freud 1922 beyond the pleasure principle k text

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vc ISIii^KPiaiWfelMllJffel liCHO-ANAUN0.4

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lEYOND THEPLEASUR EPRINCIPLEI


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THii INTERNATIONALPSYCHO-ANALYTICALLIBRARY

EDITED BY ERNEST JONESNo. 4


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1^ THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL LIBRARYNo. 4

BEYOND THEPLEASUREPRINCIPLEBY

SIGM. FRBUD, M.D, LL.D.

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION


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COPYRICHT 151;

INTERNATIONAL


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BEYOND THEPLEASUREPRINCIPLE


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BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

In the psycho-analytical theory of the mind we takeit for granted that the course of mental processes isautomatically regulated by 'the pleasure-principle': thatis to say, we believe that any given process originatesin an unpleasant state of tension and thereupondetermines for itself such a path that its ultimate issuecoincides with a relaxation of this tension, i.e. with


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2 Beyond the Pleasure Principleto describe and account for the facts falling within ourdaily sphere of observation. Priority and originality arenot among the aims which psycho-analysis sets itself,and the impressions on which the statement of thisprinciple is founded are of so unmistakable a kind that

I, it is scarcely possible to overlook them. On the otherhand, we should willingly acknowledge our indebted-ness to any philosophical or psychological theory thatcould tell us the meaning of these feelings of pleasureand 'pain' which affect us so powerfully. Unfortun-ately no theory of any value is forthcoming. It is theobscurest and least penetrable region of psychic lifeand, while it is impossible for us to avoid touching onit, the most elastic hypothesis will be, to my mind,the best. We have decided to consider pleasure and' pain ' in relation to the quantity of excitation presentin the psychic lifeand not confined in any way along


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 3as G. Th. Fechner has advocated a conception of pleas-ure and 'pain' which in essentials coincides with thatforced upon us by psycho-analytic work. Fechner'spronouncement is to be found in his short work ' EinigeIdeen zur Schopfungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte derOrganismen', 1873 (Section XI, Note p. 94) and readsas follows: 'In so far as conscious impulses always beara relation to pleasure or "pain", pleasure or "pain"may be thought of in psycho-physical relationship toconditions of stability and instability, and upon thismay be based the hypothesis I intend to develop else-where, viz.: that every psycho-physical movement risingabove the threshold of consciousness is charged withpleasure in proportion as it approximatesbeyond acertain limitto complete equilibrium, 'and iwith'" pain"in proportion as it departs from it beyond a certain

the two limits which may


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4 Beyond the Pleasure Principleconstancy; in reality the principle of constancy wasinferred from the facts that necessitated our assump-tion of the pleasure-principle. On more detailed dis-cussion we shall find further that this tendency on thepart of the psychic apparatus postulated by us maybe classified as a special case of Fechner's principleof the tendency towards stability to which he has relatedthe pleasure-pain feelings.

In that event, however, it must be affirmed that itis not strictly correct to speak of a supremacy of thepleasure-principle over the course of psychic processes.If such existed, then the vast majority of our psychicprocesses would necessarily be accompanied by pleasureor would conduce to it, while the most ordinaryexperience emphatically contradicts any such conclusion.One can only say that a strong tendency towards the


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 5The first case of such a check on the pleasure-

principle is perfectly familiar to us in the regularityof its occurrence. We know that the pleasure-principleis adjusted to a primary mode of operation on thepart of the psychic apparatus, and that for the pre-servarion of the organism amid the difficulties of theexternal world it is ab initio useless and indeed extre-mely dangerous. Under the influence of the instinctof the ego for self-preservation it is replaced by the* reality-principle', which without giving up the intentionof ultimately attaining pleasure yet demands andenforces the postponement of satisfaction, the renun-ciation of manifold possibilities of it, and the temporaryendurance of 'pain' on the long and circuitous roadto pleasure. The pleasure-principle however remainsfor a long time the method of operation of the seximpulses, which are not so easily educable, and it


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6 Beyond the Pleasure PrincipleaUowed to develop to the same stage. On the wayit over and again happens that particular instincts, orportions of them, prove irreconcUable in their aims ordemands with others which can be welded into thecomprehensive unity of the ego. They are thereuponspht off from this unity by the process of repression,retained on lower stages of psychic development,and for the time being cut off from aU possibility ofgratification. If they then succeed, as so easUy happenswitii the repressed sex-impulses, in fighting their waythroughalong circuitous routesto a direct or a substi-tutive gratification, this success, which might otherwisehave brought pleasure, is experienced by the ego asI

pain'. In consequence of the old conflict which endedin repression the pleasure-principle has been violatedanew, just at the moment when certain impulses wereat work on the achievement of fresh pleasure in pur-


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 7or may arouse painful anticipations in the psychic appara-tus and is recognised by it as ' danger'. The reaction tothese claims of impulse and these threats of danger, areaction in which the real activity of the psychicapparatus is manifested, may be guided correctly by thepleasure-principle or by the reality-principle which modi-ties this. It seems thus unnecessary to recognise a stillmore far-reaching limitation of the pleasure-principle,and nevertheless it is precisely the investigation of thepsychic reaction to external danger that may supplynew material and new questions in regard to theproblem here treated.


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n

After severe shock of a mechanical nature, railwaycollision or other accident in which danger to life isinvolved, a condition may arise which has long beenrecognised and to which the name 'traumatic neurosis'is attached. The terrible war that is just over has beenresponsible for an immense number of such maladiesand at least has put an end to the inclination


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 9some light was contributed, but also on the otherhand a certain confusion introduced, by the fact thatthe same 'type of malady could occasionally occurwithout the interposition of gross mechanical force. Inthe traumatic neuroses there are two outstandingfeatures which might serve as clues for further

reflec-tion- first that the chief causal factor seemed to hein the element of surprise, in the frightj and secondlythat an injury or wound sustained at the same timegenerally tended to prevent the occurrence of the neu-rosis Fright, fear, apprehension are incorrectly usedas synonymous expressions: in their relation to dangerthey admit of quite clear distinction- ApprehensionUnzst) denotes a certain condition as of expectationof danger and preparation for it. even though it be anunknown one; fear iFurcht) requires a definite objectof which one is afraid; fright {SchrecH) is

the name


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ro Beyond the Pleasure Principleobtrusion on the patient over and again, even insleep, of the impression made by the traumatic ex-perience is taken as being merely a proof of itsstrength. The patient has so to speak undergone apsychical fixation as to the trauma. Fixations of thiskind on the experience which has brought aboutthe malady have long been known to us inconnection with hysteria. Breuer and Freud statedin 1893 that hysterics suffer for the most part fromreminiscences. In the war neuroses, observers, such asFerenczi and Simmel, have been able to explain anumber of motor symptoms as fixation on the factorof the trauma.

But I am not aware that the patients sufferingfrom traumatic neuroses are much occupied in wakinalife with the recollection of what happened to them.They perhaps strive rather not to think of it.


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 1

1 propose now to leave the obscure and gloomytheme of the traumatic neuroses and to study theway in which the psychic apparatus works in one ofits earliest normal activities. I refer to the play otchildren.

