Freud - Complete Works (495 page)

         sexual
organ                              
at by oneself

                                                                      
|

(
â
)
Oneself looking at
an          (
ã
)
An object which is oneself

       
extraneous object       
              or
part of oneself being looked

       
(active
scopophilia)                  
at by an extraneous person

                                                                
(exhibitionism) 

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2967

   A preliminary stage of this kind
is absent in sadism, which from the outset is directed upon an
extraneous object, although it might not be altogether unreasonable
to construct such a stage out of the child’s efforts to gain
control over his own limbs.¹

   With regard to both the instincts
which we have just taken as examples, it should be remarked that
their transformation by a reversal from activity to passivity and
by a turning round upon the subject never in fact involves the
whole quota of the instinctual impulse. The earlier active
direction of the instinct persists to some degree side by side with
its later passive direction, even when the process of its
transformation has been very extensive. The only correct statement
to make about the scopophilic instinct would be that all the stages
of its development, its auto-erotic, preliminary stage as well as
its final active or passive form, co-exist alongside one another;
and the truth of this becomes obvious if we base our opinion, not
on the actions to which the instinct leads, but on the mechanism of
its satisfaction. Perhaps, however, it is permissible to look at
the matter and represent it in yet another way. We can divide the
life of each instinct into a series of separate successive waves,
each of which is homogeneous during whatever period of time it may
last, and whose relation to one another is comparable to that of
successive eruptions of lava. We can then perhaps picture the
first, original eruption of the instinct as proceeding in an
unchanged form and undergoing no development at all. The next wave
would be modified from the outset -(being turned, for instance,
from active to passive - and would then, with this new
characteristic, be added to the earlier wave, and so on. If we were
then to take a survey of the instinctual impulse from its beginning
up to a given point, the succession of waves which we have
described would inevitably present the picture of a definite
development of the instinct.

  
¹
(
Footnote added
1924:) Cf. 
p. 2965 
n
.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2968

   The fact that, at this later
period of development of an instinctual impulse, its (passive)
opposite may be observed alongside of it deserves to be marked by
the very apt term introduced by Bleuler -
‘ambivalence’.

   This reference to the
developmental history of instincts and the permanence of their
intermediate stages should make the development of instincts fairly
intelligible to us. Experience shows that the amount of
demonstrable ambivalence varies greatly between individuals, groups
and races. Marked instinctual ambivalence in a human being living
at the present day may be regarded as an archaic inheritance, for
we have reason to suppose that the part played in instinctual life
by the active impulses in their unmodified form was greater in
primaeval times than it is on an average to-day.

   We have become accustomed to call
the early phase of the development of the ego, during which its
sexual instincts find auto-erotic satisfaction,
‘narcissism’, without at once entering on any
discussion of the relation between auto-erotism and narcissism. It
follows that the preliminary stage of the scopophilic instinct, in
which the subject’s own body is the object of the
scopophilia, must be classed under narcissism, and that we must
describe it as a narcissistic formation. The active scopophilic
instinct develops from this, by leaving narcissism behind. The
passive scopophilic instinct, on the contrary, holds fast to the
narcissistic object. Similarly, the transformation of sadism into
masochism implies a return to the narcissistic object. And in both
these cases the narcissistic
subject
is, through
identification, replaced by another, extraneous ego. If we take
into account our constructed preliminary narcissistic stage of
sadism, we shall be approaching a more general realization -
namely, that the instinctual vicissitudes which consist in the
instinct’s being turned round upon the subject’s own
ego and undergoing reversal from activity to passivity are
dependent on the narcissistic organization of the ego and bear the
stamp of that phase. They perhaps correspond to the attempts at
defence which at higher stages of the development of the ego are
effected by other means.

   At this point we may call to mind
that so far we have considered only two pairs of opposite
instincts: sadism-masochism and scopophilia-exhibitionism. These
are the best known sexual instincts that appear in an ambivalent
manner. The other components of the later sexual function are not
yet sufficiently accessible to analysis for us to be able to
discuss them in a similar way. In general we can assert of them
that their activities are
auto-erotic
; that is to say, their
object is negligible in comparison with the organ which is their
source, and as a rule coincides with that organ. The object of the
scopophilic instinct, however, though it too is in the first
instance a part of the subject’s own body, is not the eye
itself; and in sadism the organic source, which is probably the
muscular apparatus with its capacity for action, points
unequivocally at an object other than itself, even though that
object is part of the subject’s own body. In the auto-erotic
instincts, the part played by the organic source is so decisive
that, according to a plausible suggestion of Federn (1913) and
Jekels (1913), the form and function of the organ determine the
activity or passivity of the instinctual aim.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2969

   The change of the
content
of an instinct into its opposite is observed in a single instance
only - the transformation of
love into hate
. Since it is
particularly common to find both these directed simultaneously
towards the same object, their co-existence furnishes the most
important example of ambivalence of feeling.

   The case of love and hate
acquires a special interest from the circumstance that it refuses
to be fitted into our scheme of the instincts. It is impossible to
doubt that there is the most intimate relation between these two
opposite feelings and sexual life, but we are naturally unwilling
to think of love as being some kind of special component instinct
of sexuality in the same way as the others we have been discussing.
We should prefer to regard loving as the expression of the
whole
sexual current of feeling; but this idea does not
clear up our difficulties, and we cannot see what meaning to attach
to an opposite content of this current.

