Freud - Complete Works (494 page)

   What instincts should we suppose
there are, and how many? There is obviously a wide opportunity here
for arbitrary choice. No objection can be made to anyone’s
employing the concept of an instinct of play or of destruction or
of gregariousness, when the subject-matter demands it and the
limitations of psychological analysis allow of it. Nevertheless, we
should not neglect to ask ourselves whether instinctual motives
like these, which are so highly specialized on the one hand, do not
admit of further dissection in accordance with the
sources
of the instinct, so that only primal instincts - those which cannot
be further dissected - can lay claim to importance.

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2962

   I have proposed that two groups
of such primal instincts should be distinguished: the
ego
,
or
self-preservative
, instincts and the
sexual
instincts. But this supposition has not the status of a necessary
postulate, as has, for instance, our assumption about the
biological purpose of the mental apparatus (
p. 2960
); it is merely a working
hypothesis, to be retained only so long as it proves useful, and it
will make little difference to the results of our work of
description and classification if it is replaced by another. The
occasion for this hypothesis arose in the course of the evolution
of psycho-analysis, which was first employed upon the
psychoneuroses, or, more precisely, upon the group described as
‘transference neuroses’ (hysteria and obsessional
neurosis); these showed that at the root of all such affections
there is to be found a conflict between the claims of sexuality and
those of the ego. It is always possible that an exhaustive study of
the other neurotic affections (especially of the narcissistic
psychoneuroses, the schizophrenias) may oblige us to alter this
formula and to make a different classification of the primal
instincts. But for the present we do not know of any such formula,
nor have we met with any argument unfavourable to drawing this
contrast between sexual and ego-instincts.

   I am altogether doubtful whether
any decisive pointers for the differentiation and classification of
the instincts can be arrived at on the basis of working over the
psychological material. This working-over seems rather itself to
call for the application to the material of definite assumptions
concerning instinctual life, and it would be a desirable thing if
those assumptions could be taken from some other branch of
knowledge and carried over to psychology. The contribution which
biology has to make here certainly does not run counter to the
distinction between sexual and ego-instincts. Biology teaches that
sexuality is not to be put on a par with other functions of the
individual; for its purposes go beyond the individual and have as
their content the production of new individuals - that is, the
preservation of the species. It shows, further, that two views,
seemingly equally well-founded, may be taken of the relation
between the ego and sexuality. On the one view, the individual is
the principal thing, sexuality is one of its activities and sexual
satisfaction one of its needs; while on the other view the
individual is a temporary and transient appendage to the
quasi-immortal germ-plasm, which is entrusted to him by the process
of generation. The hypothesis that the sexual function differs from
other bodily processes in virtue of a special chemistry is, I
understand, also a postulate of the Ehrlich school of biological
research.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2963

   Since a study of instinctual life
from the direction of consciousness presents almost insuperable
difficulties, the principal source of our knowledge remains the
psycho-analytic investigation of mental disturbances.
Psycho-analysis, however, in consequence of the course taken by its
development, has hitherto been able to give us information of a
fairly satisfactory nature only about the
sexual
instincts;
for it is precisely that group which alone can be observed in
isolation, as it were, in the psychoneuroses. With the extension of
psycho-analysis to the other neurotic affections, we shall no doubt
find a basis for our knowledge of the ego-instincts as well, though
it would be rash to expect equally favourable conditions for
observation in this further field of research.

   This much can be said by way of a
general characterization of the sexual instincts. They are
numerous, emanate from a great variety of organic sources, act in
the first instance independently of one another and only achieve a
more or less complete synthesis at a late stage. The aim which each
of them strives for is the attainment of
‘organ-pleasure’; only when synthesis is achieved do
they enter the service of the reproductive function and thereupon
become generally recognizable as sexual instincts. At their first
appearance they are attached to the instincts of self-preservation,
from which they only gradually become separated; in their choice of
object, too, they follow the paths that are indicated to them by
the ego-instincts. A portion of them remains associated with the
ego-instincts throughout life and furnishes them with libidinal
components, which in normal functioning easily escape notice and
are revealed clearly only by the onset of illness. They are
distinguished by possessing the capacity to act vicariously for one
another to a wide extent and by being able to change their objects
readily. In consequence of the latter properties they are capable
of functions which are far removed from their original purposive
actions - capable, that is, of ‘sublimation’.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2964

   Our inquiry into the various
vicissitudes which instincts undergo in the process of development
and in the course of life must be confined to the sexual instincts,
which are the more familiar to us. Observation shows us that an
instinct may undergo the following vicissitudes:-

   Reversal into its opposite.

   Turning round upon the
subject’s own self.

   Repression.

   Sublimation.

Since I do not intend to treat of sublimation
here and since repression requires a special chapter to itself, it
only remains for us to describe and discuss the two first points.
Bearing in mind that there are motive forces which work against an
instinct’s being carried through in an unmodified form, we
may also regard these vicissitudes as modes of
defence
against the instincts.

   Reversal of an instinct into its
opposite resolves on closer examination into two different
processes: a change from activity to passivity, and a reversal of
its content. The two processes, being different in their nature,
must be treated separately.