The different theories of child-playhave recently

been collated by S. Pfeifer in Imago- and theiranalytical value estimated; I may here refer the readerto this work. These theories endeavour to conjecturethe motives of children's play, though without placingany special stress on the 'economic' point of view,i. e. consideration of the attainment of pleasure. Withoutthe intention of making a comprehensive study of thesephenomena 1 availed myself of an opportunity whichoffered of elucidating the first game invented byhimself of a boy eighteen months old. It was morethan a casual observation, for I lived for

some weeks


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12 Beyond the Pleasure Principlerooms; and above all he never cried when hismother went out and left him for hours together,although the tie to his mother was a very closeone: she had not only nourished him herself, buthad cared for him and brought him up withoutany outside help. Occasionally, however, this well-behaved child evinced the troublesome habit offlinging into the corner of the room or under thebed all the little things he could lay his handson, so that to gather up his toys was often nolight task. He accompanied this by an expressionof interest and gratification, emitting a loud lona-drawn-out 'o-o-o-oh' which in the judgement ofthe mother (one that coincided with my own) wasnot an interjection but meant 'go away' {fort).I saw at last that this was a game, and that the childused all his toys only to play 'being gone' (fortsein)


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game for its own sake, although the greater pleasTireunquestionably attached to the second act.^

The meaning of the game was then not farseek It was connected with the child's remarkablecutoal achievement-the foregoing of the satisfactionof an instinct-as the result of which he could

let Ins

mother go away without making any fuss. He madeit right with himself, so to speak, by dramatismg thesame disappearance and return with the objects hehad at hand. It is of course of no importance for theaffective value of this game whether the child inventedit himself or adopted it from a suggestion from out-side Our interest wiU attach itself to another point.The* departure of the mother cannot possibly havebeen pleasant for the child, nor merely a matter ofindifference. How then does it accord with the pleasure-principle that he repeats this painful experience' as a


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H Beyond the Pleasure Principlefrequently than the whole drama with its joyfulconclusion.

The analysis of a single case of this kind yieldsno sure conclusion: on impartial consideration one ^ainsthe impression that it is from another motive that thechild has turned the experience into a game. He was"1 the first place passive, was overtaken by theexperience, but now brings himself in as playing anactive part, by repeating the experience as a gamem spite of its unpleasing nature. This effort might beascribed to the impulse to obtain the mastery of asituation (the 'power' instinct), which remains independent of any question of whether the recollectionwas a pleasant one or not. But another interpretationmay be attempted. The fiinging away of the objectso that It is gone might be the gratification of animpulse of revenge suppressed in real life but

n:


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle I5

It is known of other chUdren also that they cangive vent to sin^ilar hostile feeUngs by throwing objectsfway in place of people.^ Thus one .s left m doubtwhether the compulsion to ^vork over m psychic lifewha has made a deep impression, to make oneself

XI master of it, can express itself primarily andtlv^:Zy, of ;he pleasure-principle In the caseed here, however, the child might have repeateda disagreeable impression in play only because

with

the repetition was bound up a pleasure gam of adifferent kind but more direct.

Nor does the further pursuit of the question ofplay resolve our hesitations between two concepuonsWe see that children repeat in their play everythingTt has made a great impression on them in actuaUfe that they thereby abreact the strength

of the

so tothemselves mas r


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/1 Beyond the Pleasure Principleplay the chUd applies to his playfellow the unpleasantoccurrence that befell himself and so avenges himselfon the person of this proxy.From this discussion it 'p at all events evidentthat it is unnecessary to assume a particular imitationimpulse as the motive of play. We [may add thereminder that the dramatic and imitative art of adults,which differs from the behaviour of children in beingdirected towards the spectator, does not howeverspare the latter the most painful impressions, e. g. intragedy, and yet can be felt by him "as highly enjoy-able. This convinces us that even under the dominationof the pleasure-principle there are ways and means ^enough of making what is in itself disagreeable the ^object of memory and of psychic pre-occupation. A ;theory of aesthetics with an economic point of view ^.should deal with these cases situations '"


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in

Five-and-twenty years of intensive work havebrought about a complete change in the more immed-iate aims of psycho-analytic technique. At first tlieendeavours of the analytic physician were confined todivining the imconscious of which his patient wasunaware, effecting a synthesis of its various components

it at the right time. Psycho-


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1 Beyo7id the Pleasure Principle

repressed, perhaps not even the essential part of it,and so gains no conviction that the conclusionpresented to him is correct. He is obliged ratherto repeat as a current experience what is repressed,instead of, as the physician would prefer to see himdo, recollecting it as a fragment of the past.^ Thisreproduction appearing with unwelcome fidelity alwayscontains a fragment of the infantile sex-life, there-fore of the Oedipus complex and its off-shoots, andis played regularly in the sphere of transference,i. e. the relationship to the physician. When this pointin the treatment is reached, it may be said thatthe earlier neurosis is now replaced by a fresh oneviz. the transference-neurosis. The physician makes ithis concern to limit the scope of this transference-nem-osis as much as he can, to force into memory as

as possible, to as little as possible


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 19In order to render more comprehensible this

'repetition-compulsion' which appears in the psycho-analytic treatment of neurotics, we must above all getentirely rid of the erroneous idea that in this strugglewith resistances we are concerned with any resistanceon the part of the unconscious. The unconscious, i. e. the'repressed' material, offers no resistance whatever tothe curative efforts; indeed it has no other aim thanto force its way through the pressure weighing on it,either to consciousness or to discharge by means of somereal action. The resistance in the treatment proceeds fromthe same higher levels and systems in the psychic lifethat in their time brought about the repression. Butsince the motives of the resistances, and indeed theresistances themselves, are found in the process of thetreatment to be unconscious, we are well advised to

in


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20 Beyond the Pleasure PrincipleThere is no doubt that the resistance of the con-

scious and preconscious ego subser^'cs the pleasure-principle; it is trying to avoid the *pain' that wouldbe aroused by the release of the repressed material,and our efforts are directed to effecting an entryfor such painful feeling by an appeal to the reality-principle. In what relation to the pleasure-principlethen does the repetition-compulsion stand, that whichexpresses the force of what is repressed ? It is plainthat most of what is revived by the repetitior--compuision cannot but bring discomfort to the ego, forit promotes the bringing to light of the activities ofrepressed impulses; but that is a discomfort we havealready taken into account and without subversion ofthe pleasure-principle, since it is 'pain' in respect ofone system and at the same time satisfaction for the


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 2i

given by Marcinowski,i yields the most importantcontribution to the 'inferiority complex' commonamong neurotics. The sex-quest to which the physicaldevelopment; of the child set limits could be broughtto no satisfying conclusion; hence the plaint in laterlife: '"I can't do anything, I am never successful.'The bonds of tenderness linking the child moreespecially to the parent of the opposite sex succum-bed to disappointment, to the vain expectationof satisfaction, and to the jealousy aroused by thebirth of a new child, unmistakable proof as it is ofthe faithlessness of the loved parent; the child'sattempt, undertaken with tragic seriousness, to produceanother such child himself met with humiliatingfailure; while the partial withdrawal of the tendernesslavished on the little one, the more exacting demands


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22 Beyond the Pleasure Principle *suitable objects for their jealousy, they substitute forthe ardently desired child of early days the promiseof some great gift which becomes as little real asthat was. Nothing of all this could ever have affordedany pleasure; one would suppose it ought to bring *somewhat less 'pain' if revealed as memory ratherthan if lived through as a new experience. It is aquestion naturally of the action of impulses that shouldlead to satisfaction, but the experience that insteadof this they even then brought ' pain ' has borne noresult. The act is repeated in spite of everything; apowerful compulsion insists on it.

That which psycho-analysis reveals in the trans-ference phenomena with neurotics can also be ob-served in the life of normal persons. It here givesthe impression of a pursuing fate, a daemonic trait in


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 23other person with authority either in their own eyesor generally, and then:iselves overthrow such authorityafter a given time, only to replace it by a new one;lovers whose tender relationships with women eachand all run through the same phases and come to thesame end, and so on. We are less astonished at this' endless repetition of the same ' if there is involveda question of active behaviour on the part of the personconcerned, and if we detect in his character anunalterable trait which must always manifest itself inthe repetition of identical experiences. Far more strikingare those cases where the person seems to be ex-periencing something passively, without exerting anyinfluence of his own, and yet always meets with thesame fate over and over again. One may recall, forexample, the story of the woman who married three

fell ill


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24 - Beyond the Pleasure Principleand the voice of Clorinda whose soul is imprisonedin the tree cries out to him in reproach that he hasonce more wrought a baleful deed 'on his beloved.

