little nearer to the psychological ego, which was at first known to us
only as a repressing, censoring agency, capable of constituting
defences and reaction-formations. Critical and other far-seeing minds
had indeed for a long time raised objections to the narrowing of the
libido concept down to the energy of the sexual instinct as directed
to the object. But they omitted to say whence they obtained this
fuller comprehension, and failed to deduce anything from it of value
for Psycho-Analysis. In the course of more deliberate advance it came
under psycho-analytic observation how regularly libido is withdrawn
from the object and directed towards the ego (introversion), and
through the study of the libido-development of the child in its
earliest phases it became clear that the ego is the true and original
reservoir of the libido, which is extended to the object only from
this. The ego took its place as one of the sexual objects and was
immediately recognised as the choicest among them. Where the libido
thus remained attached to the ego it was termed ‘narcissistic’.[29]
This narcissistic libido was naturally also the expression of the
energy of sexual instincts in the analytical sense which now had to be
identified with the ‘instincts of self-preservation’, the existence of
which was admitted from the first. Whereupon the original antithesis
between the ego-instincts and the sexual instincts became inadequate.
A part of the ego-instincts was recognised as libidinous: in the ego
sexual instincts were found to be active—probably in addition to
others; nevertheless one is justified in saying that the old formula,
viz. that a psychoneurosis arises out of a conflict between the
ego-instincts and the sexual instincts, contained nothing that we
should have to reject to-day. Only, the difference of the two kinds of
instincts which was supposed originally to be in some kind of way
qualitative has now to be defined otherwise, namely on a topographical
basis. In particular the transference-neurosis, the real object of
psycho-analytic study, is still seen to be the result of a conflict
between the ego and libidinous investment of an object.
We are the more compelled now to accentuate the libidinous character of
the self-preservative instincts, since we are venturing on the further
step of recognising the sexual instinct as the Eros, the all-sustaining,
and of deriving the narcissistic libido of the ego from the sum of the
libido quantities that bring about the mutual adherence of the somatic
cells. But we now find ourselves suddenly confronted with this question:
If the self-preservative instincts are also of a libidinous kind, then
perhaps we have no other instincts at all than libidinous ones. There
are at least no others apparent. In that event we must admit the critics
to be in the right who from the first have suspected that
psycho-analysis makes sexuality the explanation of everything, or the
innovators like Jung who, quickly making up their mind, have used
‘libido’ as a synonym for ‘instinctive force’ in general. Is that not
so?
This result was at all events one not intended by us. On the contrary,
we took as our starting point a sharp distinction between the
ego-instincts (= death-instincts) and the sexual instincts (=
life-instincts). We were prepared indeed to reckon even the alleged
self-preservative instincts of the ego among death-instincts, a position
which we have since corrected and withdrawn from. Our standpoint was a
dualistic one from the beginning, and is so to-day more sharply than
before, since we no longer call the contrasting tendencies egoistic and
sexual instincts, but life-instincts and death-instincts. Jung’s libido
theory, on the other hand, is a monistic one; that he has applied the
term libido to his only instinctive energy was bound to create
confusion, but should not have any further effect on us. We suspect that
there are in the ego other instincts than those of self-preservation;
only we ought to be in a position to demonstrate them. Unfortunately so
little progress has been made in the analysis of the ego that this proof
becomes extraordinarily difficult of attainment. The libidinous
instincts of the ego may indeed be conjoined in a special way with other
ego-instincts of which we as yet know nothing. Before ever we had
clearly recognised narcissism, the conjecture was already present in the
minds of psychoanalysts that the ‘ego-instincts’ had drawn libidinous
components to themselves. But these are merely vague possibilities which
our opponents will hardly take into account. It remains an awkward fact
that analysis up to now has only put us in the position of demonstrating
libidinous impulses. The conclusion that therefore there are no others
is one to which we do not assent.
