Freud reinterprets the pleasure principle as the id’s compass in its struggle against the libido of Eros: if a constancy principle would naturally lead to ‘gliding into death,’ it is sexual instincts that interrupt this glide by creating new tensions, which the id then attempts to reduce through direct satisfaction and through the shedding of ‘sexual substances’ in the sexual act—a process that parallels the soma–germ plasm separation and explains the kinship between sexual satisfaction and dying.

By Sigmund Freud, from The Ego and the Id

Key Arguments

  • Freud suggests “it is not a view to dismiss, that the Pleasure Principle serves the Id like a compass in the fight against the libido, which introduces disorders into the course of life,” so that pleasure–unpleasure guidance is used to manage erotic tension.
  • Invoking Fechner, he writes: “If the Constancy Principle in the Fechner sense 110 rules life, which should then be a gliding into death, so it is the claims of Eros, the sexual instincts, which as instinctual needs stop the level’s descent and introduce new tensions.”
  • The id, “led by the Pleasure Principle, i.e., by unpleasure perception, wards these off in different ways. Firstly, through accelerated compliance with the demands of the not desexualized libido, as well through wrestling for satisfaction of direct sexual aims.”
  • He adds that “In a much more extensive way in one of these satisfactions in which all component demands meet, it sheds the sexual substances, 111 which are, so to speak, saturated carriers of the erotic tensions,” positioning ejaculation (and analogous processes) as a principal mode of tension discharge.
  • This “repulsion of sexual substances in the sexual act corresponds to an extent to the separation of the soma and germ plasm. 112 Thus, the similarity of the condition after full sexual satisfaction with dying, and in lower animals the coinciding of death with the act of procreation. These beings die of reproduction, for after the elimination of Eros by the satisfaction, the death instinct has a free hand to achieve its aims.”
  • The passage culminates in the idea that when Eros’ tensions are discharged, “the death instinct has a free hand,” thus directly linking orgasmic discharge, biological reproduction, and the unmasking of the death drive.

Source Quotes

But since we are compelled, we must get the impression that the death-instincts are essentially mute, and the noise of life usually emanates from Eros. 109 And from the fight against the Eros! It is not a view to dismiss, that the Pleasure Principle serves the Id like a compass in the fight against the libido, which introduces disorders into the course of life. If the Constancy Principle in the Fechner sense 110 rules life, which should then be a gliding into death, so it is the claims of Eros, the sexual instincts, which as instinctual needs stop the level’s descent and introduce new tensions.
It is not a view to dismiss, that the Pleasure Principle serves the Id like a compass in the fight against the libido, which introduces disorders into the course of life. If the Constancy Principle in the Fechner sense 110 rules life, which should then be a gliding into death, so it is the claims of Eros, the sexual instincts, which as instinctual needs stop the level’s descent and introduce new tensions. The Id led by the Pleasure Principle, i.e., by unpleasure perception, wards these off in different ways.
If the Constancy Principle in the Fechner sense 110 rules life, which should then be a gliding into death, so it is the claims of Eros, the sexual instincts, which as instinctual needs stop the level’s descent and introduce new tensions. The Id led by the Pleasure Principle, i.e., by unpleasure perception, wards these off in different ways. Firstly, through accelerated compliance with the demands of the not desexualized libido, as well through wrestling for satisfaction of direct sexual aims.
Firstly, through accelerated compliance with the demands of the not desexualized libido, as well through wrestling for satisfaction of direct sexual aims. In a much more extensive way in one of these satisfactions in which all component demands meet, it sheds the sexual substances, 111 which are, so to speak, saturated carriers of the erotic tensions. The repulsion of sexual substances in the sexual act corresponds to an extent to the separation of the soma and germ plasm.
In a much more extensive way in one of these satisfactions in which all component demands meet, it sheds the sexual substances, 111 which are, so to speak, saturated carriers of the erotic tensions. The repulsion of sexual substances in the sexual act corresponds to an extent to the separation of the soma and germ plasm. 112 Thus, the similarity of the condition after full sexual satisfaction with dying, and in lower animals the coinciding of death with the act of procreation. These beings die of reproduction, for after the elimination of Eros by the satisfaction, the death instinct has a free hand to achieve its aims.
112 Thus, the similarity of the condition after full sexual satisfaction with dying, and in lower animals the coinciding of death with the act of procreation. These beings die of reproduction, for after the elimination of Eros by the satisfaction, the death instinct has a free hand to achieve its aims. Finally, as we have heard, the Ego sublimates a share of the libido for itself

Key Concepts

  • And from the fight against the Eros! It is not a view to dismiss, that the Pleasure Principle serves the Id like a compass in the fight against the libido, which introduces disorders into the course of life.
  • If the Constancy Principle in the Fechner sense 110 rules life, which should then be a gliding into death, so it is the claims of Eros, the sexual instincts, which as instinctual needs stop the level’s descent and introduce new tensions.
  • The Id led by the Pleasure Principle, i.e., by unpleasure perception, wards these off in different ways.
  • In a much more extensive way in one of these satisfactions in which all component demands meet, it sheds the sexual substances, 111 which are, so to speak, saturated carriers of the erotic tensions.
  • The repulsion of sexual substances in the sexual act corresponds to an extent to the separation of the soma and germ plasm. 112 Thus, the similarity of the condition after full sexual satisfaction with dying, and in lower animals the coinciding of death with the act of procreation.
  • These beings die of reproduction, for after the elimination of Eros by the satisfaction, the death instinct has a free hand to achieve its aims.

Context

Closing part of the provided Chapter IV passage, where Freud integrates his dual-instinct and pleasure-principle theories with biological metaphors of reproduction, soma–germ separation, and death, to explain how sexual satisfaction temporarily clears the way for the death instinct.