In the light of such observations as these, drawnfrom the behaviour during transference and from the |fate of human beings, we may venture to make the ^assumption that there really exists in psychic] life arepetition-compulsion, which goes beyond the pleasure-principle. We shall now also feel disposed to relateto this compelling force the dreams of shock-patientsand the play-impulse in children. We must of courseremind ourselves that only in rare cases can werecognise the workings of this repetition-compulsionin a pure form, without the co-operation of othermotives. As regards children's play we have akeadypointed out what other interpretations its origin


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 2$of a repetition-compulsion, and this seems to us moreprimitive, more elementary, more instinctive than thepleasure-principle which is displaced by it. But if thereis such a repetition-compulsion in psychic life, we shouldnaturally like to know with what function it corresponds,under what conditions it may appear, and in whatrelation it stands to the pleasure-principle, to whichwe have heretofore ascribed the domination over thecourse of the processes of excitation in the psychic life.


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IV

What follows now is speculation, speculation oftenfar-fetched, which each will according to his particularattitude acknowledge or neglect. Or one may caU itthe exploitation of an idea out of curiosity to seewhither it will lead.

Psycho-analytic speculation starts from the impres-sion gained on investigating unconscious processes that


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 27the other psychic systems. We then note that in thisassumption we have ventured nothing new, but are inagreement with the localising tendencies of cerebralanatomy, which places the 'seat' of consciousness inthe coi-tical layer, the outermost enveloping layer ofthe central organ. Cerebral anatomy does not need towonder whyanatomically speakingconsciousnessshould be accomodated on the surface of the brain,instead of being safely lodged somewhere in the deepestrecesses of it. Perhaps we may carry matters a littlefurther than this in our deduction of such a positionfor our system W-Bw.

Consciousness is not the only peculiar feature thatwe ascribe to the processes in this system. Our im-pressions gained by psycho-analytic experience leadus to the supposition that all excitation processes in


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28 Beyond the Pleasure Principle

system whose functioning is otherwise accompaniedby the phenomenon of consciousness. We should, soto speak, have gained nothing and altered nothingby our supposition which relegates to a special systemthe process of becoming conscious. Though this mavnot be an absolutely binding consideration, it mayat any rate lead us to conjecture that becoming con-scious and leaving behind a memory-trace are processesincompatible with each other in the same system.We should thus be able to say: in the system Bw. theprocess of excitation becomes conscious but it leavesbehind no lasting tracer all the traces of it on whichmemory relies would come about in the next systemsinwards from the propagation of the excitation on tothem. It is on these lines that the scheme is sketchedwhich I inserted into the speculative section of my


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 29well be the exposed situation of the Bw. system-its immediate contact with the outer world.

Let us imagine the living organism in the simplest pos-sible form as an undifferentiated vesicle of sensitive sub-stance : then its surface, exposed as it is to the outer world,is by its very position differentiated and

serves as anorgan for receiving stimuli. Embryology, repeating asit does the history of evolution, does in fact showthat the central nen^ous system arises from the ecto-derm; the grey cortex of the brain remains a deriva-tive of the primitive supei-ficial layer and may haveinherited essential properties from this. It would thenbe easily conceivable that, owing to the constantimpact of external stimuli on the superficies of thevesicle, its substance would undergo lasting alterationto a certain depth, so that its excitation process takesdeeper layers.


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from one element to another, to overcome a resist-ance, and that this diminution of the resistanceitself lays down the permanent trace of the excitation(a path): in system Bw. there would no longer existany such resistance to transmission from one elementto another. We may associate with this conceptionBreuer's distinction between quiescent (bound) and free-moving 'investment-energy' in the elements of thepsychic systems;! the elements of the system Bw.would then convey no ' bound ' energy, only free energycapable of discharge. In my opinion, however, it isbetter for the present to express oneself as to theseconditions in the least committal way. At any rate bythese speculations we should have brought the originof consciousness into a certain connection with theposition of the system Bw. and with the peculiarities


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 31intensity on the layers immediately below which havepreserved their vitality. These are now able undercover of the protecting layer to devote themselves tothe reception of those stimulus masses that have beenlet through. But the outer layer has by its o\vn deathsecured all the deeper layers from a like fate^atleast so long as no stimuli present themselves of sucha strength as to break through the protective barrier.For the living organism protection against stimuli isalmost a more important task than reception of stim-uli j the protective barrier is equipped with its ownstore of energy and must above all endeavour to pro-tect the special forms of energy-transformations goingon within itself from the equalising and therefore de-structive influence of the enormous energies at workin the outer world. The reception of stimuli serves


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small quantities of the outer stimulus, and take in onlysamples of the outer world; one might compare themto antennae which touch at the outer world and thenconstantly withdraw from it again.

At this point I shall permit myself to touch curs-orily upon a theme which would deserve the mostthorough treatment. The Kantian proposition that timeand space are necessary modes of thought [may besubmitted to discussion to-day in the light of certainknowledge reached through psycho-analysis. We havefound by experience that unconscious mental processesare in themselves 'timeless'. That is to say to beginwith : they are not arranged chronologically, time altersnothing in them, nor can the idea of time be appliedto them. These are negative characteristics, which canbe made plain only by instituting a comparison witli

-^s


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 33system between outer and inner and the differencein the conditions under which this receptivity operateson the two sides become deciding factors for thefunctioning of the system and of the whole psychicapparatus. Towards the outer world there is a barrieragainst stimuli, and the mass of excitations comingup against it will take effect only on a reduced scale;towards what is within no protection against stimuliis possible, the excitations of the deeper layers pursuetheir way direct and in undiminished mass into thesystem, while certain characteristics of their courseproduce the series of pleasure-pain feelings. Naturallythe excitations coming from within will, in conformitywith their intensity and other qualitative characteristics(or possibly their amplitude), be more proportionateto the mode of operation of the system than thestimuli streaming in from the outer world. Two things


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comprehension of the supremacy of the pleasure-principle, but we have not attained to an explanationof those cases which are opposed to it. Let us thereforego a step further. Such external excitations as arestrong enough to break through the barrier againststimuli we call traumatic. In my opinion the concept of .trauma involves such a relationship to an otherwiseefficacious barrier. An occurrence such as an external itrauma will undoubtedly provoke a very extensive |disturbance in the workings of the energy of the

|

organism, and will set in motion every kind of pro-j

tective measure. But the pleasure-principle is to begin |with put out of action here. The flooding of the

j

psychic apparatus with large masses of stimuli can no .longer be prevented: on the contrary, another task

j

presents itselfto bring the stimulus under control,,

to 'bind' in the psyche the stimulus mass that hasj^

m ~


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Beyond the Pleasiire Principle 35so that a wide-spread paralysis or diminution of otherpsychic activity follows. We endeavour to learn fromexamples such as these to base our metapsychologicalconjectures on such prototypes. Thus from this be-haviour we draw the conclusion that even a highlycharged system is able to receive new energy stream-ing in, to convert it into a 'quiescent charge', thusto 'bind' it psychically. The more intense is the in-trinsic quiescent charge the greater is its binding forceand conversely the lower the charge of the systemthe less capable is it of receiving the energy thatstreams in, and so the more violent are the conse-quences when the barrier against stimuli is brokenthrough. It is not a valid objection to this view thatthe intensifying of the charges round the place ofirruption could be much more simply explained as


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36 Beyond the Pleasure Prificiplewhich we carry over into every new formula. Thatthis process is accomplished wdth energies which differquantitatively is an easily admissible postulate, that italso has more than one quality (e.g. in the directionof amplitude) may be regarded as probable : the newconsideration we have brought in is Breuer's propos-ition that we have to do with two ways in which asystem may be filled with energy, so that a distinc-tion has to be made between a 'charging' of thepsychic systems (or its elements) that is free-flowingand striving to be discharged and one that is quies-cent. Perhaps we may admit the conjecture that thebinding of the energy streaming into the psychicapparatus consists in a translating of it from the free-flowing to the quiescent state.

