On Psychic Energy

1. General Remarks on the Energetic Point of View in Psychology

a. Introduction

[1] The concept of libido which I have advanced has met with many misunderstandings and, in some quarters, complete repudiation; it may therefore not be amiss if I examine once more the bases of this concept.

[2] It is a generally recognized truth that physical events can be looked at in two ways: from the mechanistic and from the energetic standpoint. The mechanistic view is purely causal; it conceives an event as the effect of a cause, in the sense that unchanging substances change their relations to one another according to fixed laws.

[3] The energetic point of view on the other hand is in essence final; the event is traced back from effect to cause on the assumption that some kind of energy underlies the changes in phenomena, that it maintains itself as a constant throughout these changes and finally leads to entropy, a condition of general equilibrium. The flow of energy has a definite direction (goal) in that it follows the gradient of potential in a way that cannot be reversed. The idea of energy is not that of a substance moved in space; it is a concept abstracted from relations of movement. The concept, therefore, is founded not on the substances themselves but on their relations, whereas the moving substance itself is the basis of the mechanistic view.

[4] Both points of view are indispensable for understanding physical events and consequently enjoy general recognition. Meanwhile, their continued existence side by side has gradually given rise to a third conception which is mechanistic as well as energetic—although, logically speaking, the advance from cause to effect, the progressive action of the cause, cannot at the same time be the retrogressive selection of a means to an end. It is not possible to conceive that one and the same combination of events could be simultaneously causal and final, for the one determination excludes the other. There are in fact two different points of view, the one reversing the other; for the principle of finality is the logical reverse of the principle of causality. Finality is not only logically possible, it is also an indispensable explanatory principle, since no explanation of nature can be mechanistic only. If indeed our concepts were exclusively those of moving bodies in space, there would be only causal explanation; but we have also to deal conceptually with relations of movement, which require the energetic standpoint. If this were not so, there would have been no need to invent the concept of energy.

[5] The predominance of one or the other point of view depends less upon the objective behaviour of things than upon the psychological attitude of the investigator and thinker. Empathy leads to the mechanistic view, abstraction to the energetic view. Both these types are liable to commit the error of hypostatizing their principles because of the so-called objective facts of experience. They make the mistake of assuming that the subjective concept is identical with the behaviour of the thing itself; that, for example, causality as we experience it is also to be found objectively in the behaviour of things. This error is very common and leads to incessant conflicts with the opposing principle; for, as was said, it is impossible to think of the determining factor being both causal and final at the same time. But this intolerable contradiction only comes about through the illegitimate and thoughtless projection into the object of what is a mere point of view. Our points of view remain without contradiction only when they are restricted to the sphere of the psychological and are projected merely as hypotheses into the objective behaviour of things. The causality principle can suffer without contradiction its logical reversal, but the facts cannot; hence causality and finality must preclude one another in the object. On the well-known principle of minimizing differences, it is customary to effect a theoretically inadmissible compromise by regarding a process as partly causal, partly final7—a compromise which gives rise to all sorts of theoretical hybrids but which yields, it cannot be denyed, a relatively faithful picture of reality.8 We must always bear in mind that despite the most beautiful agreement between the facts and our ideas, explanatory principles are only points of view, that is, manifestations of the psychological attitude and of the a priori conditions under which all thinking takes place.

b. The Possibility of Quantitative Measurement in Psychology [6] From what has been said it should be sufficiently clear that every event requires the mechanistic-causal as well as the energetic-final point of view. Expediency, that is to say, the possibility of obtaining results, alone decides whether the one or the other view is to be preferred. If, for example, the qualitative side of the event comes into question, then the energetic point of view takes second place, because it has nothing to do with the things themselves but only with their quantitative relations of movement.

[7] It has been much disputed whether or not mental and psychic events can be subjected to an energetic view. A priori there is no reason why this should not be possible, since there are no grounds for excluding psychic events from the field of objective experience. The psyche itself can very well be an object of experience. Yet, as Wundt's example shows, one can question in good faith whether the energetic point of view is applicable to psychic phenomena at all, and if it is applicable, whether the psyche can be looked upon as a relatively closed system.

[8] As to the first point, I am in entire agreement with von Grot—one of the first to propose the concept of psychic energy—when he says: “The concept of psychic energy is as much justified in science as that of physical energy, and psychic energy has just as many quantitative measurements and different forms as has physical energy.”

[9] As to the second point, I differ from previous investigators in that I am not concerned in the least in fitting psychic energy processes into the physical system. I am not interested in such a classification because we have at best only the vaguest conjectures to go on and no real point of departure. Although it seems certain to me that psychic energy is in some way or other closely connected with physical processes, yet, in order to speak with any authority about this connection, we would need quite different experiences and insights. As to the philosophical side of the question, I entirely endorse the views of Busse. I must also support Külpe when he says: “It would thus make no difference whether a quantum of mental energy inserts itself into the course of the material process or not: the law of the conservation of energy as formulated hitherto would not be impaired.”

In my view the psychophysical relation is a problem in itself, which perhaps will be solved some day. In the meantime, however, the psychologist need not be held up by this difficulty, but can regard the psyche as a relatively closed system. In that case we must certainly break with what seems to me the untenable “psychophysical” hypothesis, since its epiphenomenalist point of view is simply a legacy from the old-fashioned scientific materialism.

Thus, as Lasswitz, von Grot, and others think, the phenomena of consciousness have no functional connections with one another, for they are only (!) “phenomena, expressions, symptoms of certain deeper functional relationships.” The causal connections existing between psychic facts, which we can observe at any time, contradict the epiphenomenon theory, which has a fatal similarity to the materialistic belief that the psyche is secreted by the brain as the gall is by the liver. A psychology that treats the psyche as an epiphenomenon would better call itself brain-psychology, and remain satisfied with the meagre results that such a psycho-physiology can yield. The psyche deserves to be taken as a phenomenon in its own right; there are no grounds at all for regarding it as a mere epiphenomenon, dependent though it may be on the functioning of the brain. One would be as little justified in regarding life as an epiphenomenon of the chemistry of carbon compounds.

The immediate experience of quantitative psychic relations on the one hand, and the unfathomable nature of a psychophysical connection on the other, justify at least a provisional view of the psyche as a relatively closed system. Here I find myself in direct opposition to von Grot's psychophysical energetics. In my view he is moving here on very uncertain ground, so that his further remarks have little plausibility. Nevertheless, I would like to put von Grot's formulations before the reader in his own words, as they represent the opinions of a pioneer in this difficult field:

Psychic energies possess quantity and mass, just like physical energies.

As different forms of psychic work and psychic potentiality, they can be transformed into one another.

They can be converted into physical energies and vice versa, by means of physiological processes.

I need scarcely add that statement three seems to require a significant question mark. In the last analysis it is only expediency that can decide, not whether the energetic view is possible in itself, but whether it promises results in practice.

The possibility of exact quantitative measurement of physical energy has proved that the energetic standpoint does yield results when applied to physical events. But it would still be possible to consider physical events as forms of energy even if there were no exact quantitative measurement but merely the possibility of estimating quantities. If, however, even that proved to be impossible, then the energetic point of view would have to be abandoned, since if there is not at least a possibility of a quantitative estimate the energetic standpoint is quite superfluous.

(i) The Subjective System of Values

The applicability of the energetic standpoint to psychology rests, then, exclusively on the question whether a quantitative estimate of psychic energy is possible or not. This question can be met with an unconditional affirmative, since our psyche actually possesses an extraordinarily well-developed evaluating system, namely the system of psychological values. Values are quantitative estimates of energy. Here it should be remarked that in our collective moral and aesthetic values we have at our disposal not merely an objective system of value but an objective system of measurement. This system of measurement is not, however, directly available for our purpose, since it is a general scale of values which takes account only indirectly of subjective, that is to say individual, psychological conditions.

What we must first of all consider, therefore, is the subjective value system, the subjective estimates of the single individual. We can, as a matter of fact, estimate the subjective values of our psychic contents up to a certain point, even though it is at times extraordinarily difficult to measure them with objective accuracy against the generally established values. However, this comparison is superfluous for our purpose, as already said. We can weigh our subjective evaluations against one another and determine their relative strength. Their measurement is nevertheless relative to the value of other contents and therefore not absolute and objective, but it is sufficient for our purpose inasmuch as different intensities of value in relation to similar qualities can be recognized with certainty, while equal values under the same conditions plainly maintain themselves in equilibrium.

