual instincts would
coincide with the Eros of poets and philosophers, which holds together
all things living.
At this point opportunity offers of reviewing the gradual development of
our Libido theory. The analysis of the transference-neuroses forced on
our notice in the first place the opposition between ‘sexual instincts’
which are directed towards an object and other instincts which we only
imperfectly discerned and provisionally described as ‘ego-instincts’.
Among the latter those which subserve the self-preservation of the
individual had the first claim for recognition. What other distinctions
were to be made, it was impossible to say. No knowledge would have been
so important for the establishment of a sound psychology as some
approximate understanding of the common nature and possible differences
of the instincts. But in no department of psychology did one grope more
in the dark. Everyone posited as many instincts or ‘fundamental
instincts’ as he pleased, and contrived with them just as the ancient
Greek philosophers did with their four elements: earth, air, fire and
water. Psycho-Analysis, which could not dispense with some kind of
hypothesis as to the instincts, adhered to begin with to the popular
distinction, typically represented by the phrase ‘hunger and love’. It
was at least no new arbitrary creation. With this one adequately covered
a considerable distance in the analysis of the psychoneuroses. The
conception of ‘sexuality’—and therewith that of a sexual
instinct—certainly had to Be extended, till it included much that did
not come into the category of the function of propagation, and this led
to outcry enough in a severe and superior or merely hypocritical world.