In the obscurity that at present shrouds the theory of instinct, we
shall certainly not do well to reject any idea that promises to throw
light. We have made the antithesis between the life and death-instincts
our point of departure. Object-love itself displays a second such
polarity, that of love (tenderness) and hate (aggression). What if we
could succeed in bringing these two polarities into relation with each
other, in tracing the one to the other! We have long recognised a
sadistic component of the sexual instinct:[30] it can, as we know,
attain independence, and as a perversion, dominate the whole sexual
trend of a person. In one of the organisations which I have termed
‘pregenital’ it appears as a dominating part-instinct. But how is one to
derive the sadistic impulse, which aims at the injury of the object,
from the life-sustaining Eros! Does not the assumption suggest itself
that this sadism is properly a death-instinct which is driven apart from
the ego by the influence of the narcissistic libido, so that it becomes
manifest only in reference to the object? It then enters the service of
the sexual function; at the oral stage of organisation of the libido,
amorous possession is still one and the same as annihilation of the
object; later the sadistic impulse separates itself, and at last at the
stage of the genital primacy it takes over with the aim of propagation
the function of so far overpowering the sex-object as the carrying out
of the sexual act demands. One might even say that the sadism expelled
from the ego has acted as guide to the libidinous components of the
sexual instinct; these later press on towards the object. Where the
original sadism experiences no abatement or fusion, the well-known
hate-love ambivalence of the love-life is set up.
If the above assumption is justifiable then we have met the challenge of
demonstrating an example of a death-instinct—though a displaced one.
This conception, however, is far from being evident, and creates a
frankly mystical impression. We incur the suspicion of having attempted
at all costs to find a way out of an _impasse_. We may appeal against
this verdict by saying that the assumption is no new one, that we have
once before made it when there was no question of an _impasse_. Clinical
observations forced upon us the view that the part-instinct of
masochism, the one complementary to sadism, is to be understood as a
recoil of the sadism on to the ego itself.[31] A turning of the instinct
from the object to the ego is, however, essentially the same as a
turning from the ego to the object, which is just now the new idea in
question. Masochism, the turning of the instinct against the self, would
then be in reality a return to an earlier phase of this, a regression.
The exposition I then gave of masochism needs correction in one respect
as being too exclusive: masochism may also be what I was there concerned
to deny, primary.[32]
Let us return, however, to the life-sustaining sexual instincts. We have
already learned from the investigation of the protozoa that the mingling
of two individuals without consequent partition, just as copulation
between two individuals which soon after separate, has a strengthening
and rejuvenating effect (v. s. Lipschütz). There is no sign of
degeneration in their descendents, and they also seem to have gained the
capacity for withstanding for a longer time the injurious results of
their own metabolism. I think that this one observation may be taken as
a prototype of the effect of sexual intercourse also. But in what way
does the blending of two slightly different cells bring about such a
renewal of life? The experiment which substitutes for conjugation among
protozoa the effect of chemical or even of mechanical stimuli[33] admits
of our giving a reply with certainty: it comes about by the introduction
of new stimulus masses. This is in close agreement with the hypothesis
that the life-process of an individual leads, from internal causes, to
the equalising of chemical tensions: i. e. to death, while union with an
individually different living substance increases these tensions—so to
speak, introduces new vital differentia, which then have to be again
lived out. For this difference between the two there must naturally be
one or more optima. Our recognition that the ruling tendency of psychic
life, perhaps of nerve life altogether, is the struggle for reduction,
keeping at a constant level, or removal of the inner stimulus tension
(the Nirvana-principle, as Barbara Low terms it)—a struggle which comes
to expression in the pleasure-principle—is indeed one of our strongest
motives for believing in the existence of death-instincts.
But the course of our argument is still disturbed by an uneasy feeling
that just in the case of the sexual instinct we are unable to
demonstrate that character of a repetition-compulsion which first put us
on the track of the death-instincts. It is true that the realm of
embryonic developmental processes offers an abundance of such repetition
phenomena—the two germ cells of sexual propagation and their life
history are themselves only repetitions of the beginning of organic
life: but the essential feature in the processes designed by the sexual
instinct is nevertheless the mingling of two cells. Only by this is the
immortality of the living substance among the higher forms of life
assured.
