Key Arguments

• Freud distinguishes “the types of instincts, of which one, the sex drive or Eros, is far more conspicuous and more accessible to knowledge,” and explicitly includes in it “the self-preservation instinct, which we must ascribe to the Ego and which, at the beginning of the analytic work, with good reasons, we had contrasted from the sexual object instincts.”
• On “the second instinct type,” he posits, “let’s suppose there is a death instinct, for which the function is set to reducing organic living entities to a lifeless state, while Eros pursues the goal to complicate life via the ever-expanding combination of the living substances dispersed in particles, of course to preserve it.”
• He stresses that “Both instincts behave thereby, in the strictest sense, conservatively, seeking the restoration of a state disturbed by the emergence of life,” so both are oriented toward restoring an earlier state rather than progressive development.
• From this he infers that “The emergence of life would be thus the cause for living on, and, at the same time, for the pursuit of death, life itself a struggle and compromise between these two quests,” giving a dualistic answer to the “point and purpose of life.”
• He connects each instinct type to physiology: “Each of these two instinct types would be allocated a particular physiological process (anabolism and catabolism); in each bit of living substance, both kinds of instincts would be active, but in an uneven mix,” so that some substances can become the “main representation of Eros.”

Source Quotes

Of the instincts I recently (in Beyond the Pleasure Principle 89) devised a view which I will record here and on which I will base my further discussions. We must distinguish the types of instincts, of which one, the sex drive or Eros, is far more conspicuous and more accessible to knowledge. It does not only include the actual unrestrained sex drive as well as the goal-inhibited and sublimated impulses derived from it, but also the self-preservation instinct, which we must ascribe to the Ego and which, at the beginning of the analytic work, with good reasons, we had contrasted from the sexual object instincts.

We must distinguish the types of instincts, of which one, the sex drive or Eros, is far more conspicuous and more accessible to knowledge. It does not only include the actual unrestrained sex drive as well as the goal-inhibited and sublimated impulses derived from it, but also the self-preservation instinct, which we must ascribe to the Ego and which, at the beginning of the analytic work, with good reasons, we had contrasted from the sexual object instincts. 90 To show the second instinct type caused us difficulties, finally we arrived at regarding sadism as a representative of it.

90 To show the second instinct type caused us difficulties, finally we arrived at regarding sadism as a representative of it. 91 On the basis of theoretical, biology-based considerations, let’s suppose 92 there is a death instinct, for which the function is set to reducing organic living entities to a lifeless state, while Eros pursues the goal to complicate life via the ever-expanding combination of the living substances dispersed in particles, of course to preserve it. Both instincts behave thereby, in the strictest sense, conservatively, seeking the restoration of a state disturbed by the emergence of life.

91 On the basis of theoretical, biology-based considerations, let’s suppose 92 there is a death instinct, for which the function is set to reducing organic living entities to a lifeless state, while Eros pursues the goal to complicate life via the ever-expanding combination of the living substances dispersed in particles, of course to preserve it. Both instincts behave thereby, in the strictest sense, conservatively, seeking the restoration of a state disturbed by the emergence of life. The emergence of life would be thus the cause for living on, and, at the same time, for the pursuit of death, life itself a struggle and compromise between these two quests.

Both instincts behave thereby, in the strictest sense, conservatively, seeking the restoration of a state disturbed by the emergence of life. The emergence of life would be thus the cause for living on, and, at the same time, for the pursuit of death, life itself a struggle and compromise between these two quests. The question about the origin of life remains cosmological, so the point and purpose of life would be answered dualistically.

Key Concepts

• We must distinguish the types of instincts, of which one, the sex drive or Eros, is far more conspicuous and more accessible to knowledge.
• It does not only include the actual unrestrained sex drive as well as the goal-inhibited and sublimated impulses derived from it, but also the self-preservation instinct, which we must ascribe to the Ego and which, at the beginning of the analytic work, with good reasons, we had contrasted from the sexual object instincts.
• On the basis of theoretical, biology-based considerations, let’s suppose 92 there is a death instinct, for which the function is set to reducing organic living entities to a lifeless state, while Eros pursues the goal to complicate life via the ever-expanding combination of the living substances dispersed in particles, of course to preserve it.
• Both instincts behave thereby, in the strictest sense, conservatively, seeking the restoration of a state disturbed by the emergence of life.
• The emergence of life would be thus the cause for living on, and, at the same time, for the pursuit of death, life itself a struggle and compromise between these two quests.

Context

Opening of Chapter IV, where Freud restates and sharpens the dual-instinct theory introduced in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, now integrating it explicitly into the id–ego–superego framework.