The difficulty begins only when we have to compare the value intensities of different qualities, say the value of a scientific idea compared with a feeling impression. Here the subjective estimate becomes uncertain and therefore unreliable. In the same way, the subjective estimate is restricted to the contents of consciousness; hence it is useless with respect to unconscious influences, where we are concerned with valuations that go beyond the boundaries of consciousness.

In view of the compensatory relationship known to exist between the conscious and the unconscious, however, it is of great importance to find a way of determining the value of unconscious products. If we want to carry through the energetic approach to psychic events, we must bear in mind the exceedingly important fact that conscious values can apparently disappear without showing themselves again in an equivalent conscious achievement. In this case we should theoretically expect their appearance in the unconscious. But since the unconscious is not directly accessible either in ourselves or in others, the evaluation can only be an indirect one, so we must have recourse to auxiliary methods in order to arrive at our estimates of value. In the case of subjective evaluation, feeling and insight come to our aid immediately, because these are functions which have been developing over long periods of time and have become very finely differentiated. Even the child practises very early the differentiation of his scale of values; he weighs up whether he likes his father or mother better, who comes in the second and third place, who is most hated, etcetera This conscious evaluation not only breaks down in regard to the manifestations of the unconscious but is actually twisted into the most obvious false estimates, also described as “repressions” or the “displacement of affect.” Subjective evaluation is therefore completely out of the question in estimating unconscious value intensities. Consequently we need an objective point of departure that will make an indirect but objective estimate possible.

(2) Objective Estimate of Quantity

In my studies of the phenomena of association I have shown that there are certain constellations of psychic elements grouped round feeling-toned18 contents, which I have called “complexes.” The feeling-toned content, the complex, consists of a nuclear element and a large number of secondarily constellated associations. The nuclear element consists of two components: first, a factor determined by experience and causally related to the environment; second, a factor innate in the individual's character and determined by his disposition.

The nuclear element is characterized by its feeling-tone, the emphasis resulting from the intensity of affect. This emphasis, expressed in terms of energy, is a value quantity. In so far as the nuclear element is conscious, the quantity can be subjectively estimated, at least relatively. But if, as frequently happens, the nuclear element is unconscious, at any rate in its psychological significance, then a subjective estimate becomes impossible, and one must substitute the indirect method of evaluation. This is based, in principle, on the following fact:

that the nuclear element automatically creates a complex to the degree that it is affectively toned and possesses energetic value, as I have shown in detail in the second and third chapters of my “Psychology of Dementia Praecox.” The nuclear element has a constellating power corresponding to its energetic value. It produces a specific constellation of psychic contents, thus giving rise to the complex, which is a constellation of psychic contents dynamically conditioned by the energetic value. The resultant constellation, however, is not just an irradiation of the psychic stimulus, but a selection of the stimulated psychic contents which is conditioned by the quality of the nuclear element.

This selection cannot, of course, be explained in terms of energy, because the energetic explanation is quantitative and not qualitative. For a qualitative explanation we must have recourse to the causal view.20 The proposition upon which the objective estimate of psychological value intensities is based therefore runs as follows: the constellating power of the nuclear element corresponds to its value intensity, that is, to its energy.

But what means have we of estimating the energetic value of the constellating power which enriches the complex with associations? We can estimate this quantum of energy in various ways: from the relative number of constellations effected by the nuclear element; from the relative frequency and intensity of the reactions indicating a disturbance or complex; from the intensity of the accompanying affects.

1. The data required to determine the relative number of constellations may be obtained partly by direct observation and partly by analytical deduction. That is to say, the more frequent the constellations conditioned by one and the same complex, the greater must be its psychological valency.

[22] 2. The reactions indicating a disturbance or complex do not

include only the symptoms that appear in the course of the association experiment. These are really nothing but the effects of the complex, and their form is determined by the particular type of experiment. We are more concerned here with those phenomena that are peculiar to psychological processes outside experimental conditions. Freud has described the greater part of them under the head of lapses of speech, mistakes in writing, slips of memory, misunderstandings, and other symptomatic actions.

To these we must add the automatisms described by me, “thought-deprivation,” “interdiction,” “irrelevant talk,” etcetera As I have shown in my association experiments, the intensity of these phenomena can be directly determined by a time record, and the same thing is possible also in the case of an unrestricted psychological procedure, when, watch in hand, we can easily determine the value intensity from the time taken by the patient to speak about certain things. It might be objected that patients very often waste the better part of their time talking about irrelevancies in order to evade the main issue, but that only shows how much more important these so-called irrelevancies are to them. The observer must guard against arbitrary judgments that explain the real interests of the patient as irrelevant, in accordance with some subjective, theoretical assumption of the analyst's. In determining values, he must hold strictly to objective criteria. Thus, if a patient wastes hours complaining about her servants instead of coming to the main conflict, which may have been gauged quite correctly by the analyst, this only means that the servant-complex has in fact a higher energetic value than the still unconscious conflict, which will perhaps reveal itself as the nuclear element only during the further course of treatment, or that the inhibition exercised by the highly valued conscious position keeps the nuclear element in the unconscious through overcompensation.

3. In order to determine the intensity of affective phenomena we have objective methods which, while not measuring the quantity of affect, nevertheless permit an estimate. Experimental psychology has furnished us with a number of such methods. Apart from time measurements, which determine the inhibition of the association process rather than the actual affects, we have the following devices in particular:

(a) the pulse curve;22

(b) the respiration curve;23

(c) the psycho-galvanic phenomenon.24

The easily recognizable changes in these curves permit inferential estimates to be made concerning the intensity of the disturbing cause. It is also possible, as experience has shown to our satisfaction, deliberately to induce affective phenomena in the subject by means of psychological stimuli which one knows to be especially charged with affect for this particular individual in relation to the experimenter.

Besides these experimental methods we have a highly differentiated subjective system for recognizing and evaluating affective phenomena in others. There is present in each of us a direct instinct for registering this, which animals also possess in high degree, with respect not only to their own species but also to other animals and human beings. We can perceive the slightest emotional fluctuations in others and have a very fine feeling for the quality and quantity of affects in our fellow-men.

2. Application of the Energic Standpoint

a. The Psychological Concept of Energy

The term “psychic energy” has long been in use. We find it, for example, as early as Schiller, and the energetic point of view was also used by von Grot27 and Theodor Lipps Lipps distinguishes psychic energy from physical energy, while Stern leaves the question of their connection open. We have to thank Lipps for the distinction between psychic energy and psychic force. For Lipps, psychic force is the possibility of processes arising in the psyche at all and of attaining a certain degree of efficiency. Psychic energy, on the other hand, is defined by Lipps as the “inherent capacity of these processes to actualize this force in themselves."30 Elsewhere Lipps speaks of "psychic quantities." The distinction between force and energy is a conceptual necessity, for energy is really a concept and, as such, does not exist objectively in the phenomena themselves but only in the specific data of experience. In other words, energy is always experienced specifically as motion and force when actual, and as a state or condition when potential. Psychic energy appears, when actual, in the specific, dynamic phenomena of the psyche, such as instinct, wishing, willing, affect, attention, capacity for work, etcetera, which make up the psychic forces. When potential, energy shows itself in specific achievements, possibilities, aptitudes, attitudes, etcetera, which are its various states.

The differentiation of specific energies, such as pleasure energy, sensation energy, contrary energy, etcetera, proposed by Lipps, seems to me theoretically inadmissible as the specific forms of energy are the above-mentioned forces and states. Energy is a quantitative concept which includes them all. It is only these forces and states that are determined qualitatively, for they are concepts that express qualities brought into action through energy. The concept of quantity should never be qualitative at the same time, otherwise it would never enable us to expound the relations between forces, which is after all its real function.

Since, unfortunately, we cannot prove scientifically that a relation of equivalence exists between physical and psychic energy, we have no alternative except either to drop the energetic viewpoint altogether, or else to postulate a special psychic energy—which would be entirely possible as a hypothetical operation. Psychology as much as physics may avail itself of the right to build its own concepts, as Lipps has already remarked, but only in so far as the energetic view proves its value and is not just a summing-up under a vague general concept—an objection justly enough raised by Wundt. We are of the opinion, however, that the energetic view of psychic phenomena is a valuable one because it enables us to recognize just those quantitative relations whose existence in the psyche cannot possibly be denyed but which are easily overlooked from a purely qualitative standpoint.

