Beyond the Pleasure Principle (19 page)

Shall we follow the poet-philosopher's hint and venture the hypothesis that when living matter
became
living matter it was sundered into tiny particles that ever since have endeavoured by means of the sexual drives to become reunited? That in the course of the protistan era these drives, in which the chemical affinity of inanimate matter still subsists, gradually overcame the difficulties put in the way of such an endeavour by an environment charged with life-threatening stimuli, and developed a cortical layer as a necessary protection against that environment? That in this way the scattered fragments of living matter achieved multicellularity and ultimately transferred the reunificatory drive to the germ-cells in the most intensely concentrated form? – But this, I think, is the appropriate point at which to stop.

Not, however, before adding a few words of critical reflection. People might ask me whether and to what extent I myself am convinced by the hypotheses set out here. My answer would be that I am not convinced myself, nor am I trying to persuade others to believe in them. Or to put it more accurately: I do not know how far I believe in them. It seems to me that the emotional factor of
‘conviction’ need not enter into it at all. One can certainly give oneself over completely to a particular line of thought, and follow it through to wherever it leads, out of sheer scientific curiosity, or out of a desire to act as devil's advocate – without signing oneself over to the devil. I am well aware that this third step in the theory of drives that I have undertaken here cannot lay claim to the same degree of certainty as the previous two, namely the broadening of the concept of sexuality, and the postulate of narcissism. These latter innovations were a direct translation of actual observations into theory, and were susceptible to sources of error no greater than those that inevitably pertain in all such cases. To be sure, the assertion that drives are
regressive
in nature is also based on the observation of facts, namely those manifest in the compulsion to repeat but I have perhaps overestimated their importance. In any event, it is only possible to carry this idea through by repeatedly combining the factual with the purely notional, and thereby moving far away from empirical observation. One knows very well that the more often one does this in elaborating a theory, the more unreliable the end result becomes, but the degree of uncertainty cannot be calculated. One might have made a lucky guess, or one might have gone horribly wrong. In work of this kind I put little trust in so-called intuition, which, whenever I have encountered it, has always seemed to me more the fruit of a certain impartiality of mind – except that people are unfortunately seldom impartial when it comes to the ultimate questions, the great problems of science and of life. Here, I think, we are all ruled by proclivities that go to the very root of our being, and in our speculations we unwittingly play into their hands. Given such good grounds for mistrust, the only way for us to approach the results of our own intellectual endeavours is probably to regard them with cool benevolence. I hasten to add, however, that a self-critical stance of this kind entails absolutely no obligation to show particular tolerance to discrepant opinions. One can pitilessly reject theories that even the briefest analysis of empirical evidence serves to refute, while at the same time recognizing that the validity of one's own theory is merely provisional.

In judging our speculations about life drives and death drives we
would be little bothered by the fact that so many strange and impalpable processes figure within them, such as one drive being ousted by others, or a drive turning from the ego to the object, and so on. All of this simply arises from the fact that we must necessarily operate with the given scientific terminology, i.e. the
figurative
language specific to psychology (or, more precisely, depth psychology). Otherwise we couldn't describe the relevant processes at all, indeed we wouldn't even have realized that they were there. The shortcomings in our account of things would probably disappear if, instead of using psychological terminology, we were already in a position to use that of physiology or chemistry. It is true that this terminology, too, belongs to a merely figurative language – but a perhaps simpler one, and one that we have known for a longer period of time.