   Loving admits not merely of one,
but of three opposites. In addition to the antithesis
‘loving-hating’, there is the other one of
‘loving-being loved’; and, in addition to these, loving
and hating taken together are the opposite of the condition of
unconcern or indifference. The second of these three antitheses,
loving-being loved, corresponds exactly to the transformation from
activity to passivity and may be traced to an underlying situation
in the same way as in the case of the scopophilic instinct. This
situation is that of
loving oneself
which we regard as the
characteristic feature of narcissism. Then, according as the object
or the subject is replaced by an extraneous one, what results is
the active aim of loving or the passive one of being loved - the
latter remaining near to narcissism.

   Perhaps we shall come to a better
understanding of the several opposites of loving if we reflect that
our mental life as a whole is governed by
three polarities
,
the antitheses

   Subject (ego) - Object (external
world),

   Pleasure - Unpleasure, and

   Active - Passive.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2970

   The antithesis ego - non-ego
(external), i. e. subject-object, is, as we have already said,
thrust upon the individual organism at an early stage, by the
experience that it can silence
external
stimuli by means of
muscular action but is defenceless against
instinctual
stimuli. This antithesis remains, above all, sovereign in our
intellectual activity and creates for research the basic situation
which no efforts can alter. The polarity of pleasure-unpleasure is
attached to a scale of feelings, whose paramount importance in
determining our actions (our will) has already been emphasized. The
antithesis active-passive must not be confused with the antithesis
ego-subject - external world-object. The relation of the ego to the
external world is passive in so far as it receives stimuli from it
and active when it reacts to these. It is forced by its instincts
into a quite special degree of activity towards the external world,
so that we might bring out the essential point if we say that the
ego-subject is passive in respect of external stimuli but active
through its own instincts. The antithesis active-passive coalesces
later with the antithesis masculine-feminine, which, until this has
taken place, has no psychological meaning. The coupling of activity
with masculinity and of passivity with femininity meets us, indeed,
as a biological fact; but it is by no means so invariably complete
and exclusive as we are inclined to assume.

   The three polarities of the mind
are connected with one another in various highly significant ways.
There is a primal psychical situation in which two of them
coincide. Originally, at the very beginning of mental life, the ego
is cathected with instincts and is to some extent capable of
satisfying them on itself. We call this condition
‘narcissism’ and this way of obtaining satisfaction
‘auto-erotic’.¹ At this time the external world is
not cathected with interest (in a general sense) and is indifferent
for purposes of satisfaction. During this period, therefore, the
ego-subject coincides with what is pleasurable and the external
world with what is indifferent (or possibly unpleasurable, as being
a source of stimulation). If for the moment we define loving as the
relation of the ego to its sources of pleasure, the situation in
which the ego loves itself only and is indifferent to the external
world illustrates the first of the opposites which we found to
‘loving’.

  
¹
Some of the sexual instincts are, as we
know, capable of this auto-erotic satisfaction, and so are adapted
to being the vehicle for the development under the dominance of the
pleasure principle which we are about to describe. Those sexual
instincts which from the outset require an object, and the needs of
the ego-instincts, which are never capable of auto-erotic
satisfaction, naturally disturb this state and so pave the way for
an advance from it. Indeed, the primal narcissistic state would not
be able to follow the development if it were not for the fact that
every individual passes through a period during which he is
helpless and has to be looked after and during which his pressing
needs are satisfied by an external agency and are thus prevented
from becoming greater.

Instincts And Their Vicissitudes

2971

   In so far as the ego is
auto-erotic, it has no need of the external world, but, in
consequence of experiences undergone by the instincts of
self-preservation, it acquires objects from that world, and, in
spite of everything, it cannot avoid feeling internal instinctual
stimuli for a time as unpleasurable. Under the dominance of the
pleasure principle a further development now takes place in the
ego. In so far as the objects which are presented to it are sources
of pleasure, it takes them into itself, ‘introjects’
them (to use Ferenczi’s term); and, on the other hand, it
expels whatever within itself becomes a cause of unpleasure. (See
below, the mechanism of projection.)

   Thus the original
‘reality-ego’, which distinguished internal and
external by means of a sound objective criterion, changes into a
purified ‘pleasure-ego’, which places the
characteristic of pleasure above all others. For the pleasure-ego
the external world is divided into a part that is pleasurable,
which it has incorporated into itself, and a remainder that is
extraneous to it. It has separated off a part of its own self,
which it projects into the external world and feels as hostile.
After this new arrangement, the two polarities coincide once more:
the ego-subject coincides with pleasure, and the external world
with unpleasure (with what was earlier indifference).

   When, during the stage of primary
narcissism, the object makes its appearance, the second opposite to
loving, namely hating, also attains its development.

   As we have seen, the object is
brought to the ego from the external world in the first instance by
the instincts of self-preservation; and it cannot be denied that
hating, too, originally characterized the relation of the ego to
the alien external world with the stimuli it introduces.
Indifference falls into place as a special case of hate or dislike,
after having first appeared as their forerunner. At the very
beginning, it seems, the external world, objects, and what is hated
are identical. If later on an object turns out to be a source of
pleasure, it is loved, but it is also incorporated into the ego; so
that for the purified pleasure-ego once again objects coincide with
what is extraneous and hated.