I think one may venture (tentatively) to regard


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Beyo7id the Pleasure Principle 37

considering the breaking through of the barrier withwhich the psychic organ is provided against stimuli,and from the tasks with which this is thereby faced.Fright retains its meaning for us too. What conditionsit is the failure of the mechanism of apprehension tomake the proper preparation, including the over-charg-ing of the systems first receiving the stimulus. Inconsequence of this lower degree of charging thesesystems are hardly in a position to bind the oncomingmasses of excitation, and the consequences of thebreaking through of the protective barrier appear allthe more easily. We thus find that the apprehensivepreparation, together with the over-charging of thereceptive systems, represents the last line of defenceagainst stimuli. For a great number of traumata thedifference between the unprepared systems and those

turn scale as to


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an insight into a function of the psychic apparatus,which without contradicting the pleasure-principle isnevertheless independent of it, and appears to be ofearlier origin than the aim of attaining pleasure andavoiding 'pain'.

This is therefore the moment to concede for thefirst time an exception to the principle that the dreamis a wish-fulfilment. Anxiety dreams are no suchexception, as I have repeatedly and in detail shown;nor are the ' punishment dreams

' , for they merelyput in the place of the interdicted wish-fulfilmentthe punishment appropriate to it, and are thus thewish-fulfilment of the sense of guilt reacting on thecontemned impulse. But the dreams mentioned aboveof patients suffering from traumatic neuroses do notpermit of classification under the category of wish-


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 39contradiction of its later function. Now, when thistendency is once broken through, there arises the furtherquestion : are such dreams, which in the interests of thepsychical binding of traumatic impressions follow therepetition-compulsion, not possible apart from analysis?The answer is certainly in the affirmative.With regard to the war neuroses, so far as theterm has any significance apart from a reference tothe occasion of the appearance of the illness, I haveexplained elsewhere that they might very well betraumatic neuroses which have arisen the more easilyon account of an ego-conflict. The fact mentionedon page 9, viz. that a severe injury inflicted at thesame time by the trauma lessens the chance of aneurosis arising, is no longer difficult to understandif two circumstances emphasised by psycho-analytic


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40 Beyond the Pleasiire Principleover-charging of the injured part (see ' Zur Einfahrungdes Narzissmus', Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neu-rqsenlehre, IV. Folge, 191 8). It is also known, though theidea has not been sufficiently made use of in the Libidotheory, that disturbances in the distribution of the libidoso severe as those of melancholia may be removed fora time by an intercurrent organic disease ; in fact eventhe condition of a fully developed dementia praecox iscapable of a transitory improvement in these circum-stances.


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V

The fact that the sensitive cortical layer has noprotective barrier against excitations emanating fromwithin will have one inevitable consequence t viz. thatthese transmissions of stimuli acquire increased economicsignificance and frequently give rise to economicdisturbances comparable to the traumatic neuroses.The most prolific sources of such inner excitationsare the so-called instincts of the organism, the re-


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42 Beyond the Pleasure Principleeasily be completely transferred, displaced or condensed^while if this happened with preconscious material onlydefective results would be obtained. This is the reasonfor the well-lmown peculiarities of the manifest dream,after the preconscious residues of the day before haveundergone elaboration according to the laws of theunconscious. I termed this kind of process in theunconscious the psychic 'primary process' in contra-distinction to the secondary process valid in our normalwaking life. Since the excitations of instincts all affectthe unconscious systems, it is scarcely an innovationto say that they follow the lines of the primary process^and little more so to identify the psychic primaryprocess with the freely mobile charge, the secondaryprocess with changes in Breuer's bound or toniccharge. 1 It would then be the task of the higher

r


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we have described, both in the early activities ofinfantile psychic life and in the experiences of psycho-analytic treatment, show m a high degree an instinctivecharacter, and, where they come into contrast withthe pleasure-principle, a daemonic character. In theplay of children we seem to arrive at the conclusionthat the child repeats even the unpleasant experiencesbecause through his own activity he gains a far morethorough mastery of the strong impression than waspossible by mere passive experience. Every freshrepetition seems to strengthen this mastery for whichthe child strives; even with pleasurable experiencesthe child cannot do enough in the way of repetitionand will inexorably insist on the identity of the im-pression. This characteristic is destined later to dis-appear. A witticism heard for the second time will

performance will never


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46 Beyond the Pleasure Principlesome trifling particulars is impossible, and the historicalexplanation cannot be disregarded. In the same waywe find extending far upwards in the animal kingdoma power of reproduction whereby a lost organ is re-placed by the growth of a new one exactly like it.The obvious objection, that it may well be thatbesides the conservative instincts compelling repetiUonthere are others which press towards new formationand progress, should certainly not be left unnoticed;it will be considered at a later stage of our discussion!But we may first be tempted to follow to its finalconsequences the hypothesis that aU instincts have astheir aim the reinstatement of an earlier conditionIf what results gives an appearance of 'profundity'or bears a resemblance to mysticism, still we knowourselves to be clear of the reproach of having strivenafter anything of the sort. We are in search


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 47imprint on the development of organisms. The conserv-ative organic instincts have absorbed everyone of theseenforced alterations in the course of life and have storedthem for repetition; they thus present the delusiveappearance of forces striving after change and progress,while they are merely endeavouring to reach an old goalby ways both old and new. This final goal of all organicstriving can be stated too. It would be counter to theconservative nature of instinct if the goal of life werea state never hitherto reached. It must rather be anancient starting point, which the living being left longago, and to which it harks back again by all thecircuitous paths of development. If we may assume asan experience admitting of no exception that everythingliving dies from causes within itself, and returns to theinorganic, we can only say ' The goal of all life isdeath'-, and, casting back, 'The inmiimate was there

^


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48 Beyond the Pleasure Principlei- substance may have been constantly created anew, and

easily extinguished, until decisive external influencesi altered in such a way as to compel the still suivivingr- substance to ever greater deviations from the originalI

path of life, and to ever more complicated and circuitous; routes to the attainment of the goal of death. TheseI

circuitous ways to death, faithfully retained by thep - conservative instincts, would be neither more nor less[ than the phenomena of life as we now know it. If

the exclusively conservative nature of the instincts is1: accepted as true, it is impossible to arrive at any

other suppositions with regard to the origm and goalof life.If tliese conclusions sound stiangely in our ears,

equally so will those we are led to make concerningthe gi-eat groups of instincts which we regard as lying

[behind the vital phenomena of organisms. The postulate


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Beyond the Pleas2ire Principle 49

even these watchmen of life were originally the myrmi-dons of death. Hence the paradox comes about thatthe living organism resists with all its energy influences(dangers) which could help it to reach its life-goal bya short way (a short circuit, so to speak); but thisis just the behaviour that characterises a pure instinctas contrasted with an intelligent striving.^

But we must bethink ourselves: this cannot be thewhole truth. The sexual instincts, for which the theoryof the neuroses claims a position apart, lead us toquite another point of view. Not all organisms haveyielded to the external compulsion driving them to anever further development. Many have succeeded inmaintaining themselves on their low level up to thepresent time: there are in existence to-day, if notall, at all events many forms of life that must re-

the primitive stages of the higher animals and


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50 Beyo7id the Pleasure Principle

they owe their origin, the end being that again oneportion of the substance carries through its develop- 'ment tea finish, while another part, as a new germinalcore, again harks back to the beginning of the develop-ment. Thus these reproductive cells operate againstthe death of the Hving substance and are able to winfor it what must seem to us to be potential immort- [ality, although perhaps it only means a lengtheningof the path to death. Of the highest significance isthe fact that the reproductive cell is fortified for thisfunction, or only becomes capable of it, by the minglingwith another like it and yet different from it. !