On the other hand we need to be fully aware that the uncertainty of our speculations has been greatly increased by the need to borrow repeatedly from the science of biology. Biology is truly a realm of infinite possibilities; we can expect it to yield the most astonishing insights, and we cannot begin to guess what answers it might give to our questions in a few decades' time. Perhaps such as will sweep our carefully contrived edifice of hypotheses entirely away. ‘If that is the case’, someone might ask, ‘then what is the point of writing papers like this, and why on earth bother to make them public?’ Well, I just have to admit that some of the analogies, correlations and connections contained therein have seemed to me to be worthy of attention.
⁷³

If it really is such a universal characteristic of drives to seek to restore a prior state, we should not be surprised that so many processes in the psyche take place quite independently of the pleasure principle. This characteristic would automatically be transmitted to each and every partial drive, and in the case of such drives would involve the retrieval of a particular stage of the development process. But while the pleasure principle may not as yet have gained command of these things, this does not necessarily mean that they are in conflict with it; in fact the problem of determining the relationship of the drives' repetition processes to the dominion of the pleasure principle still remains unsolved.

We have found it to be one of the earliest and most important functions of the psychic apparatus to ‘annex’ newly arriving drive-impulses, replace the primary process prevailing within them by a secondary process, and change their free-moving cathectic energy into a largely quiescent (tonic) cathexis. While this transformation is taking place no attention can be paid to any unpleasure that may arise but that does not mean that the pleasure principle is thereby nullified. On the contrary, the transformation occurs on
behalf
of the pleasure principle: the annexion is a preparative act that both heralds and ensures the dominion of the pleasure principle.

Let us distinguish more sharply than we have done hitherto between ‘function’ and ‘tendency’.
⁷⁴
The pleasure principle can then be seen as a tendency serving the interests of a specific function whose responsibility it is
either
to render the psychic apparatus completely free of excitation,
or
to keep the quantum of excitation within it constant, or to keep it at the lowest possible level. We
cannot yet decide for certain which of these alternatives is the correct one, but we note that this function as here defined would partake in that most universal endeavour in all living matter to revert to the quiescence of the inorganic world. We have all experienced how the greatest pleasure we can ever achieve, namely that of the sexual act, is accompanied by the momentary vanishment of a supremely intense excitation. The annexing of the drive-impulse, however, might be seen as a preparative function intended to make the excitation ready for its final dissolution in the pleasure of release.

This same context gives rise to the question whether sensations of pleasure and unpleasure can be produced equally by both annexed and non-annexed excitation processes. Now it does appear to be clear beyond all doubt that the non-annexed, primary processes result in far more intensive sensations in both directions (pleasure and unpleasure) than do the annexed, secondary ones. The primary processes are also the ones that occur first; they are the only ones operative at the start of the psyche's life; and we can reasonably infer that if the pleasure principle were not already active within these earlier processes, it would not be able to materialize at all for the later ones. We thus arrive at the basically rather convoluted conclusion that at the beginning of the psyche's life the striving for pleasure manifests itself far more intensively than it does later on, but enjoys less of a free run, in that it has to put up with frequent irruptions. Once the psyche is more developed the dominion of the pleasure principle is very much more secure, but the pleasure principle itself has no more escaped the taming process than any of the other drives have. In any event, the element within the excitation process that gives rise to the sensations of pleasure and unpleasure must be present in the secondary process just as much as in the primary one.

This would be the appropriate starting-point for further research. Our consciousness transmits to us from within ourselves sensations not only of pleasure and unpleasure, but also of a peculiar tension that again can be either pleasurable or unpleasurable. Are we then, on the basis of these sensations, to differentiate annexed and non-annexed energy processes from one another? Or does the sensation
of tension relate to the
absolute
quantum, or perhaps level, of cathexis, whilst the incidence of pleasure/unpleasure reflects
changes
in the quantum of cathexis within a particular period of time? We also cannot fail to be struck by the fact that the life drives have so much more to do with our inner perception, since they behave as troublemakers and constantly bring tensions, the resolving of which is perceived as pleasurable, whereas the death drives appear to do their work unobtrusively. The pleasure principle seems to be positively subservient to the death drives; but it
does
also watch for any stimuli from without that are adjudged by both kinds of drives to be dangerous, and more particularly for any increases in stimulation emanating from within that make the task of living more difficult.