Now if the psyche consisted, as the psychologists of the conscious mind maintain, of conscious processes alone (admittedly somewhat “dark” now and then), we might rest content with the postulate of a “special psychic energy.” But since we are persuaded that the unconscious processes also belong to psychology, and not merely to the physiology of the brain (as substratum processes), we are obliged to put our concept of energy on a rather broader basis. We fully agree with Wundt that there are things of which we are dimly conscious. We accept, as he does, a scale of clarity for conscious contents, but for us the psyche does not stop where the blackness begins but is continued right into the unconscious. We also leave brain-psychology its share, since we assume that the unconscious functions ultimately go over into substratum processes to which no psychic quality can be assigned, except by way of the philosophical hypothesis of pan-psychism.

In delimiting a concept of psychic energy we are thus faced with certain difficulties, because we have absolutely no means of dividing what is psychic from the biological process as such. Biology as much as psychology can be approached from the energetic standpoint, in so far as the biologist feels it to be useful and valuable. Like the psyche, the life-process in general does not stand in any exactly demonstrable relationship of equivalence to physical energy.

If we take our stand on the basis of scientific common sense and avoid philosophical considerations which would carry us too far, we would probably do best to regard the psychic process simply as a life-process. In this way we enlarge the narrower concept of psychic energy to a broader one of life-energy, which includes “psychic energy” as a specific part. We thus gain the advantage of being able to follow quantitative relations beyond the narrow confines of the psychic into the sphere of biological functions in general, and so can do justice, if need be, to the long discussed and ever-present problem of “mind and body.”

The concept of life-energy has nothing to do with a so-called life-force, for this, qua force, would be nothing more than a specific form of universal energy. To regard life-energy thus, and so bridge over the still yawning gulf between physical processes and life-processes, would be to do away with the special claims of bio-energetics as opposed to physical energetics. I have therefore suggested that, in view of the psychological use we intend to make of it, we call our hypothetical life-energy “libido.” To this extent I have differentiated it from a concept of universal energy, so maintaining the right of biology and psychology to form their own concepts. In adopting this usage I do not in any way wish to forestall workers in the field of bioenergetics, but freely admit that I have adopted the term libido with the intention of using it for our purposes: for theirs, some such term as “bio-energy” or “vital energy” may be preferred.

I must at this point guard against a possible misunderstanding. I have not the smallest intention, in the present paper, of letting myself in for a discussion of the controversial question of psychophysical parallelism and reciprocal action. These theories are speculations concerning the possibility of mind and body functioning together or side by side, and they touch on the very point I am purposely leaving out of account here, namely whether the psychic energy process exists independently of, or is included in, the physical process.

In my view we know practically nothing about this. Like Busse I consider the idea of reciprocal action tenable, and can see no reason to prejudice its credibility with the hypothesis of psychophysical parallelism. To the psychotherapist, whose special field lies just in this crucial sphere of the interaction of mind and body, it seems highly probable that the psychic and the physical are not two independent parallel processes, but are essentially connected through reciprocal action, although the actual nature of this relationship is still completely outside our experience. Exhaustive discussions of this question may be all very well for philosophers, but empirical psychology should confine itself to empirically accessible facts. Even though we have not yet succeeded in proving that the processes of psychic energy are included in the physical process, the opponents of such a possibility have been equally unsuccessful in separating the psychic from the physical with any certainty.

b. The Conservation of Energy

If we undertake to view the psychic life-process from the energetic standpoint, we must not rest content with the mere concept, but must accept the obligation to test its applicability to empirical material. An energetic standpoint is otiose if its main principle, the conservation of energy, proves to be inapplicable. Here we must follow Busse's suggestion and distinguish between the principle of equivalence and the principle of constancy. The principle of equivalence states that “for a given quantity of energy expended or consumed in bringing about a certain condition, an equal quantity of the same or another form of energy will appear elsewhere”; while the principle of constancy states that “the sum total of energy remains constant, and is susceptible neither of increase nor of decrease.” Hence the principle of constancy is a logically necessary but generalized conclusion from the principle of equivalence and is not so important in practice, since our experience is always concerned with partial systems only.

For our purpose, the principle of equivalence is the only one of immediate concern. In my book Symbols of Transformation, I have demonstrated the possibility of considering certain developmental processes and other transformations of the kind under the principle of equivalence. I will not repeat in extenso what I have said there, but will only emphasize once again that

Freud's investigation of sexuality has made many valuable contributions to our problem. Nowhere can we see more clearly than in the relation of sexuality to the total psyche how the disappearance of a given quantum of libido is followed by the appearance of an equivalent value in another form. Unfortunately Freud's very understandable over-valuation of sexuality led him to reduce transformations of other specific psychic forces co-ordinated with sexuality to sexuality pure and simple, thus bringing upon himself the not unjustified charge of pan-sexualism. The defect of the Freudian view lies in the one-sidedness to which the mechanistic-causal standpoint always inclines, that is to say in the all-simplifying reductio ad causam, which, the truer, the simpler, the more inclusive it is, does the less justice to the product thus analysed and reduced. Anyone who reads Freud's works with attention will see what an important role the equivalence principle plays in the structure of his theories. This can be seen particularly clearly in his investigations of case material, where he gives an account of repressions and their substitute formations. Anyone who has had practical experience of this field knows that the equivalence principle is of great heuristic value in the treatment of neuroses. Even if its application is not always conscious, you nevertheless apply it instinctively or by feeling. For instance, when a conscious value, say a transference, decreases or actually disappears, you immediately look for the substitute formation, expecting to see an equivalent value spring up somewhere else.

It is not difficult to find the substitute if the substitute formation is a conscious content, but there are frequent cases where a sum of libido disappears apparently without forming a substitute. In that case the substitute is unconscious, or, as usually happens, the patient is unaware that some new psychic fact is the corresponding substitute formation. But it may also happen that a considerable sum of libido disappears as though completely swallowed up by the unconscious, with no new value appearing in its stead. In such cases it is advisable to cling firmly to the principle of equivalence, for careful observation of the patient will soon reveal signs of unconscious activity, for instance an intensification of certain symptoms, or a new symptom, or peculiar dreams, or strange, fleeting fragments of fantasy, etcetera If the analyst succeeds in bringing these hidden contents into consciousness, it can usually be shown that the libido which disappeared from consciousness generated a product in the unconscious which, despite all differences, has not a few features in common with the conscious contents that lost their energy. It is as if the libido dragged with it into the unconscious certain qualities which are often so distinct that one can recognize from their character the source of the libido now activating the unconscious.

There are many striking and well-known examples of these transformations. For instance, when a child begins to separate himself subjectively from his parents, fantasies of substitute parents arise, and these fantasies are almost always transferred to real people. Transferences of this sort prove untenable in the long run, because the maturing personality must assimilate the parental complex and achieve authority, responsibility, and independence. He or she must become a father or mother. Another field rich in striking examples is the psychology of Christianity, where the repression of instincts (i.e., of primitive instinctuality) leads to religious substitute formations, such as the medieval Gottesminne,'love of God,' the sexual character of which only the blind could fail to see.

These reflections lead us to a further analogy with the theory of physical energy. As we know, the theory of energy recognizes not only a factor of intensity, but also a factor of extensity, the latter being a necessary addition in practice to the pure concept of energy. It combines the concept of pure intensity with the concept of quantity (e.g., the quantity of light as opposed to its strength). “The quantity, or the extensity factor, of energy is attached to one structure and cannot be transferred to another structure without carrying with it parts of the first; but the intensity factor can pass from one structure to another.” The extensity factor, therefore, shows the dynamic measure of energy present at any time in a given phenomenon.37

Similarly, there is a psychological extensity factor which cannot pass into a new structure without carrying over parts or characteristics of the previous structure with which it was connected.

In my earlier work, I have drawn particular attention to this peculiarity of energy transformation, and have shown that libido does not leave a structure as pure intensity and pass without trace into another, but that it takes the character of the old function over into the new.38 This peculiarity is so striking that it gives rise to false conclusions—not only to wrong theories, but to self-deceptions fraught with unfortunate consequences. For instance, say a sum of libido having a certain sexual form passes over into another structure, taking with it some of the peculiarities of its previous application. It is then very tempting to think that the dynamism of the new structure will be sexual too.39 Or it may be that the libido of some spiritual activity goes over into an essentially material interest, whereupon the individual erroneously believes that the new structure is equally spiritual in character. These conclusions are false in principle because they take only the relative similarities of the two structures into account while ignoring their equally essential differences.