There is a group of instincts that care for thedestinies of these elementary organisms which survive

j

the individual being, that concern themselves with thesafe sheltering of these organisms as long as they


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 5 iin the life of organisms: the one group of instinctspresses forward to reach the fmal goal of life as quicklyas possible, the other flies back at a certain point onthe way only to traverse the same stretch once morefrom a given spot and thus to prolong the durationof the journey. Although sexuality and the distinctionof the sexes certainly did not exist at the dawn oflife, nevertheless it remains possible that the instinctswhich are later described as sexual were active fromthe very beginning and took up the part of oppositionto the r61e of the 'ego-instincts' then, and not only atsome later time.Let us now retrace our steps for the first time,to ask whether all these speculations are not after allwithout foundation. Are there really, apart from thesexual instincts, no other instincts than those whichhave as their object the reinstatement of an earlier


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52 Bcyo7id the Pleasure Principle

of which teach us that their development has takena retrograde character rather than otherwise. Higherdevelopment and retrogression alike might well be theresults of external forces impelling towards adaptation,and the part played by the instincts might be confinedin both cases to retaining the enforced changes assources of pleasure.^

Many of us will also find it hard to abandon ourbelief that in man himself there dwells an impulsetowards perfection, which has brought him to hispresent heights of intellectual prowess and ethical subli-mation, and from which it might be expected that hisdevelopment into superman will be ensured. But Ido not believe in the existence of such an inner im-pulse, and I see no way of preserving this pleasingillusion. The development of man up to now does notseem to me to need any explanation differing from

r


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 53primary experience of satisfaction: all substitution- orreaction-formations and sublimations avail nothingtowards relaxing the continual tension; and out ofthe excess of the satisfaction demanded over thatfound is born the driving momentum which allows of .no abiding in any situation presented to it, but in thepoet's words 'urges ever forward, ever unsubdued'(Mephisto in 'Faust', Act i. Faust's study.). The pathin the other direction, back to complete satisfaction,is as a rule barred by the resistances that maintainthe repressions, and thus there remains nothing for itbut to proceed in the other, still unobstructed direction,that of development, without, however, any prospectof being able to bring the process to a conclusion orto attain the goal. What occurs in the developmentof a neurotic phobia, which is really nothing but an


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VI

Our discussion so far results in the establishing ola sharp antithesis between the ' ego-instincts ' and thesexual instincts, the former impelling towards deathand the latter towards the preservation of life, a resultwhich we ourselves must surely find in many respectsfar from adequate. Further, only for the former canwe properly claim the consen'^ativeor, better,regressivecharacter corresponding to a repetition-


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 55reproduction, or its forerunner, the copulation of twoindividual protozoa, the repetition? That question wedo not Imow how to answer, and therefore we shouldfeel relieved if the whole structure of our argumentswere to prove erroneous. The opposition of ego- (ordeath-) instincts and sexual (life-) instincts would thendisappear, and the repetition-compulsion would there-upon also lose the significance we have attributed to it.

Let us turn back therefore to one of the assumptionswe interpolated, in the expectation that it will permitof exact refutation. We built up further conclusionson the basis of the assumption that aU life must diefrom internal causes. We made this assumption soUght-heartedly because it does not seem to us to beone. We are accustomed so to thinly, and everypoet encourages us in the idea. Perhaps we have re-solved so to think because there lies a certain con-


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56 Beyond the Pleasure PrincipleIf we do so, we may be astonished to find how

little agreement exists among biologists on the questionof natural death, that indeed the very conception ofdeath altogether eludes them. The fact of a certainaverage length of life, at least among the higheranimals, is of course an argument for death from innercauses, but the circumstance that certain large animalsand giant trees reach a very great age, one not tobe computed up to now, once more removes this im-pression. According to the grandiose conception ofW. Fliess all the vital phenomenaand certainly alsodeathare linked with the accomplishment of certainperiods of time, among which there finds expressionthe dependence of two living substances, one male andone female, upon the solar year. But observationsof how easily and extensively the influences of externalforces can alter vital manifestations, especially


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 57are capable under certain favourable conditions ofdeveloping into a new individual, or expressed other-wise, of surrounding themselves with a new soma. ^

What here arrests our attention is the unexpectedanalogy with our conception developed along sodifferent a line of thought. Weismann, who is con-sidering living substance morphologically, recognises init 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 ofthe species, of propagation. We have fixed our attentionnot on the living matter, but on the forces active init, and have been led to distinguish two kinds of in-stincts: those the purpose of which is to guide lifetowards death, and the others, the sexual instincts,which perpetually strive for, and bring about, the


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58 Beyond the Pleasure Principleorganisms is, it is true, a natural one, a death frominner causes, but it does not depend on an inherentquality of the living substance, ^ is not to be conceivedas an absolute necessity based on the nature of life. ^Death is rather a purposive contrivance, a phenomenonof adaptation to the external conditions of life, becauseafter the differentiation of the corporeal cells into somaand germ-plasm the indefinite prolongation of the lifeof the individual would have become a quite inex-pedient luxury. With the appearance ofthis differentiationamong multicellular organisms death became possibleand expedient. Since then the soma of the higherorganisms 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 livingmatter like growth,


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death certainly more nearly approaches the ordinaryhuman view of it than the unwonted assumption of'death-instincts'.

The discussion which has centred round Weismann'sassertations has in my opinion had no decisive resultin any direction. ^ Many writers have reverted to thestandpoint of Goette (1883) who saw in death thedirect consequence of propagation. Hartmann does notregard as the characteristic of death the appearanceof a 'corpse', a piece of living substance which has'died off', but defines it as the 'definitive end ofindividual development'. In this sense protozoa arealso subject to deathj with them death invariably coin-cides with propagation, but it is, so to speak, dis-guised by the latter, for the whole substance of theparent organism may be absorbed directly into the


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6o Beyond the Pleasure Principlefirst slipper-animalcule was just as lively as its originalancestor, without any sign of age or degeneration : ifsuch numbers are convincing, the immortality ofprotozoaseemed thus experimentally demonstrable. ^

Other investigators have arrived at other results.Maupas, Calkins, etc., found, in contradiction toWoodruff,that even these infusoria after a certain number ofdivisions become weaker, decrease in size, lose a portionof their organisation, and finally die if they do notencounter certain invigorating influences. According tothis, protozoa die after a phase of senile decay justlike higher animals, in direct contravention of whatis maintained by Weismann, who recognises in deatha late acquisition of living organisms.

Taking the net result of these researches together,we note two facts which seem to afford us a firmfoothold. First: if the


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Beyond the Pleasure Principle 6iexperiment of J. Loeb will be recalled, who by theapplication of certain chemical stimuli to the ova ofsea-urchins brought about processes of division whichusually take place only after fertilisation.