This all leads on to countless other questions to which at present we have no answers. We have to be patient and wait for new means and opportunities for research. And we must also be prepared to abandon any path that appears to be going nowhere, even though we may have followed it for quite some time. Only those fond believers who demand of science that it take the place of the catechism they have forsaken will object to a scientist developing or even changing his ideas. For the rest, let us take consolation for the slow progress of our scientific knowledge from the words of a poet (Rückert in his
Makamen des Hariri
):

(Whatever we cannot achieve on the wing, we have to achieve at a patient limp… Scripture tells us clear enough: it never was a sin to limp.)

(1920)

The arguments set forth in these pages are an elaboration of ideas first broached in my essay
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
- ideas which, as I mentioned at the time, I myself viewed with a kind of benevolent curiosity.
¹
This present essay takes up those ideas, links them with various facts derived from psychoanalytical observation, and seeks to arrive at new conclusions on the basis of this conjunction; it does not make any further borrowings from biology, however, and in consequence is much closer to psychoanalysis than
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
was. It is more in the nature of synthesis than speculation; and while it evidently aspires to an elevated goal, I am well aware that it never really ventures beyond the crudest level, and I fully acknowledge this limitation.

In the process, the essay touches on matters that have never yet been a focus of psychoanalytical interest, and so inevitably makes reference to various theories propounded by non-psychoanalysts, or by ex-psychoanalysts in the course of withdrawing from their previous position. As a rule I have always been quite ready to acknowledge my debt to other researchers, but in this present case I do not feel burdened by any such debt of gratitude. If psychoanalysis has hitherto failed to show due appreciation of certain things, this was never because it had overlooked their contribution or sought to deny their importance, but rather because it had been following a particular path that had not yet progressed that far. And in any case, when it
does
finally reach that point it sees things very differently from the way others see them.

In this introductory section there is nothing new to be said, and there is no avoiding the repetition of things that have often been said before.

The division of the psychic realm into the conscious and the unconscious is the fundamental premiss of psychoanalysis; it alone enables psychoanalysis to understand the pathological processes that are such a common and important feature of psychic life, and to offer a systematic scientific account of them. To put this another way: psychoanalysis cannot regard the psyche as being coterminous with consciousness, but necessarily sees consciousness as just one particular quality of the psychical which may or may not manifest itself in addition to other qualities.

If I were able to imagine every last person with an interest in psychology reading this essay, then I should not be one whit surprised to find a number of those readers calling a halt right now and refusing to read another word – for here at once is the first shibboleth of psychoanalysis. To most people whose education is grounded in philosophy, the idea of a psychic realm that is not also a
conscious
one is so incomprehensible as to seem an absurdity easily refuted by plain, straightforward logic. This is due, I think, to the simple fact that they have never studied the relevant phenomena of hypnosis and dreams which – quite regardless of any pathological element – leave us no option but to take such a view. Furthermore, their consciousness-based psychology is quite incapable of solving the problems presented by dreams and hypnosis.

To say that something ‘is conscious’ is to use a term that in the first instance is purely descriptive,
²
a term based on perception of
the most direct and certain kind. Now experience tells us that as a rule a psychic element – a notion, for instance – is conscious for no great length of time. Indeed, states of conscious awareness are typically very short-lived. A notion tends to be conscious one moment, then no longer conscious the next – though it can become so again in certain circumstances that are easily brought about. What became of it in the meantime, we do not know. We can say that it was
latent
, and what we mean is that it was
capable of becoming conscious
³
at any moment. And if we say that it was
unconscious
, that too is an accurate description. ‘Unconscious’ in this context thus amounts to the same thing as ‘latent and capable of becoming conscious’. True: the philosophers would object and tell us ‘No! The term “unconscious” is
not
applicable here! So long as the notion was in a state of latency, it wasn't in any sense psychical.’ But if we started arguing with them at this early stage, we would slither into a polemic that would get us nowhere.