Practical experience teaches us as a general rule that a psychic activity can find a substitute only on the basis of equivalence. A pathological interest, for example, an intense attachment to a symptom, can be replaced only by an equally intense attachment to another interest, which is why a release of libido from the symptom never takes place without this substitute. If the substitute is of less energetic value, we know at once that a part of the energy is to be sought elsewhere—if not in the conscious mind, then in unconscious fantasy formations or in a disturbance of the “parties supérieures” of the psychological functions (to borrow an apt expression of Janet's).

Apart from these practical experiences which have long been at our disposal, the energetic point of view also enables us to build up another side of our theory. According to the causal standpoint of Freud, there exists only this same immutable substance, the sexual component, to whose activity every interpretation is led back with monotonous regularity, a fact which Freud himself once pointed out. It is obvious that the spirit of the reductio ad causam or reductio in primam figuram can never do justice to the idea of final development, of such paramount importance in psychology, because each change in the conditions is seen as nothing but a “sublimation” of the basic substance and therefore as a masked expression of the same old thing.

The idea of development is possible only if the concept of an immutable substance is not hypostatized by appeals to a so-called “objective reality”—that is to say, if causality is not assumed to be identical with the behaviour of things. The idea of development requires the possibility of change in substances, which, from the energetic standpoint, appear as systems of energy capable of theoretically unlimited interchangeability and modulation under the principle of equivalence, and on the obvious assumption of a difference in potential. Here again, just as in examining the relations between causality and finality, we come upon an insoluble antimony resulting from an illegitimate projection of the energic hypothesis, for an immutable substance cannot at the same time be a system of energy. According to the mechanistic view, energy is attached to substance, so that Wundt can speak of an “energy of the psychic” which has increased in the course of time and therefore does not permit the application of the principles of energy. From the energetic standpoint, on the other hand, substance is nothing more than the expression or sign of an energetic system. This antinomy is insoluble only so long as it is forgotten that points of view correspond to fundamental psychological attitudes, which obviously coincide to some extent with the conditions and behaviour of objects—a coincidence that renders the points of view applicable in practice. It is therefore quite understandable that causalists and finalists alike should fight desperately for the objective validity of their principles, since the principle each is defending is also that of his personal attitude to life and the world, and no one will allow without protest that his attitude may have only a conditional validity. This unwelcome admission feels somewhat like a suicidal attempt to saw off the branch upon which one is sitting. But the unavoidable antinomies to which the projection of logically justified principles gives rise to a fundamental examination of our own psychological attitudes, for only in this way can we avoid doing violence to the other logically valid principle. The antinomies must resolve itself in an antinomian postulate, however unsatisfactory this may be to our concretistic thinking, and however sorely it afflicts the spirit of natural science to admit that the essence of so-called reality is of a mysterious irrationality. This, however, necessarily follows from an acceptance of the antinomian postulate.

The theory of development cannot do without the final point of view. Even Darwin, as Wundt points out, worked with final concepts, such as adaptation. The palpable fact of differentiation and development can never be explained exhaustively by causality; it requires also the final point of view, which man produced in the course of his psychic evolution, as he also produced the causal.

According to the concept of finality, causes are understood as means to an end. A simple example is the process of regression. Regarded causally, regression is determined, say, by a “mother fixation.” But from the final standpoint the libido regresses to the imago of the mother in order to find there the memory associations by means of which further development can take place, for instance from a sexual system into an intellectual or spiritual system.

The first explanation exhausts itself in stressing the importance of the cause and completely overlooks the final significance of the regressive process. From this angle the whole edifice of civilization becomes a mere substitute for the impossibility of incest. But the second explanation allows us to foresee what will follow from the regression, and at the same time it helps us to understand the significance of the memory-images that have been reactivated by the regressive libido. To the causalist the latter interpretation naturally seems unbelievably hypothetical, while to the finalist the “mother fixation” is an arbitrary assumption. This assumption, he objects, entirely fails to take note of the aim, which alone can be made responsible for the reactivation of the mother imago. Adler, for instance, raises numerous objections of this sort against Freud's theory. In my Symbols of Transformation I tried to do justice to both views, and met for my pains the accusation from both sides of holding an obscurantist and dubious position. In this I share the fate of neutrals in wartime, to whom even good faith is often denyed.

What to the causal view is fact to the final view is symbol, and vice versa. Everything that is real and essential to the one is unreal and inessential to the other. We are therefore forced to resort to the antinomian postulate and must view the world, too, as a psychic phenomenon.

Certainly it is necessary for science to know how things are “in themselves,” but even science cannot escape the psychological conditions of knowledge, and psychology must be peculiarly alive to these conditions. Since the psyche also possesses the final point of view, it is psychologically inadmissible to adopt the purely causal attitude to psychic phenomena, not to mention the all too familiar monotony of its one-sided interpretations.

The symbolic interpretation of causes by means of the energetic standpoint is necessary for the differentiation of the psyche, since unless the facts are symbolically interpreted, the causes remain immutable substances which go on operating continuously, as in the case of Freud's old trauma theory. Cause alone does not make development possible. For the psyche the reductio ad causam is the very reverse of development; it binds the libido to the elementary facts.

From the standpoint of rationalism this is all that can be desired, but from the standpoint of the psyche it is lifeless and comfortless boredom—though it should never be forgotten that for many people it is absolutely necessary to keep their libido close to the basic facts. But, in so far as this requirement is fulfilled, the psyche cannot always remain on this level but must go on developing, the causes transforming themselves into means to an end, into symbolical expressions for the way that lies ahead. The exclusive importance of the cause, that is, its energetic value, thus disappears and emerges again in the symbol, whose power of attraction represents the equivalent quantum of libido. The energetic value of a cause is never abolished by positing an arbitrary and rational goal: that is always a makeshift.

Psychic development cannot be accomplished by intention and will alone; it needs the attraction of the symbol, whose value quantum exceeds that of the cause. But the formation of a symbol cannot take place until the mind has dwelt long enough on the elementary facts, that is to say until the inner or outer necessities of the life-process have brought about a transformation of energy. If man lived altogether instinctively and automatically, the transformation could come about in accordance with purely biological laws. We can still see something of the sort in the psychic life of primitives, which is entirely concretistic and entirely symbolical at once. In civilized man the rationalism of consciousness, otherwise so useful to him, proves to be a most formidable obstacle to the frictionless transformation of energy. Reason, always seeking to avoid what to it is an unbearable antimony, takes its stand exclusively on one side or the other, and convulsively seeks to hold fast to the values it has once chosen.

It will continue to do this so long as human reason passes for an “immutable substance,” thereby precluding any symbolical view of itself. But reason is only relative, and eventually checks itself in its own antinomies. It too is only a means to an end, a symbolical expression for a transitional stage in the path of development.

c. Entropy

The principle of equivalence is one proposition of practical importance in the theory of energy; the other proposition, necessary and complementary, is the principle of entropy. Transformations of energy are possible only as a result of differences in intensity. According to Carnot's law, heat can be converted into work only by passing from a warmer to a colder body. But mechanical work is continually being converted into heat, which on account of its reduced intensity cannot be converted back into work. In this way a closed energetic system gradually reduces its differences in intensity to an even temperature, whereby any further change is prohibited.

So far as our experience goes, the principle of entropy is known to us only as a principle of partial processes which make up a relatively closed system. The psyche, too, can be regarded as such a relatively closed system, in which transformations of energy lead to an equalization of differences. According to Boltzmann's formulation, ^{} this levelling process corresponds to a transition from an improbable to a probable state, whereby the possibility of further change is increasingly limited. Psychologically, we can see this process at work in the development of a lasting and relatively unchanging attitude.

After violent oscillations at the beginning the opposites equalize one another, and gradually a new attitude develops, the final stability of which is the greater in proportion to the magnitude of the initial differences. The greater the tension between the pairs of opposites, the greater will be the energy that comes from them; and the greater the energy, the stronger will be its constellating, attracting power. This increased power of attraction corresponds to a wider range of constellated psychic material, and the further this range extends, the less chance is there of subsequent disturbances which might arise from friction with material not previously constellated. For this reason an attitude that has been formed out of a far-reaching process of equalization is an especially lasting one.

