Part 5

The next step followed when Psycho-Analysis was able to feel its way a 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 In the course of more deliberate advance it came under psycho-analytic observation how regularly libido is withdrawn from the object and directed towards the ego (introversion), and through the study of the libido-development of the child in its earliest phases it became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.