Never before in any of my previous writings have I had the feeling so
strongly as I have now that what I am describing is common knowledge,
that I am requisitioning paper and ink, and in due course the labour of
compositors and printers, in order to expound things that in themselves
are obvious. For this reason, if it should appear that the recognition
of a special independent instinct of aggression would entail a
modification of the psycho-analytical theory of instincts, I should be
glad enough to seize upon the idea.
We shall see that this is not so, that it is merely a matter of coming
to closer quarters with a conclusion to which we long ago committed
ourselves and following it out to its logical consequences. The whole
of analytic theory has evolved gradually enough, but the theory of
instincts has groped its way forward under greater difficulties
than any other part of it. And yet a theory of instincts was so
indispensable for the rest that something had to be adopted in
place of it. In my utter perplexity at the beginning, I took as my
starting-point the poet-philosopher Schiller’s aphorism, that hunger
and love make the world go round. Hunger would serve to represent those
instincts which aim at preservation of the individual; love seeks for
objects: its chief function, which is favoured in every way by nature,
is preservation of the species. Thus first arose the contrast between
ego instincts and object instincts. For the energy of the latter
instincts and exclusively for them I introduced the term libido; an
antithesis was thus formed between the ego instincts and the libidinal
instincts directed towards objects, _i.e._ love in its widest sense.
One of these object instincts, the sadistic, certainly stood out from
the rest in that its aim was so very unloving; moreover, it clearly
allied itself in many of its aspects with the ego instincts, and its
close kinship with instincts of mastery without any libidinal purpose
could not be concealed, but these ambiguities could be overcome; in
spite of them, sadism plainly belonged to sexual life—the game of
cruelty could take the place of the game of love. Neurosis appeared as
the outcome of a struggle between the interests of self-preservation
and the claims of libido, a struggle in which the ego was victorious,
but at the price of great suffering and renunciations.
Every analyst will admit that none of this even now reads like
a statement long since recognized as erroneous. All the same,
modifications had to be made as our researches advanced from the
repressed to the repressing, from the object instincts to the ego. A
cardinal point in this advance was the introduction of the concept of
narcissism, _i.e._ the idea that libido cathects the ego itself, that
its first dwelling-place was in the ego, and that the latter remains
to some extent its permanent headquarters. This narcissistic libido
turns in the direction of objects, thus becoming object-libido, and
can transform itself back into narcissistic libido. The concept of
narcissism made it possible to consider the traumatic neuroses, as
well as many diseases bordering on the psychoses, and also the latter
themselves, from the psycho-analytic angle. It was not necessary to
abandon the view that the transference-neuroses are attempts on the
part of the ego to guard itself against sexuality, but the concept of
the libido was jeopardized. Since the ego-instincts were found to be
libidinal as well, it seemed for a time inevitable that libido should
become synonymous with instinctual energy in general, as C. G. Jung
had previously advocated. Yet there still remained in me a kind of
conviction, for which as yet there were no grounds, that the instincts
could not all be of the same nature. I made the next step in _Beyond
the Pleasure Principle_ (1920), when the repetition-compulsion and the
conservative character of instinctual life first struck me. On the
basis of speculations concerning the origin of life and of biological
parallels, I drew the conclusion that, beside the instinct preserving
the organic substance and binding it into ever larger units,[19] there
must exist another in antithesis to this, which would seek to dissolve
these units and reinstate their antecedent inorganic state. That is to
say, a death instinct as well as Eros; the phenomena of life would then
be explicable from the interplay of the two and their counteracting
effects on each other. It was not easy, however, to demonstrate the
working of this hypothetical death instinct. The manifestations of
Eros were conspicuous and audible enough; one might assume that
the death instinct worked silently within the organism towards its
disintegration, but that, of course, was no proof. The idea that part
of the instinct became directed towards the outer world and then showed
itself as an instinct of aggression and destruction carried us a step
further. The instinct would thus itself have been pressed into the
service of Eros, in that the organism would be destroying something
animate or inanimate outside itself instead of itself. Conversely, any
cessation of this flow outwards must have the effect of intensifying
the self-destruction which in any case would always be going on
within. From this example one could then surmise that the two kinds of
instincts seldom—perhaps never—appear in isolation, but always mingle
with each other in different, very varying proportions, and so make
themselves unrecognizable to us. Sadism, long since known to us as a
component-instinct of sexuality, would represent a particularly strong
admixture of the instinct of destruction into the love impulse; while
its counterpart, masochism, would be an alliance between sexuality and
the destruction at work within the self, in consequence of which the
otherwise imperceptible destructive trend became directly evident and
palpable.