[50] Daily psychological experience affords proof of this statement. The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm which is not easily disturbed, or else a brokenness that can hardly be healed. Conversely, it is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed in order to produce valuable and lasting results. Since our experience is confined to relatively closed systems, we are never in a position to observe an absolute psychological entropy; but the more the psychological system is closed off, the more clearly is the phenomenon of entropy manifested. We see this particularly well in those mental disturbances which are characterized by intense seclusion from the environment. The so-called “dulling of affect” in dementia praecox or schizophrenia may well be understood as a phenomenon of entropy. The same applies to all those so-called degenerative phenomena which develop in psychological attitudes that permanently exclude all connection with the environment. Similarly, such voluntarily directed processes as directed thinking and directed feeling can be viewed as relatively closed psychological systems. These functions are based on the principle of the exclusion of the inappropriate, or unsuitable, which might bring about a deviation from the chosen path. The elements that “belong” are left to a process of mutual equalization, and meanwhile are protected from disturbing influences from outside. Thus after some time they reach their “probable” state, which shows its stability in, say, a “lasting” conviction or a “deeply ingrained” point of view, etcetera How firmly such things are rooted can be tested by anyone who has attempted to dissolve such a structure, for instance to uproot a prejudice or change a habit of thought. In the history of nations these changes have cost rivers of blood. But in so far as absolute insulation is impossible (except, maybe, in pathological cases), the energetic process continues as development, though, because of “loss by friction,” with lessening intensity and decreased potential.

[51] This way of looking at things has long been familiar. Everyone speaks of the “storms of youth” which yield to the “tranquillity of age.” We speak, too, of a “confirmed belief” after “battling with doubts,” of “relief from inner tension,” and so on. This is the involuntary energetic standpoint shared by everyone. For the scientific psychologist, of course, it remains valueless so long as he feels no need to estimate psychological values, while for physiological psychology this problem does not arise at all. Psychiatry, as opposed to psychology, is purely descriptive, and until recently it has not concerned itself at all about psychological causality, has in fact even denyed it. Analytical psychology, however, was obliged to take the energetic standpoint into account, since the causal-mechanistic standpoint of Freudian psychoanalysis was not sufficient to do justice to psychological values. Value requires for its explanation a quantitative concept, and a qualitative concept like sexuality can never serve as a substitute. A qualitative concept is always the description of a thing, a substance; whereas a quantitative concept deals with relations of intensity and never with a substance or a thing. A qualitative concept that does not designate a substance, a thing, or a fact is a more or less arbitrary exception, and as such I must count a qualitative, hypostatized concept of energy. A scientific causal explanation now and then needs assumptions of this kind, yet they must not be taken over merely for the purpose of making an energetic standpoint superfluous. The same is true of the theory of energy, which at times shows a tendency to deny substance in order to become purely teleological or finalistic. To substitute a qualitative concept for energy is inadmissible, for that would be a specification of energy, which is in fact a force. This would be in biology vitalism, in psychology sexualism (Freud), or some other “ism,” in so far as it could be shown that the investigators reduced the energy of the total psyche to one definite force or drive. But drives, as we have shown, are specific forms of energy. Energy includes these in a higher concept of relation, and it cannot express anything else than the relations between psychological values.

d. Energism and Dynamism

[52] What has been said above refers to a pure concept of energy. The concept of energy, like its correlate, the concept of time, is on the one hand an immediate, a priori, intuitive idea, and on the other a concrete, applied, or empirical concept abstracted from experience, like all scientific explanatory concepts. The applied concept of energy always deals with the behaviour of forces, with substances in motion; for energy is accessible to experience in no other way than through the observation of moving bodies. Hence, in practice, we speak of electrical energy and the like, as if energy were a definite force. This merging of the applied or empirical concept with the intuitive idea of the event gives rise to those constant confusions of “energy” with “force.” Similarly, the psychological concept of energy is not a pure concept, but a concrete and applied concept that appears to us in the form of sexual, vital, mental, moral “energy,” and so on. In other words, it appears in the form of a drive, the unmistakably dynamic nature of which justifies us in making a conceptual parallel with physical forces.

[53] The application of the pure concept to the stuff of experience necessarily brings about a concretization or visualization of the concept, so that it looks as if a substance had been posited. This is the case, for instance, with the physicist's concept of ether, which, although a concept, is treated exactly as if it were a substance. This confusion is unavoidable, since we are incapable of imagining a quantum unless it be a quantum of something. This something is the substance. Therefore every applied concept is unavoidably hypostatized, even against our will, though we must never forget that what we are dealing with is still a concept.

[54] I have suggested calling the energy concept used in analytical psychology by the name “libido.” The choice of this term may not be ideal in some respects, yet it seemed to me that this concept merited the name libido if only for reasons of historical justice. Freud was the first to follow out these really dynamic, psychological relationships and to present them coherently, making use of the convenient term “libido,” albeit with a specifically sexual connotation in keeping with his general starting-point, which was sexuality.

Together with “libido” Freud used the expressions “drive” or “instinct” (e.g., “ego-instincts”)46 and “psychic energy.” Since Freud confines himself almost exclusively to sexuality and its manifold ramifications in the psyche, the sexual definition of energy as a specific driving force is quite sufficient for his purpose. In a general psychological theory, however, it is impossible to use purely sexual energy, that is, one specific drive, as an explanatory concept, since psychic energy transformation is not merely a matter of sexual dynamics. Sexual dynamics is only one particular instance in the total field of the psyche. This is not to deny its existence, but merely to put it in its proper place.

[55] Since, for our concretistic thinking, the applied concept of energy immediately hypostatizes itself as the psychic forces (drives, affects, and other dynamic processes), its concrete character is in my view aptly expressed by the term “libido.” Similar conceptions have always made use of designations of this kind, for instance sho-pen-how-ur's “Will,” Aristotle's ópuhí, Plato's Eros, Empedocles' “love and hate of the elements,” or the élan vital of Bergson. From these concepts I have borrowed only the concrete character of the term, not the definition of the concept. The omission of a detailed explanation of this in my earlier book is responsible for numerous misunderstandings, such as the accusation that I have built up a kind of vitalistic concept.

[56] While I do not connect any specifically sexual definition with the word “libido,” this is not to deny the existence of a sexual dynamism any more than any other dynamism, for instance that of the hunger-drive, etcetera As early as 1912 I pointed out that my conception of a general life instinct, named libido, takes the place of the concept of “psychic energy” which I used in “The Psychology of Dementia Praecox.” I was, however, guilty of a sin of omission in presenting the concept only in its psychological concreteness and leaving out of account its metaphysical aspect, which is the subject of the present discussion. But, by leaving the libido concept wholly in its concrete form, I treated it as though it were hypostatized. Thus far I am to blame for the misunderstandings. I therefore expressly declared, in my “Theory of Psychoanalysis,” published in 1913, that “the libido with which we operate is not only not concrete or known, but is a complete X, a pure hypothesis, a model or counter, and is no more concretely conceivable than the energy known to the world of physics.” Libido, therefore, is nothing but an abbreviated expression for the “energic standpoint.” In a concrete presentation we shall never be able to operate with pure concepts unless we succeed in expressing the phenomenon mathematically.

So long as this is impossible, the applied concept will automatically become hypostatized through the data of experience.

[57] We must note yet another obscurity arising out of the concrete use of the libido-concept and of the concept of energy in general, namely the confusion, unavoidable in practical experience, of energy with the causal concept of effect, which is a dynamic and not an energetic concept at all.

[58] The causal-mechanistic view sees the sequence of facts, a-b-c-d, as follows: a causes b, b causes c, and so on. Here the concept of effect appears as the designation of a quality, as a “virtue” of the cause, in other words, as a dynamism. The final-energic view, on the other hand, sees the sequence thus: a-b-c are means towards the transformation of energy, which flows causelessly from a, the improbable state, entropically to b minus c and so to the probable state d. Here a causal effect is totally disregarded, since only intensities of effect are taken into account. In so far as the intensities are the same, we could just as well put w minus x minus y minus z instead of a minus b minus c minus d.

The datum of experience is in both cases the sequence a-b-c-d , with the difference that the mechanistic view infers a dynamism from the causal effect observed, while the energetic view observes the equivalence of the transformed effect rather than the effect of a cause. That is to say, both observe the sequence a-b-c-d , the one qualitatively, the other quantitatively. The causal mode of thought abstracts the dynamic concept from the datum of experience, while the final view applies its pure concept of energy to the field of observation and allows it, as it were, to become a dynamism. Despite their epistemological differences, which are as absolute as could be wished, the two modes of observation are unavoidably blended in the concept of force, the causal view abstracting its pure perception of the operative quality into a concept of dynamism, and the final view allowing its pure concept to become concretized through application. Thus the mechanistic speaks of the “energy of the psychic,” while the energist speaks of “psychic energy.” From what has been said it should be evident that one and the same process takes on different aspects according to the different standpoints from which it is viewed.