Secondly: it is after all probable that the infusoriaare brought to a natural death through their own vitalprocess, for the contradiction between Woodruifsfindings and those of others arises from Woodruff havingplaced each generation in fresh nutrient fluid. Whenhe refrained from doing so he observed, as did theother investigators, that the generations showed signsof age. He concluded that the animalculae were injuredby the products of metabolism which they gave offinto the surrounding fluid, and was then able to proveconvincingly that only the products of zVi" own metabolismhad this effect in bringing about the death of thegenerarion. For in a solution over-saturated with waste



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have achieved for themselves a morphological ex-pression. If we abandon the morphological point ofview for the dynamic, it may be a matter of entireindifference to us whether the natural death of theprotozoa can be proved or not. With them thesubstance later recognised as immortal has not yetseparated itself in any way from the part subject todeath. The instinctive forces which endeavour toconduct life to death might be active in them toofrom the beginning and yet their effect might be soobscured by that of the forces tending to preservelife that any direct evidence of their existence becomeshard to estabHsh. We have heard, it is true, that theobservations of biologists allow us to assume suchdeath-ward tending inner processes also among theprotozoa. But even if the protozoa prove to be im-mortal in Weismann's sense, his assertion that death

^Principle


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Beyond the Pleasure 63there course through it uninterruptedly two kinds ofprocesses of opposite direction, one anabolic, assimilatory,the other katabolic, disintegrating. Shall we ventureto recognise in these two directions of the vitalprocesses the activity of our two instinctive tendencies,the life-instincts and the death-instincts? And we cannotdisguise another fact from ourselves, that we havesteered unawares into the haven of Schopenhauer'sphilosophy for whom death is the 'real result' of life ^and therefore in so far its aim, while the sexual instinctis the incarnation of the will to live.

Let us boldly try to go a step further. Accordingto general opinion the union of numerous cells intoone vital connection, the multiceUularity of organisms,has become a means to the prolongation of their spanof life. One cell helps to preserve the life of theothers, and the cell-community can go on Hving even


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64 Beyond the Pleasure Principleand still others sacrifice themselves in the exercise ofthis libidinous function. The germ cells themselveswould behave in a completely 'narcissistic^ fashion, .^^as we are accustomed to describe it in the theory "^Bof the neuroses when an individual concentrates hislibido on the ego, and gives out none of it for thecharging of objects. The germ cells need their libidothe activity of their vital instinctsfor themselvesas a provision for their later enormous constructiveactivity. Perhaps the cells of the malignant growthsthat destroy the organism can also be considered tobe narcissistic in the same sense. Pathology is indeedprepared to regard the kernels of them as congenitalin origin and to ascribe embryonal attributes to them.Thus the Libido of our sexual instincts would coincidewith the Eros of poets and philosophers, which holdstogether all things living.

Principle


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Beyond the Pleasure 65of psychology did one grope more in the dark.Everyone posited as many instincts or 'fundamentalinstincts' as he pleased, and contrived with them justas the ancient Greek philosophers did with their fourelements: earth, air, fire and water. Psycho-Analysis,which could not dispense with some kind of hypothesisas to the instincts, adhered to begin with to thepopular distinction, typically represented by the phrase* hunger and love'. It was at least no new arbitrarycreation. With this one adequately covered a consider-able distance in the analysis of the psychoneuroses.

The conception of 'sexuality'and therewith that ofa sexual instinctcertainly had to be extended, tillit included much that did not come into the categoryof the function of propagation, and this led to outcryenough in a severe and superior or merely hypocriticalworld.

'^66 Beyond the Pleasure Principle


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ego (introversion) J and through the study of the libido-development of the child in its earliest phases itbecame clear that the ego is the true and originalreservoir of the libido, which 'is extended to the objectonly from this. The ego took its place as one of thesexual objects and was immediately recognised as thechoicest among them. Where the libido thus remainedattached to.the ego it was termed * narcissistic '.^ Thisnarcissistic libido was naturally also the expression ofthe energy of sexual instincts in the analytical sensewhich now had to be identified with the ' instincts ofself-preservation', the existence of which was admittedfrom the first. Whereupon the original antithesisbetween the ego-instincts and the sexual instinctsbecame inadequate. A part of the ego-instincts wasrecognised as libidinous: in the ego sexual instinctswere found to be activeprobably in addition to

Beyond the Pleasure Principle


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67We are the more compelled now to accentuate

the libidinous character of the self-preservative instincts, .since we are venturing on the further step of recognisingthe sexual instinct as the Eros, the all-sustaining, andof deriving the narcissistic libido of the ego from thesum of the libido quantities that bring about themutual adherence of the somatic cells. But we nowfind ourselves suddenly confronted with this questionIf the self-presei-vative instincts are also of a libidinouskind, then perhaps we have no other instincts at allthan libidinous ones. There are at least no othersapparent. In that event we must admit the critics tobe in the right who from the first have suspectedthat psycho-analysis makes sexuality the explanationof everything, or the innovators like Jung who, quicklymaking up their mind, have used 'libido' as a synonymfor 'instinctive force' in general. Is that not so?



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confusion, but should not have any further effect onus. We suspect that there are in the ego otherinstincts than those of self-preservation; only we oughtto be in a position to demonstrate them. Unfortunatelyso little progress has been made in the analysis ofthe ego that this proof becomes extraordinarily difficultof attainment. The libidinous instincts of the ego mayindeed be conjoined in a special way with other ego-instincts of which we as yet know nothing. Beforeever we had clearly recognised narcissism, the con-jecture was already present in the minds of psycho-analysts that the 'ego-instincts' had drawn libidinouscomponents to themselves. But these are merely vaguepossibilities which our opponents will hardly take intoaccount. It remains an awkward fact that analysis upto now has only put us in the position of demonstratinglibidinous impulses. The

Beyond the Pleasure Principle 6g


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it can, as we know, attain independence, and as aperversion, dominate the whole sexual trend of aperson. In one of the organisations which I havetermed 'pregenital' it appears as a dominating part-instinct. But how is one to derive the sadistic impulse,which aims at the injui-y of the object, from the life-sustaining Eros ! Does not the assumption suggestitself that this sadism is properly a death-instinct whichis driven apart from the ego by the influence of thenarcissistic libido, so that it becomes manifest onlyin reference to the object? It then enters the serviceof the sexual function; at the oral stage of organisationof the libido, amorous possession is still one and thesame as annihilation of the object; later the sadisticimpulse" separates itself, and at last at the stage ofthe genital primacy it takes over with the aim ofpropagation the function of so far overpowering the



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by saying that the assumption is no new one, thatwe have once before made it when there was noquestion of an impasse. Clinical observations forcedupon us the view that the part-instinct of masochism,the one complementary to sadism, is to be understoodas a recoil of the sadism on to the ego itself. 1 Aturning of the instinct from the object to the ego is,however, essentially the same as a turning from theego to the object, which is just now the new idea inquestion. Masochism, the turning of the instinct againstthe self, would then be in reality a return to anearlier phase of this, a regression. The expositionI then gave of masochism needs correction in onerespect as being too exclusive: masochism may alsobe what I was there concerned io deny, primary. ^

Let us return, however, to the life-sustainingsexual instincts. We

Beyond the Pleasure Principle 7 1


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two individuals without consequent partition, just ascopulation between two individuals which soon afterseparate, has a strengthening and rejuvenating effect(v. s. Lipschutz), There is no sign of degeneration intheir descendents, and they also seem to have gainedthe capacity for withstanding^ for a longer time theinjurious results of their own metabolism. I think thatthis one observation may be taken as a prototype ofthe effect of sexual intercourse also. But in what waydoes the blending of two slightly different cells bringabout such a renewal of life? The experiment whichsubstitutes for conjugation among protozoa the effectof chemical or even of mechanical stimuli ' admits ofour giving a reply v^'ith certainty : it comes about bythe introduction of new stimulus-masses. This is inclose agreement with the hypothesis that the life-process of an individual leads, from internal causes,


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. Beyond the Pleasure Principle 73


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conjugation of two protozoa. ^ 'Sex' would not thusbe of very ancient origin and the extraordinarilypowerful instincts which aim at bringing about sexualunion would thereby repeat something which oncechanced to happen and since became established asbeing advantageous.