The assumption of the existence of a death instinct or a destruction
instinct has roused opposition even in analytical circles; I know
that there is a great tendency to ascribe all that is dangerous and
hostile in love rather to a fundamental bipolarity in its own nature.
The conceptions I have summarized here I first put forward only
tentatively, but in the course of time they have won such a hold
over me that I can no longer think in any other way. To my mind they
are theoretically far more fruitful than any others it is possible
to employ; they provide us with that simplification, without either
ignoring or doing violence to the facts, which is what we strive after
in scientific work. I know that we have always had before our eyes
manifestations of the destruction instinct fused with erotism, directed
outwards and inwards in sadism and masochism; but I can no longer
understand how we could have overlooked the universality of non-erotic
aggression and destruction, and could have omitted to give it its
due significance in our interpretation of life. (It is true that the
destructive trend that is directed inwards, when it is not erotically
tinged, usually eludes our perceptions.) I can remember my own
defensive attitude when the idea of an instinct of destruction first
made its appearance in psycho-analytical literature and how long it
took until I became accessible to it. That others should have shown the
same resistance, and still show it, surprises me less. Those who love
fairy-tales do not like it when people speak of the innate tendencies
in mankind towards aggression, destruction and, in addition, cruelty.
For God has made them in his own image, with his own perfections; no
one wants to be reminded how hard it is to reconcile the undeniable
existence—in spite of all the protestations of Christian Science—of
evil with His omnipotence and supreme goodness. The devil is, in fact,
the best way out in acquittal of God; he can be used to play the same
economic rôle of outlet as Jews in the world of Aryan ideals. But even
so, one can just as well hold God responsible for the existence of the
devil as for the evil he personifies. In view of these difficulties,
it is expedient for every man to make humble obeisance on suitable
occasions in honour of the high-minded nature of men; it will assist
him to become universally beloved and much shall be forgiven unto him
on account of it.[20]
The name libido can again be used to denote the manifestations of
the power of Eros in contradistinction to the energy of the death
instinct.[21] We must confess that it is more difficult for us to
detect the latter, and to a great extent we can merely conjecture its
existence as a background to Eros, also that it eludes us wherever
it is not betrayed by a fusion with Eros. In sadism, where it bends
the erotic aim to its own will and yet at the same time gratifies the
sexual craving completely, we can obtain the clearest insight into its
nature and its relation to Eros. But even where it shows itself without
any sexual purpose, even in the blindest frenzy of destructiveness, one
cannot ignore the fact that satisfaction of it is accompanied by an
extraordinarily intense narcissistic enjoyment, due to the fulfilment
it brings to the ego of its oldest omnipotence-wishes. The instinct
of destruction, when tempered and harnessed (as it were, inhibited in
its aim) and directed towards objects, is compelled to provide the
ego with satisfaction of its needs and with power over nature. Since
the assumption of its existence is based essentially on theoretical
grounds, it must be confessed that it is not entirely proof against
theoretical objections. But this is how things appear to us now in the
present state of our knowledge; future research and reflection will
undoubtedly bring further light which will decide the question.
In all that follows I take up the standpoint that the tendency to
aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man,
and I come back now to the statement that it constitutes the most
powerful obstacle to culture. At one point in the course of this
discussion the idea took possession of us that culture was a peculiar
process passing over human life and we are still under the influence
of this idea. We may add to this that the process proves to be in
the service of Eros, which aims at binding together single human
individuals, then families, then tribes, races, nations, into one great
unity, that of humanity. Why this has to be done we do not know; it
is simply the work of Eros. These masses of men must be bound to one
another libidinally; necessity alone, the advantages of common work,
would not hold them together. The natural instinct of aggressiveness in
man, the hostility of each one against all and of all against each one,
opposes this programme of civilization. This instinct of aggression is
the derivative and main representative of the death instinct we have
found alongside of Eros, sharing his rule over the earth. And now,
it seems to me, the meaning of the evolution of culture is no longer
a riddle to us. It must present to us the struggle between Eros and
Death, between the instincts of life and the instincts of destruction,
as it works itself out in the human species. This struggle is what
all life essentially consists of and so the evolution of civilization
may be simply described as the struggle of the human species for
existence.[22] And it is this battle of the Titans that our nurses and
governesses try to compose with their lullaby-song of Heaven!