3. Fundamental Concepts of the Libido Theory

a. Progression and Regression

One of the most important energetic phenomena of psychic life is the progression and regression of libido. Progression could be defined as the daily advance of the process of psychological adaptation. We know that adaptation is not something that is achieved once and for all, though there is a tendency to believe the contrary. This is due to mistaking a person's psychic attitude for actual adaptation.

We can satisfy the demands of adaptation only by means of a suitably directed attitude. Consequently, the achievement of adaptation is completed in two stages: (1) attainment of attitude, (2) completion of adaptation by means of the attitude. A man's attitude to reality is something extraordinarily persistent, but the more persistent his mental habitus is, the less permanent will be his effective achievement of adaptation. This is the necessary consequence of the continual changes in the environment and the new adaptations demanded by them.

The progression of libido might therefore be said to consist in a continual satisfaction of the demands of environmental conditions. This is possible only by means of an attitude, which as such is necessarily directed and therefore characterized by a certain one-sidedness. Thus it may easily happen that an attitude can no longer satisfy the demands of adaptation because changes have occurred in the environmental conditions which require a different attitude.

For example, a feeling-attitude that seeks to fulfil the demands of reality by means of empathy may easily encounter a situation that can only be solved through thinking. In this case the feeling-attitude breaks down and the progression of libido also ceases. The vital feeling that was present before disappears, and in its place the psychic value of certain conscious contents increases in an unpleasant way; subjective contents and reactions press to the fore and the situation becomes full of affect and ripe for explosions. These symptoms indicate a damming up of libido, and the stoppage is always marked by the breaking up of the pairs of opposites. During the progression of libido the pairs of opposites are united in the co-ordinated flow of psychic processes. Their working together makes possible the balanced regularity of these processes, which without this inner polarity would become one-sided and unreasonable. We are therefore justified in regarding all extravagant and exaggerated behaviour as a loss of balance, because the co-ordinating effect of the opposite impulse is obviously lacking. Hence it is essential for progression, which is the successful achievement of adaptation, that impulse and counter-impulse, positive and negative, should reach a state of regular interaction and mutual influence.

This balancing and combining of pairs of opposites can be seen, for instance, in the process of reflection that precedes a difficult decision. But in the stoppage of libido that occurs when progression has become impossible, positive and negative can no longer unite in co-ordinated action, because both have attained an equal value which keeps the scales balanced. The longer the stoppage lasts, the more the value of the opposed positions increases; they become enriched with more and more associations and attach to themselves an ever-widening range of psychic material.

The tension leads to conflict, the conflict leads to attempts at mutual repression, and if one of the opposing forces is successfully repressed a dissociation ensues, a splitting of the personality, or disunion with oneself. The stage is then set for a neurosis. The acts that follow from such a condition are unco-ordinated, sometimes pathological, having the appearance of symptomatic actions. Although in part normal, they are based partly on the repressed opposite which, instead of working as an equilibrating force, has an obstructive effect, thus hindering the possibility of further progress.

The struggle between the opposites would persist in this fruitless way if the process of regression, the backward movement of libido, did not set in with the outbreak of the conflict. Through their collision the opposites are gradually deprived of value and depotentiated. This loss of value steadily increases and is the only thing perceived by consciousness. It is synonymous with regression, for in proportion to the decrease in value of the conscious opposites there is an increase in the value of all those psychic processes which are not concerned with outward adaptation and therefore are seldom or never employed consciously.

These psychic factors are for the most part unconscious. As the value of the subliminal elements and of the unconscious increases, it is to be expected that they will gain influence over the conscious mind. On account of the inhibiting influence which the conscious exercises over the unconscious, the unconscious values assert themselves at first only indirectly. The inhibition to which they are subjected is a result of the exclusive directedness of conscious contents. (This inhibition is identical with what Freud calls the “censor.”) The indirect manifestation of the unconscious takes the form of disturbances of conscious behaviour. In the association experiment they appear as complex-indicators, in daily life as the “symptomatic actions” first described by Freud, and in neurotic conditions they appear as symptoms.

Since regression raises the value of contents that were previously excluded from the conscious process of adaptation, and hence are either totally unconscious or only “dimly conscious,” the psychic elements now being forced over the threshold are momentarily useless from the standpoint of adaptation, and for this reason are invariably kept at a distance by the directed psychic function. The nature of these contents is for all the world to read in Freudian literature. They are not only of an infantile-sexual character, but are altogether incompatible contents and tendencies, partly immoral, partly unaesthetic, partly again of an irrational, imaginary nature. The obviously inferior character of these contents as regards adaptation has given rise to that depreciatory view of the psychic background which is habitual in psychoanalytic writings. What the regression brings to the surface certainly seems at first sight to be slime from the depths; but if one does not stop short at a superficial evaluation and refrains from passing judgment on the basis of a preconceived dogma, it will be found that this “slime” contains not merely incompatible and rejected remnants of everyday life, or inconvenient and objectionable animal tendencies, but also germs of new life and vital possibilities for the future. This is one of the great merits of psychoanalysis, that it is not afraid to dredge up the incompatible elements, which would be a thoroughly useless and indeed reprehensible undertaking were it not for the possibilities of new life that lie in the repressed contents. That this is and must be so is not only proved by a wealth of practical experience but can also be deduced from the following considerations.

The process of adaptation requires a directed conscious function characterized by inner consistency and logical coherence. Because it is directed, everything unsuitable must be excluded in order to maintain the integrity of direction. The unsuitable elements are subjected to inhibition and thereby escape attention. Now experience shows that there is only one consciously directed function of adaptation. If, for example, I have a thinking orientation I cannot at the same time orient myself by feeling, because thinking and feeling are two quite different functions. In fact, I must carefully exclude feeling if I am to satisfy the logical laws of thinking, so that the thought-process will not be disturbed by feeling. In this case I withdraw as much libido as possible from the feeling process, with the result that this function becomes relatively unconscious.

Experience shows, again, that the orientation is largely habitual; accordingly the other unsuitable functions, so far as they are incompatible with the prevailing attitude, are relatively unconscious, and hence unused, untrained, and undifferentiated. Moreover, on the principle of coexistence they necessarily become associated with other contents of the unconscious, the inferior and incompatible quality of which I have already pointed out. Consequently, when these functions are activated by regression and so reach consciousness, they appear in a somewhat incompatible form, disguised and covered up with the slime of the deep.

If we remember that the stoppage of libido was due to the failure of the conscious attitude, we can now understand what valuable seeds lie in the unconscious contents activated by regression. They contain the elements of that other function which was excluded by the conscious attitude and which would be capable of effectively complementing or even of replacing the inadequate conscious attitude. If thinking fails as the adapted function, because it is dealing with a situation to which one can adapt only by feeling, then the unconscious material activated by regression will contain the missing feeling function, although still in embryonic form, archaic and undeveloped. Similarly, in the opposite type, regression would activate a thinking function that would effectively compensate the inadequate feeling.

By activating an unconscious factor, regression confronts consciousness with the problem of the psyche as opposed to the problem of outward adaptation. It is natural that the conscious mind should fight against accepting the regressive contents, yet it is finally compelled by the impossibility of further progress to submit to the regressive values. In other words, regression leads to the necessity of adapting to the inner world of the psyche.

Just as adaptation to the environment may fail because of the one-sidedness of the adapted function, so adaptation to the inner world may fail because of the one-sidedness of the function in question. For instance, if the stoppage of libido was due to the failure of the thinking attitude to cope with the demands of outward adaptation, and if the unconscious feeling function is activated by regression, there is only a feeling attitude towards the inner world. This may be sufficient at first, but in the long run it will cease to be adequate, and the thinking function will have to be enlisted too, just as the reverse was necessary when dealing with the outer world. Thus a complete orientation towards the inner world becomes necessary until such time as inner adaptation is attained. Once the adaptation is achieved, progression can begin again.

The principle of progression and regression is portrayed in the myth of the whale-dragon worked out by Frobenius as I have shown in detail in my book Symbols of Transformation (pars. 307ff.). The hero is the symbolical exponent of the movement of libido. Entry into the dragon is the regressive direction, and the journey to the East (the “night sea journey”) with its attendant events symbolizes the effort to adapt to the conditions of the psychic inner world. The complete swallowing up and disappearance of the hero in the belly of the dragon represents the complete withdrawal of interest from the outer world. The overcoming of the monster from within is the achievement of adaptation to the conditions of the inner world, and the emergence (“slipping out”) of the hero from the monster's belly with the help of a bird, which happens at the moment of sunrise, symbolizes the recommencement of progression.