The same question now recurs as arose in respectof deathnamely, whether the protozoa can be creditedwith anything beyond what they exhibit, and whetherwe may assume that forces and processes which becomeperceptible only in the case of the higher animals didfirst arise in the more primitive. For our puipose theview of sexuality mentioned above helps very little.The objection may be raised against it that it pre-supposes the existence of life-instincts as alreadyoperative in the simplest forms of life, for otherwiseconjugation, which works against the expiration of life



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little that this problem may be likened to an obscurityinto which not even the ray of an hypothesis haspenetrated. In quite another quarter, however, weencounter such an hypothesis, but it is of so fantastica kindassuredly a myth rather than a scientificexplanationthat I should not venture to brina itforward if it did not exactly fulfil the one conditionfor the fulfilment of which we are labouring. That isto say, it derives an instinct from the necessity, for therei7istatement of an earlier sitnatioti.

1 refer, of course, to the theory that Plato in hisSymposium puts into the mouth of Aristophanes andwhich deals not only with the origin of the sexualinstinct but also with its most important variations inrelation to the object. 'Human nature was once quiteother than now. Originally there were three sexes,three and not as to-day

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Are we to follow the clue of the poet-philosopherand make the daring assumption that living substancewas at the time of its animation rent into smallparticles, which since that time strive for reunion bymeans of the sexual instincts? That these instinctsin which the chemical affinity of inanimate matter isis also to be found in the Upantshads. The ]iri]iad-AranyakaUpanishad 1,4, 3 (Deussen, 60 Upanishads des Veda, S. 393),where the creation of the world from the Atmaii (the seltor ego) is described, has the following passage 'Nor did he(tlie Atman, the self or ego) experience any joy, and forthat reason no one has joy when he is alone. So he longedfor a partner. He was as big as a woman and a man togetherwhen they embrace. He divided himself into two parts, wliichmade a husband and a wife. This body is therefore one halfof the self, according to Yajnavalkya. And for the samereason this empty space here becomes filled by the woman.'



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continuedpassing through the realm of the protozoagradually overcome all hindrances set to their strivingby an environment charged with stimuli dangerous tolife, and are impelled by it to form a protectingcovering layer? And that these dispersed fragments ofliving substance thus achieve a multicellular organisation,and finally transfer to the germ-celJs in a highlyconcentrated form the instinct for reunion? I thinkthis is the point at which to break off.

But not without a few words of critical reflectionin conclusion. I might be asked whether I am myselfconvinced of the views here set forward, and if sohow far. My answer would be that I am neither con-vinced myself, nor am I seeking to arouse convictionin others. More accurately: I do not Icnow how farI believe in them. It seems to me that the affectivefeature 'conviction' need

Beyond the Pleasure Principle yy


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But perhaps I have over-estimated their significance.At all events there is no way of working out thisidea except by combining facts with pure imaginationmany times in succession, and thereby departing farfrom observation. We know that the final resultbecomes the more untrustworthy the oftener one doestliis in the course of building up a theory, but theprecise degree of uncertainty is not ascertainable. Onemay thereby have made a brilliant discovery or onemay have gone ignominiously astray. In such workI trust little to so-called intuition: what I have seenof it seems to me to be the result of a certain im-partiahty of the intellectonly that people unfortunatelyare seldom impartial where they are concerned withthe ultimate things, the great problems of science andof life. My belief is that there everyone is under thesway of preferences deeply rooted within, into the

17S Beyond ihe Pleasure Prindple


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others, or turning from the ego to an object, and soon. This comes only from our being obliged to operatewith scientitic terms, i. e. with the metaphorical ex-pressions peculiar to psychology (or more correctly:psychology of the deeper layers). Otherwise we shouldnot be able to describe the corresponding processesat all, nor in fact even to have remarked them. Theshortcomings of our descriptionwould probably disappearif for the psychological terms we could substitutephysiological or chemical ones. These too only con-stitute a metaphorical language, but one familiar tous for a much longer time and perhaps also simpler.On the other hand we wish to make it quite clearthat the uncertainty of our speculation is enhanced ina high degree by the necessity of borrowing frombiological science. Biology is truly a realm of limitlesspossibUities; we have the most surprising revelations


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I

VII

if this attempt to reinstate an earlier conditionreally is so universal a characteristic of the instincts,we should not find it surprising that so many processesin the psychic life are performed independently of thepleasure-principle. This characteristic would communi-

}' cate itself to every part-instinct and would in that

case concern a harking back to a definite point



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pleasure-principle is not thereby annulled. On the con-trary, the transformation takes place in the service ofthe pleasure-principle; the binding is an act of prepar-ation, which introduces and secures its sovereignty.

Let us distinguish function and tendency moresharply than we have hitherto done. The pleasure-principle is then a tendency which subserves a certainfunctionnamely, that of rendering tlie psychic apparatusas a whole free from any excitation, or to keep theamount of excitation constant or as low as possible.We cannot yet decide with certainty for either of theseconceptions, but we note that the function so definedwould partake of the most universal tendency of allliving matterto return to the peace of the inorganicworld. We all know by experience that the greatestpleasure it is possible for us to attain, that of thesexual act, is bound up with the temporary quenching



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were not already in action in respect to them, it wouldnot establish itself in regard to the later processes.We thus arrive at the result which at bottom is nota simple one, that the search for pleasure manifestsitself with far greater intensity at the beginning ofpsychic life than later on, but less unrestrictedly: ithas to put up with repeated breaches. At a maturerage the dominance of the pleasure-principle is verymuch more assured, though this principle as littleescapes limitations as all the other instincts. In anycase, whatever it is in the process of excitation thatengenders the sensations of pleasure and ' pain ' mustbe equally in existence when the secondary processis at work as with the primary process.

This would seem to be the place to institute furtherstudies. Our consciousness conveys to us from withinnot only the sensations



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other hand, seem to fulfil their function unostentatiously.The pleasure-principle seems directly to subserve thedeath-instincts j it keeps guard, of com-se, also overthe external stimuli, which are regarded as dangersby both kinds ot instincts, but in particular over theinner increases in stimulation which have for their aimthe complication of the task of living. At this pointinnumerable other questions arise to which no answercan yet be given. We must be patient and wait forother means and opportunities for investigation. Wemust hold ourselves too in readiness to abandon thepath we have followed for a time, if it should seemto lead to no good result. Only such * true believersas expect from science a substitute for the creed theyhave relinquished will take it amiss if the investigatordevelops his views further or even transforms them.

For the rest we may find consolation in the words


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jaioq KJdi -/. , *: " :{-,: .'.j; ..- , ^,^yv/ani; Oi^ rf:>jf!// :. ; ..'.;i: c;r;ob-'.e.f;p .;:;;

1-;-. :;,0 LJOil JSLItlfi

f i . : . .

'^


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INDEX --^ '." -'^^ *^* '-^ .oi.iiiJritl

. ..j^..y

'.,- V.-;.'.'. ,

Acquired instincti^re dispositions, 49'Adaptation, 52-

Death a phenomenon of, 58.Ambivalence, hate-love, 69- ..,-7Amphimixis, 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.Breufr, J-. >o, 27. 3, 36, 4=.

Calkins, 60.Cliarge, 34-7. 80, S2.

Breuer's bound or tonic, 43-Counter-, 34-

Consciousness {continue^: ^^^


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Dynamic, i, 19, 53, 57, 62.

Economic, i, 11, 16, 4', 53.Ego, 5, 6, 19, 20, 24, 64, 66-70, 75, 78-9.

Analysis of, 68, 69.Coherent, 19.-conflict, 39.Conscious, 19, 20.-feeling, 20.instinct. See under Instinct.Kernel of, 19.Libidinous components of, 68.Libido directed towards, 65-6.Masochistic tendencies of, 10.Picconscious, 19, 20.Psychological, 65.