   Examples of the first process are
met with in the two pairs of opposites: sadism-masochism and
scopophilia-exhibitionism. The reversal affects only the
aims
of the instincts. The active aim (to torture, to look
at) is replaced by the passive aim (to be tortured, to be looked
at). Reversal of
content
is found in the single instance of
the transformation of love into hate.

   The turning round of an instinct
upon the subject’s own self is made plausible by the
reflection that masochism is actually sadism turned round upon the
subject’s own ego, and that exhibitionism includes looking at
his own body. Analytic observation, indeed, leaves us in no doubt
that the masochist shares in the enjoyment of the assault upon
himself, and that the exhibitionist shares in the enjoyment of his
exposure. The essence of the process is thus the change of the
object
, while the aim remains unchanged. We cannot fail to
notice, however, that in these examples the turning round upon the
subject’s self and the transformation from activity to
passivity converge or coincide.

   To elucidate the situation, a
more thorough investigation is essential.

   In the case of the pair of
opposites sadism-masochism, the process may be represented as
follows:

   (
a
) Sadism consists in the
exercise of violence or power upon some other person as object.

   (
b
)  This object is
given up and replaced by the subject’s self. With the turning
round upon the self the change from an active to a passive
instinctual aim is also effected.

   (
c
) An extraneous person
is once more sought as object; this person, in consequence of the
alteration which has taken place in the instinctual aim, has to
take over the role of the subject.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2965

   Case (
c
) is what is
commonly termed masochism. Here, too, satisfaction follows along
the path of the original sadism, the passive ego placing itself
back in phantasy in its first role, which has now in fact been
taken over by the extraneous subject. Whether there is, besides
this, a more direct masochistic satisfaction is highly doubtful. A
primary masochism, not derived from sadism in the manner I have
described, seems not to be met with.¹ That it is not
superfluous to assume the existence of stage (
b
) is to be
seen from the behaviour of the sadistic instinct in obsessional
neurosis. There there is a turning round upon the subject’s
self
without
an attitude of passivity towards another
person: the change has only got as far as stage (
b
). The
desire to torture has turned into self-torture and self-punishment,
not into masochism. The active voice is changed, not into the
passive, but into the reflexive, middle voice.

   Our view of sadism is further
prejudiced by the circumstance that this instinct, side by side
with its general aim (or perhaps, rather, within it), seems to
strive towards the accomplishment of a quite special aim - not only
to humiliate and master, but, in addition, to inflict pains.
Psycho-analysis would appear to show that the infliction of pain
plays no part among the original purposive actions of the instinct.
A sadistic child takes no account of whether or not he inflicts
pains, nor does he intend to do so. But when once the
transformation into masochism has taken place, the pains are very
well fitted to provide a passive masochistic aim; for we have every
reason to believe that sensations of pain, like other unpleasurable
sensations, trench upon sexual excitation and produce a pleasurable
condition, for the sake of which the subject will even willingly
experience the unpleasure of pain. When once feeling pains has
become a masochistic aim, the sadistic aim of
causing
pains
can arise also, retrogressively; for while these pains are being
inflicted on other people, they are enjoyed masochistically by the
subject through his identification of himself with the suffering
object. In both cases, of course, it is not the pain itself which
is enjoyed, but the accompanying sexual excitation - so that this
can be done especially conveniently from the sadistic position. The
enjoyment of pain would thus be an aim which was originally
masochistic, but which can only become an instinctual aim in
someone who was originally sadistic.

  
¹
(
Footnote added
1924:) In later
works (cf. ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’,
1924
c
) relating to problems of instinctual life I have
expressed an opposite view.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2966

   For the sake of completeness I
may add that feelings of pity cannot be described as a result of a
transformation of instinct occurring in sadism, but necessitate the
notion of a
reaction-formation
against that instinct. (For
the difference, see later.)

   Rather different and simpler
findings are afforded by the investigation of another pair of
opposites - the instincts whose respective aim is to look and to
display oneself (scopophilia and exhibitionism, in the language of
the perversions). Here again we may postulate the same stages as in
the previous instance:- (
a
) Looking as an
activity
directed towards an extraneous object. (
b
) Giving up of the
object and turning of the scopophilic instinct towards a part of
the subject’s own body; with this, transformation to
passivity and setting up of a new aim - that of being looked at.
(
c
) Introduction of a new subject to whom one displays
oneself in order to be looked at by him. Here, too, it can hardly
be doubted that the active aim appears before the passive, that
looking precedes being looked at. But there is an important
divergence from what happens in the case of sadism, in that we can
recognize in the case of the scopophilic instinct a yet earlier
stage than that described as (
a
). For the beginning of its
activity the scopophilic instinct is auto-erotic: it has indeed an
object, but that object is part of the subject’s own body. It
is only later that the instinct is led, by a process of comparison,
to exchange this object for an analogous part of someone
else’s body - stage (
a
). This preliminary stage is
interesting because it is the source of
both
the situations
represented in the resulting pair of opposites, the one or the
other according to which element in the original situation is
changed. The following might serve as a diagrammatic picture of the
scopophilic instinct:-

(
á
)
Oneself looking at
a          
=       A sexual organ being
looked