It is characteristic that the monster begins the night sea journey to the East, that is, towards sunrise, while the hero is engulfed in its belly. This seems to me to indicate that regression is not necessarily a retrograde step in the sense of a backwards development or degeneration, but rather represents a necessary phase of development. The individual is, however, not consciously aware that he is developing; he feels himself to be in a compulsive situation that resembles an early infantile state or even an embryonic condition within the womb. It is only if he remains stuck in this condition that we can speak of involution or degeneration.

Again, progression should not be confused with development, for the continuous flow or current of life is not necessarily development and differentiation. From primeval times certain plant and animal species have remained at a standstill without further differentiation, and yet have continued in existence. In the same way the psychic life of man can be progressive without evolution and regressive without involution. Evolution and involution have as a matter of fact no immediate connection with progression and regression, since the latter are mere life-movements which, notwithstanding their direction, actually have a static character. They correspond to what Goethe has aptly described as systole and diastole.52

Many objections have been raised against the view that myths represent psychological facts. People are very loath to give up the idea that the myth is some kind of explanatory allegory of astronomical, meteorological, or vegetative processes. The coexistence of explanatory tendencies is certainly not to be denyed, since there is abundant proof that myths also have an explanatory significance, but we are still faced with the question: why should myths explain things in this allegorical way? It is essential to understand where the primitive gets this explanatory material from, for it should not be forgotten that the primitive's need of causal explanations is not nearly so great as it is with us. He is far less interested in explaining things than in weaving fables.

We can see almost daily in our patients how mythical fantasies arise: they are not thought up, but present themselves as images or chains of ideas that force their way out of the unconscious, and when they are recounted they often have the character of connected episodes resembling mythical dramas. That is how myths arise, and that is the reason why the fantasies from the unconscious have so much in common with primitive myths. But in so far as the myth is nothing but a projection from the unconscious and not a conscious invention at all, it is quite understandable that we should everywhere come upon the same myth-motifs, and that myths actually represent typical psychic phenomena.

We must now consider how the processes of progression and regression are to be understood energically. That they are essentially dynamic processes should by now be sufficiently clear. Progression might be compared to a watercourse that flows from a mountain into a valley. The damming up of libido is analogous to a specific obstruction in the direction of the flow, such as a dike, which transforms the kinetic energy of the flow into the potential energy of a reservoir. Thus dammed back, the water is forced into another channel, if as a result of the damming it reaches a level that permits it to flow off in another direction. Perhaps it will flow into a channel where the energy arising from the difference in potential is transformed into electricity by means of a turbine. This transformation might serve as a model for the new progression brought about by the damming.

up and regression, its changed character being indicated by the new way in which the energy now manifests itself. In this process of transformation the principle of equivalence has a special heuristic value: the intensity of progression reappears in the intensity of regression.

It is not an essential postulate of the energetic standpoint that there must be progression and regression of libido, only that there must be equivalent transformations, for energetics is concerned only with quantity and makes no attempt to explain quality. Thus progression and regression are specific processes which must be conceived as dynamic, and which as such are conditioned by the qualities of matter. They cannot in any sense be derived from the essential nature of the concept of energy, though in their reciprocal relations they can only be understood energically. Why progression and regression should exist at all can only be explained by the qualities of matter, that is by means of a mechanistic-causal hypothesis.

Progression as a continuous process of adaptation to environmental conditions springs from the vital need for such adaptation. Necessity enforces complete orientation to these conditions and the suppression of all those tendencies and possibilities which subserve individuation.

Regression, on the other hand, as an adaptation to the conditions of the inner world, springs from the vital need to satisfy the demands of individuation. Man is not a machine in the sense that he can consistently maintain the same output of work. He can meet the demands of outer necessity in an ideal way only if he is also adapted to his own inner world, that is, if he is in harmony with himself. Conversely, he can only adapt to his inner world and achieve harmony with himself when he is adapted to the environmental conditions. As experience shows, the one or the other function can be neglected only for a time. If, for example, there is only one-sided adaptation to the outer world while the inner one is neglected, the value of the inner world will gradually increase, and this shows itself in the irruption of personal elements into the sphere of outer adaptation. I once saw a drastic instance of this: A manufacturer who had worked his way up to a high level of success and prosperity began to remember a certain phase of his youth when he took great pleasure in art. He felt the need to return to these pursuits, and began making artistic designs for the wares he manufactured. The result was that nobody wanted to buy these artistic products, and the man became bankrupt after a few years. His mistake lay in carrying over into the outer world what belonged to the inner, because he misunderstood the demands of individuation. So striking a failure of a function that was adequately adapted before can only be explained by this typical misunderstanding of the inner demands.

Although progression and regression are causally grounded in the nature of the life-processes on the one hand and in environmental conditions on the other, yet, if we look at them energically, we must think of them only as a means, as transitional stages in the flow of energy. Looked at from this angle, progression and the adaptation resulting therefrom are a means to regression, to a manifestation of the inner world in the outer. In this way a new means is created for a changed mode of progression, bringing better adaptation to environmental conditions.

b. Extraversion and Introversion

Progression and regression can be brought into relationship with extraversion and introversion: progression, as adaptation to outer conditions, could be regarded as extraversion; regression, as adaptation to inner conditions, could be regarded as introversion. But this parallel would give rise to a great deal of conceptual confusion, since progression and regression are at best only vague analogies of extraversion and introversion. In reality the latter two concepts represent dynamisms of a different kind from progression and regression. These are dynamic forms of a specifically determined transformation of energy, whereas extraversion and introversion, as their names suggest, are the forms taken both by progression and by regression. Progression is a forwards movement of life in the same sense that time moves forwards. This movement can occur in two different forms: either extraverted, when the progression is predominantly influenced by objects and environmental conditions, or introverted, when it has to adapt itself to the conditions of the ego (or, more accurately, of the “subjective factor”). Similarly, regression can proceed along two lines: either as a retreat from the outside world (introversion), or as a flight into extravagant experience of the outside world (extraversion). Failure in the first case drives a man into a state of dull brooding, and in the second case into leading the life of a wastrel. These two different ways of reacting, which I have called introversion and extraversion, correspond to two opposite types of attitude and are described in detail in my book Psychological Types.

Libido moves not only forwards and backwards, but also outwards and inwards. The psychology of the latter movement is described at some length in my book on types, so I can refrain from further elaboration here.

c. The Canalization of Libido

In my Symbols of Transformation I used the expression “canalization of libido” to characterize the process of energetic transformation or conversion. I mean by this a transfer of psychic intensities or values from one content to another, a process corresponding to the physical transformation of energy; for example, in the steam-engine the conversion of heat into the pressure of steam and then into the energy of motion. Similarly, the energy of certain psychological phenomena is converted by suitable means into other dynamisms. In the abovementioned book I have given examples of these transformation processes and need not elaborate them here.

When Nature is left to herself, energy is transformed along the line of its natural “gradient.” In this way natural phenomena are produced, but not “work.” So also man when left to himself lives as a natural phenomenon, and, in the proper meaning of the word, produces no work. It is culture that provides the machine whereby the natural gradient is exploited for the performance of work. That man should ever have invented this machine must be due to something rooted deep in his nature, indeed in the nature of the living organism as such. For living matter is itself a transformer of energy, and in some way as yet unknown life participates in the transformation process. Life proceeds, as it were, by making use of natural physical and chemical conditions as a means to its own existence. The living body is a machine for converting the energies it uses into other dynamic manifestations that are their equivalents. We cannot say that physical energy is transformed into life, only that its transformation is the expression of life.

In the same way that the living body as a whole is a machine, other adaptations to physical and chemical conditions have the value of machines that make other forms of transformation possible. Thus all the means an animal employs for safeguarding and furthering its existence—apart from the direct nourishment of its body—can be regarded as machines that exploit the natural gradient for the performance of work. When the beaver fells trees and dams up a river, this is a performance conditioned by its differentiation. Its differentiation is a product of what one might call “natural culture,” which functions as a transformer of energy, as a machine. Similarly human culture, as a natural product of differentiation, is a machine; first of all a technical one that utilizes natural conditions for the transformation of physical and chemical energy, but also a psychic machine that utilizes psychic conditions for the transformation of libido.

Just as man has succeeded in inventing a turbine, and, by conducting a flow of water to it, in transforming the latter's kinetic energy into electricity capable of manifold applications, so he has succeeded, with the help of a psychic mechanism, in converting natural instincts, which would otherwise follow their gradient without performing work, into other dynamic forms that are productive of work.