Embryology, 29, 45.Energy, 5, 31, 36.liindiiig of, 36.Bound 30, 82,

, charges, 34, as-Charging, 34.Free, 30,

Excitation {continued):processes, 25, 27-30, 35.Propagation of, 28.Sexual, 39.Traces of, 27, 30.Traumatic, 34.Unbound, 81,

Experiences:Painful, 6, 13; repeated as a game,

1:3, IS, 43-Pleasurable, 43.Primary e. of satisfaction, 53.Repetition of identical, 22, 23.Revival of past, 20.Traumatic, 10.

Fate, 22, 23, 24.Fear, 9,Feclimr, G. Tk., 3, 4.Feeling, 2.

Ego-, 20.Hostile, 15.of 'pain', 26, 33.

Index 87


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Goal, 47, 53.Life-, 49.Tendency towards, 4.of life, 47-9, 51-of organic striving, 47-

Goette, 59.Gamperz, Prof. Hem., 74.Harhnann, Max, 59.Hate, 6S, 69.Heredity, 4S. 57.Hering, E., 62.' Hunger and Love', 65.Imitation impulse, 16.Immortaltty, 50, 54, J^-^^, 72.

of protozoa, 60.of unicellular beings, 59.

Impulse, 7. 14, 22, 51.Conscious, 3.Contemned, 38.Imitation, 16.Libidinous, 68,of revenge, 14.

Instinct {continued):Conception of, 44-5-Conservative, 46, 48; c ego-, 54;

c. organic, 47'> c. sexual, 50.. Death-, S4-S, 5^-9, 62-3, 67-9, 71-3,

77, 79. S2-3-Destniction-, 79'Ego-, 51. 54-5, 64, 66-S, 79;Libidinous nature of, 79.Egoistic-, 79-excitations, 42, 8r.First, 47-Foregoing the satisfaction of, 13.for reunion, 76.Inborn, 5.Libidinous, 67-S, 79.Life-, 50-1, 54-5, 57, 62-3, 67-8, 73,

77, 79, 82.Narcissistic, 79.Nature of, 44.Object-, 79.of self-assertion, 48.Part-, 48, 69, 70, So. -Power-, 14, 48.

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-\

Libido, 64-7, 79. r.atYtvt'.i-iji'. ."(;;;-;concept, 65, 70, 79. -f^to-J-'development, 66.directed towards the ego, 65-6.

-- d'stribution, 39-40.Narcissistic, 66-7, 69, 77.Oral stages of, 69. -''-'''quantities, 67. '^ .'-^.'i'AReservoir of, 66. ^theory, 40, 63, 64, 67. -v"?

Life, 47-8, so, 55, 5S, 63, 63-. .--Beginnings of, 79.Dawn of, 51. iForces tending to preserve, 62,Goal of. See under Goal.-instincts. See under Instincts.Instinctive, 62.Length of, 56.Love-, 69. .-. ;ii::--.;.Menace to, 36, 'process, 71,Prolongation of, 54, 58, 63, 73.Properties of, 47. /r rX^ttl.Renewal of,

Metabolism, 58, 61, 71. r-'-f;.Metapsychology, i, 26, 35.Metazoa, 57.Multicellular organisms, 57-8, 63, 76.

Narcissism, 68, 76.Narcissistic:

behaviour of gerra-cells, 63,instincts, 79.libido, 66, 67, 69, 79.over-charging of the injured pai-t,

39-40. .,:,....,..scar, 20.

Neuroses, 8-9, i3, 39,Fright-, 9.Shock, 10,Theory of the, 49, 50, 64.

Nirvana-principle, 71.

Object, 63-6, 69, 70, 74, 7S-9..Annihilation of, 69.Charging of, 64.

Index ..,c^ H.uvi.fyA ?9


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Perfection, impulse towards, 52.Pfeifer, S., 11.Philosophy, i, 2, 63, 65.Plato, 74-5- .:_.,.L.,J:: ..yAit*'ay: . . : . .:i-v/-

-impulse, 24.of children, I1-16, 43.Motive of, 16.

Pleasure, 1-6, 11, 15. 16. 23' ^^^ 33, 38,52, SI.

Pleasure-pain, 4. 33i 82,Pleasure-principle, 1-7, '3, 1S-161 2^

24-S> 34, 37-9, 42-4, 71, 8o-3.Beyond the, 16, 24, 38. ...Dominance of, 82. . ::, , .Frustration of, 4-6. -.iv.ivi:Replaced by reality-principle, 5.Supremacy of, 3-Tendencies beyond, 16.

Pleasure-tendency, 4-power-instinct, 14- ''Prcconscious, 19, 4i-

ego, 19, 20. ,r;T .71 .nwj'-.^.h';-

Psychic {conthmed): . ... ._..t..i..,,.:,.,:'_i,life, 3, 3, 15, 19, 24, 25, 34, 38,

71, 80, 82.processes, i, 4t 9, 26; conscious,

32, primary, 42, secondary, 43,systems, 27, 28, 30, 34, 35t 36-

Punishment-dreams, 38.Pyi/tagaras, 75.

l^a/ii, 70.Reaction-formation, 53, 65.Reality-principle, 5, 7, 20, 42.

Pleasure-principle replaced by, j.Regression, 46, 52, 70.Regressive character of;

ego-instincts, 54.instincts, 76.

Re-incamation, 75-Reinstatement of:

earlier condition, 44, 46, 51, 74, So.lifelcssness, 54.

Rejuvenation, 60, 63, 71, 73.Repetition, iS, 43, 44, 46, 47t 49, 52.



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Retrogression, 51-2. '" - -Return to;

lifelcssness, 47.the inorganic, 4S, 81.

Riickert, 83.Sadism, 69, 70.Schopenhautr, 63.Secondary process, 44, So, Sr, 82.Self-preservation:

Instinct of, 5, 48, 49, 64, G6, 6S,Libidinous character of, 67.

Sex, S7, 73, 7S.distinction, 51.impulses, 5; repressed, 6,-life, infantile, 18, 20.-object, 69.-quest, 21.

Sexuality, 51, 65, 57.Conception of, 76.Origin of, 73.

Shock, 36.-dream, 24.Dreams of s. patients, 24.

79.

Stimulus masses, 31, 34, 71.Sublimation, 52, 53.System:

Bw., 26, 28, 29.W-B\v., 26, 27, 32,

Tasso, 23.Tension, 82.

Unpleasant state of, i.Chemical, 71.Relaxation of, i, 53.

Trauma, 34, 37, 39-External, 34,Fixation on, 10.

Traumatic:excitation, 34.experiences, 10,impressions, 39.neurosis, 36, 37,39, 4i, 42; dreams

in, 37, 3S.neurosis of peace, S. -

Unconscious, 17, 19, 27.

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No. I. ADDRESSES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. By J. J. Putnam, M.D,Emeritus Professor of Neurology, Harvard University. With aPreface by SiGM. EREUD, M.D., LL.D.

No. 2. PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND THE WAR NEUROSES. ByDRS. s. FERENCZi (Budapest), Karl Abraham (Berlin), ErnstSiMMEL (Berlin) and ERNEST JONE.'^ (London). INTUODUCTIONby Professor SiGM, FREUD (Vienna).

No, 3- THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC STUDY OF THE FAMILY. ByJ, C. I'LilGEL, B.A.

No. 4- BEYOND THE PLEASURE PIUNCIPLE. By SiGM. FREUDM.D., LL.D. Authorized Translation from the second GermanEdition by C. J, M. Hubback.

No. 5, ESSAYS IN APPLIED PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. By ERNESTJONES M.D. President of the International Psycho-AnalyticalAssociation,

No. 6. GROUP PSYCHOLOGY AND THE ANALYSIS OF THEEGO. By SiGM. FREUD RI.D., LL.D. Authorized Translation fromthe Gei-man by James Strachey.

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