To put it in other words: we have to make enquiry into the origin of
sexual propagation and the source of the sexual instincts in general, a
task before which the lay mind quails and which even specialists have
not yet been able to solve. Let us, therefore, make a condensed
selection from all the conflicting accounts and opinions of whatever can
be brought into relation with our train of thought.
One view deprives the problem of propagation of its mysterious
attraction by representing it as part of the phenomenon of growth
(multiplication by division, germination, budding). The arising of
propagation by means of germ cells sexually differentiated might be
conceived, in accordance with the sober Darwinian mode of thought, as a
way of maintaining and utilising for further development the advantage
of the amphimixis which resulted in the first instance from the
fortuitous conjugation of two protozoa.[34] ‘Sex’ would not thus be of
very ancient origin and the extraordinarily powerful instincts which aim
at bringing about sexual union would thereby repeat something which once
chanced to happen and since became established as being advantageous.
The same question now recurs as arose in respect of death—namely,
whether the protozoa can be credited with anything beyond what they
exhibit, and whether we may assume that forces and processes which
become perceptible only in the case of the higher animals did first
arise in the more primitive. For our purpose the view of sexuality
mentioned above helps very little. The objection may be raised against
it that it presupposes the existence of life-instincts as already
operative in the simplest forms of life, for otherwise conjugation,
which works against the expiration of life and makes the task of dying
harder, would not have been retained and elaborated, but would have been
avoided. If, then, we are not to abandon the hypothesis of
death-instincts maintained, we must associate them with life-instincts
from the beginning. But we must admit that we are working here at an
equation with two unknown quantities. Anything else that science can
tell us of the origin of sexuality amounts to so little that this
problem may be likened to an obscurity into which not even the ray of an
hypothesis has penetrated. In quite another quarter, however, we
encounter such an hypothesis, but it is of so fantastic a kind—assuredly
a myth rather than a scientific explanation—that I should not venture to
bring it forward if it did not exactly fulfil the one condition for the
fulfilment of which we are labouring. That is to say, it derives an
instinct from the _necessity for the reinstatement of an earlier
situation_.
I refer, of course, to the theory that Plato in his Symposium puts into
the mouth of Aristophanes and which deals not only with the origin of
the sexual instinct but also with its most important variations in
relation to the object. ‘Human nature was once quite other than now.
Originally there were three sexes, three and not as to-day two: besides
the male and the female there existed a third sex which had an equal
share in the two first.... In these beings everything was double: thus,
they had four hands and four feet, two faces, two genital parts, and so
on. Then Zeus allowed himself to be persuaded to cut these beings in
two, as one divides pears to stew them.... When all nature was divided
in this way, to each human being came the longing for his own other
half, and the two halves embraced and entwined their bodies _and desired
to grow together again_.’[35]
Are we to follow the clue of the poet-philosopher and make the daring
assumption that living substance was at the time of its animation rent
into small particles, which since that time strive for reunion by means
of the sexual instincts? That these instincts—in which the chemical
affinity of inanimate matter is continued—passing through the realm of
the protozoa gradually overcome all hindrances set to their striving by
an environment charged with stimuli dangerous to life, and are impelled
by it to form a protecting covering layer? And that these dispersed
fragments of living substance thus achieve a multicellular organisation,
and finally transfer to the germ cells in a highly concentrated form the
instinct for reunion? I think this is the point at which to break off.
But not without a few words of critical reflection in conclusion. I
might be asked whether I am myself convinced of the views here set
forward, and if so how far. My answer would be that I am neither
convinced myself, nor am I seeking to arouse conviction in others.
More accurately: I do not know how far I believe in them. It seems to
me that the affective feature ‘conviction’ need not come into
consideration at all here. One may surely give oneself up to a line of
thought, and follow it up as far as it leads, simply out of scientific
curiosity, or—if you prefer—as advocatus diaboli, without, however,
making a pact with the devil about it. I am perfectly aware that the
third step in the theory of instinct which I am taking here cannot
claim the same certainty as the two former ones, viz. the extending of
the conception of sexuality and the establishing of narcissism. These
innovations were direct translations of observation into theory,
subject to no greater sources of error than is inevitable in anything
of the kind. The assertion of the regressive character of instinct
rests also, it is true, on observed material, namely on the facts of
the repetition-compulsion. But perhaps I have over-estimated their
significance. At all events there is no way of working out this idea
except by combining facts with pure imagination many times in
succession, and thereby departing far from observation. We know that
the final result becomes the more untrustworthy the oftener one does
this in the course of building up a theory, but the precise degree of
uncertainty is not ascertainable. One may thereby have made a
brilliant discovery or one may have gone ignominiously astray. In such
work I trust little to so-called intuition: what I have seen of it
seems to me to be the result of a certain impartiality of the
intellect—only that people unfortunately are seldom impartial where
they are concerned with the ultimate things, the great problems of
science and of life. My belief is that there everyone is under the
sway of preferences deeply rooted within, into the hands of which he
unwittingly plays as he pursues his speculation. Where there are such
good grounds for distrust, only a tepid feeling of indulgence is
possible towards the results of one’s own mental labours. But I hasten
to add that such self-criticism does not render obligatory any special
tolerance of divergent opinions. One may inexorably reject theories
that are contradicted by the very first steps in the analysis of
observation and yet at the same time be aware that those one holds
oneself have only a tentative validity. Were we to appraise our
speculations upon the life and death-instincts it would disturb us but
little that so many processes go on which are surprising and hard to
picture, such as one instinct being expelled by others, or turning
from the ego to an object, and so on. This comes only from our being
obliged to operate with scientific terms, i. e. with the metaphorical
expressions peculiar to psychology (or more correctly: psychology of
the deeper layers). Otherwise we should not be able to describe the
corresponding processes at all, nor in fact even to have remarked
them. The shortcomings of our description would probably disappear if
for the psychological terms we could substitute physiological or
chemical ones. These too only constitute a metaphorical language, but
one familiar to us for a much longer time and perhaps also simpler.
On the other hand we wish to make it quite clear that the uncertainty of
our speculation is enhanced in a high degree by the necessity of
borrowing from biological science. Biology is truly a realm of limitless
possibilities; we have the most surprising revelations to expect from
it, and cannot conjecture what answers it will offer in some decades to
the questions we have put to it. Perhaps they may be such as to
overthrow the whole artificial structure of hypotheses. If that is so,
someone may ask why does one undertake such work as the one set out in
this article, and why should it be communicated to the world? Well, I
cannot deny that some of the analogies, relations and connections
therein traced appeared to me worthy of consideration.[36]
VII
If this attempt to reinstate an earlier condition really is so universal
a characteristic of the instincts, we should not find it surprising that
so many processes in the psychic life are performed independently of the
pleasure-principle. This characteristic would communicate itself to
every part-instinct and would in that case concern a harking back to a
definite point on the path of development. But all that the
pleasure-principle has not yet acquired power over is not therefore
necessarily in opposition to it, and we have not yet solved the problem
of determining the relation of the instinctive repetition processes to
the domination of the pleasure-principle.
We have recognised that one of the earliest and most important functions
of the psychic apparatus is to ‘bind’ the instreaming instinctive
excitations, to substitute the ‘secondary process’ for the ‘primary
process’ dominating them, and to transform their freely mobile
energy-charge into a predominantly quiescent (tonic) charge. During this
transformation no attention can be paid to the development of ‘pain’,
but the pleasure-principle is not thereby annulled. On the contrary, the
transformation takes place in the service of the pleasure-principle; the
binding is an act of preparation, which introduces and secures its
sovereignty.
Let us distinguish function and tendency more sharply than we have
hitherto done. The pleasure-principle is then a tendency which subserves
a certain function—namely, that of rendering the psychic apparatus as a
whole free from any excitation, or to keep the amount of excitation
constant or as low as possible. We cannot yet decide with certainty for
either of these conceptions, but we note that the function so defined
would partake of the most universal tendency of all living matter—to
return to the peace of the inorganic world. We all know by experience
that the greatest pleasure it is possible for us to attain, that of the
sexual act, is bound up with the temporary quenching of a greatly
heightened state of excitation. The ‘binding’ of instinct-excitation,
however, would be a preparatory function, which would direct the
excitation towards its ultimate adjustment in the pleasure of discharge.
In the same connection, the question arises whether the sensations of
pleasure and ‘pain’ can emanate as well from the bound as from the
‘unbound’ excitation processes. It appears quite beyond doubt that the
‘unbound’, the primary, processes give rise to much more intense
sensations in both directions than the bound ones, those of the
‘secondary processes’. The primary processes are also the earlier in
point of time; at the beginning of mental life there are no others, and
we may conclude that if the pleasure-principle were not already in
action in respect to them, it would not establish itself in regard to
the later processes. We thus arrive at the result which at bottom is not
a simple one, that the search for pleasure manifests itself with far
greater intensity at the beginning of psychic life than later on, but
less unrestrictedly: it has to put up with repeated breaches. At a
maturer age the dominance of the pleasure-principle is very much more
assured, though this principle as little escapes limitations as all the
other instincts. In any case, whatever it is in the process of
excitation that engenders the sensations of pleasure and ‘pain’ must be
equally in existence when the secondary process is at work as with the
primary process.
This would seem to be the place to institute further studies. Our
consciousness conveys to us from within not only the sensations of
pleasure and ‘pain’, but also those of a peculiar tension, which again
may be either pleasurable or painful in itself. Now is it the ‘bound’
and ‘unbound’ energy processes that we have to distinguish from each
other by the help of these sensations, or is the sensation of tension to
be related to the absolute quantity, perhaps to the level of the charge,
while the pleasure-pain series refers to the changes in the quantity of
charge in the unit of time? We must also be struck with the fact that
the life-instincts have much more to do with our inner perception, since
they make their appearance as disturbers of the peace, and continually
bring along with them states of tension the resolution of which is
experienced as pleasure; while the death-instincts, on the other hand,
seem to fulfil their function unostentatiously. The pleasure-principle
seems directly to subserve the death-instincts; it keeps guard, of
course, also over the external stimuli, which are regarded as dangers by
both kinds of instincts, but in particular over the inner increases in
stimulation which have for their aim the complication of the task of
living. At this point innumerable other questions arise to which no
answer can yet be given. We must be patient and wait for other means and
opportunities for investigation. We must hold ourselves too in readiness
to abandon the path we have followed for a time, if it should seem to
lead to no good result. Only such ‘true believers’ as expect from
science a substitute for the creed they have relinquished will take it
amiss if the investigator develops his views further or even transforms
them.
For the rest we may find consolation in the words of a poet for the slow
rate of progress in scientific knowledge:
Whither we cannot fly, we must go limping.
· · · · ·
The Scripture saith that limping is no sin.[37]
INDEX
Acquired instinctive dispositions, 49.
Adaptation, 52.
Death a phenomenon of, 58.
Ambivalence, hate-love, 69.
Amphimixis, 60, 72.
Anabolic processes, 63.
Angst, 9.
Animalculae, 60, 61.
Anxiety dreams, 38.
Apprehension, 9, 37, 39.
_Aristophanes_, 74.
Barrier against stimuli, 33, 34, 36–7.
Binding, psychical, 30, 34–7, 39, 42, 44, 80–2.
_Breuer, J._, 10, 27, 30, 36, 42.
_Calkins_, 60.