The transformation of instinctual energy is achieved by its canalization into an analogue of the object of instinct. Just as a power-station imitates a waterfall and thereby gains possession of its energy, so the psychic mechanism imitates the instinct and is thereby enabled to apply its energy for special purposes. A good example of this is the spring ceremony performed by the Wachandi, of Australia. They dig a hole in the ground, oval in shape and set about with bushes so that it looks like a woman's genitals. Then they dance round this hole, holding their spears in front of them in imitation of an erect penis. As they dance round, they thrust their spears into the hole, shouting: “Pulli nira, pulli nira, wataka!” (not a pit, not a pit, but a c———!). During the ceremony none of the participants is allowed to look at a woman.

By means of the hole the Wachandi make an analogue of the female genitals, the object of natural instinct. By the reiterated shouting and the ecstasy of the dance they suggest to themselves that the hole is really a vulva, and in order not to have this illusion disturbed by the real object of instinct, none may look at a woman. There can be no doubt that this is a canalization of energy and its transference to an analogue of the original object by means of the dance (which is really a mating-play, as with birds and other animals) and by imitating the sexual act.

This dance has a special significance as an earth-impregnation ceremony and therefore takes place in the spring. It is a magical act for the purpose of transferring libido to the earth, whereby the earth acquires a special psychic value and becomes an object of expectation. The mind then busies itself with the earth, and in turn is affected by it, so that there is a possibility and even a probability that man will give it his attention, which is the psychological prerequisite for cultivation. Agriculture did in fact arise, though not exclusively, from the formation of sexual analogies.

The “bridal bed in the field” is a canalization ceremony of this kind: on a spring night the farmer takes his wife into the field and has intercourse with her there, in order to make the earth fruitful. In this way a very close analogy is established, which acts like a channel that conducts water from a river to a power-station. The instinctual energy becomes closely associated with the field, so that the cultivation of it acquires the value of a sexual act. This association assures a permanent flow of interest to the field, which accordingly exerts an attraction on the cultivator.

He is thus induced to occupy himself with the field in a way that is obviously beneficial to fertility.

[86] As Meringer has convincingly shown, the association of libido (also in the sexual sense) and agriculture is expressed in linguistic usage. The putting of libido into the earth is achieved not by sexual analogy alone, but by the “magic touch,” as in the custom of rolling (wälzen, walen) in the field.

To primitive man the canalization of libido is so concrete a thing that he even feels fatigue from work as a state of being “sucked dry” by the daemon of the field.57 All major undertakings and efforts, such as tilling the soil, hunting, war, etcetera, are entered upon with ceremonies of magical analogy or with preparatory incantations which quite obviously have the psychological aim of canalizing libido into the necessary activity. In the buffalo-dances of the Taos Pueblo Indians the dancers represent both the hunters and the game. Through the excitement and pleasure of the dance the libido is channelled into the form of hunting activity.

The pleasure required for this is produced by rhythmic drumming and the stirring chants of the old men who direct the whole ceremony. It is well known that old people live in their memories and love to speak of their former deeds; this “warms” them. Warmth “kindles,” and thus the old men in a sense give the first impulse to the dance, to the mimetic ceremony whose aim is to accustom the young men and boys to the hunt and to prepare them for it psychologically. Similar rites d'entrée are reported of many primitive tribes.58 A classic example of this is the atninga ceremony of the Aruntas, of Australia. It consists in first stirring to anger the members of a tribe who are summoned for an expedition of revenge. This is done by the leader tying the hair of the dead man to be avenged to the mouth and penis of the man who is to be made angry.

Then the leader kneels on the man and embraces him as if performing the sexual act with him.59 It is supposed that in this way “the bowels of the man will begin to burn with desire to avenge the murder.” The point of the ceremony is obviously to bring about an intimate acquaintance of each individual with the murdered man, so that each is made ready to avenge the dead.

[87] The enormous complexity of such ceremonies shows how much is needed to divert the libido from its natural river-bed of everyday habit into some unaccustomed activity. The modern mind thinks this can be done by a mere decision of the will and that it can dispense with all magical ceremonies—which explains why it was so long at a loss to understand them properly. But when we remember that primitive man is much more unconscious, much more of a “natural phenomenon” than we are, and has next to no knowledge of what we call “will,” then it is easy to understand why he needs complicated ceremonies where a simple act of will is sufficient for us. We are more conscious, that is to say more domesticated. In the course of the millennia we have succeeded not only in conquering the wild nature all round us, but in subduing our own wildness—at least temporarily and up to a point. At all events we have been acquiring “will,” that is, disposable energy, and though it may not amount to much it is nevertheless more than the primitive possesses.

We no longer need magical dances to make us “strong” for whatever we want to do, at least not in ordinary cases. But when we have to do something that exceeds our powers, something that might easily go wrong, then we solemnly lay a foundation-stone with the blessing of the Church, or we “christen” a ship as she slips from the docks; in time of war we assure ourselves of the help of a patriotic God, the sweat of fear forcing a fervent prayer from the lips of the stoutest. So it only needs slightly insecure conditions for the “magical” formalities to be resuscitated in the most natural way. Through these ceremonies the deeper emotional forces are released; conviction becomes blind auto-suggestion, and the psychic field of vision is narrowed to one fixed point on which the whole weight of the unconscious forces is concentrated. And it is, indeed, an objective fact that success attends the sure rather than the unsure.

d. Symbol Formation

[88] The psychological mechanism that transforms energy is the symbol. I mean by this a real symbol and not a sign. The Wa-chandi's hole in the earth is not a sign for the genitals of a woman, but a symbol that stands for the idea of the earth woman who is to be made fruitful. To mistake it for a human woman would be to interpret the symbol semiotically, and this would fatally disturb the value of the ceremony. It is for this reason that none of the dancers may look at a woman. The mechanism would be destroyed by a semiotic interpretation—it would be like smashing the supply-pipe of a turbine on the ground that it was a very unnatural waterfall that owed its existence to the repression of natural conditions. I am far from suggesting that the semiotic interpretation is meaningless; it is not only a possible interpretation but also a very true one. Its usefulness is undisputed in all those cases where nature is merely thwarted without any effective work resulting from it. But the semiotic interpretation becomes meaningless when it is applied exclusively and schematically—when, in short, it ignores the real nature of the symbol and debases it to a mere sign.

[89] The first achievement wrested by primitive man from instinctual energy, through analogy-building, is magic. A ceremony is magical so long as it does not result in effective work but preserves the state of expectancy. In that case the energy is canalized into a new object and produces a new dynamism, which in turn remains magical so long as it does not create effective work. The advantage accruing from a magical ceremony is that the newly invested object acquires a working potential in relation to the psyche. Because of its value it has a determining and stimulating effect on the imagination, so that for a long time the mind is fascinated and possessed by it. This gives rise to actions that are performed in a half-playful way on the magical object, most of them rhythmical in character. A good example is those South American rock-drawings which consist of furrows deeply engraved in the hard stone. They were made by the Indians playfully retracing the furrows again and again with stones, over hundreds of years. The content of the drawings is difficult to interpret, but the activity bound up with them is incomparably more significant.

[90] The influence exerted on the mind by the magically effective object has other possible consequences. Through a sustained playful interest in the object, a man may make all sorts of discoveries about it which would otherwise have escaped him. As we know, many discoveries have actually been made in this way.

Not for nothing is magic called the “mother of science.” Until late in the Middle Ages what we today call science was nothing other than magic. A striking example of this is alchemy, whose symbolism shows quite unmistakably the principle of transformation of energy described above, and indeed the later alchemists were fully conscious of this fact.61 But only through the development of magic into science, that is, through the advance from the stage of mere expectation to real technical work on the object, have we acquired that mastery over the forces of nature of which the age of magic dreamed. Even the alchemist's dream of the transmutation of the elements has been fulfilled, and magical action at a distance has been realized by the discovery of electricity. So we have every reason to value symbol-formation and to render homage to the symbol as an inestimable means of utilizing the mere instinctual flow of energy for effective work. A waterfall is certainly more beautiful than a power-station, but dire necessity teaches us to value electric light and electrified industry more highly than the superb wastefulness of a waterfall that delights us for a quarter of an hour on a holiday walk.

[91] Just as in physical nature only a very small portion of natural energy can be converted into a usable form, and by far the greater part must be left to work itself out unused in natural phenomena, so in our psychic nature only a small part of the total energy can be diverted from its natural flow. An incomparably greater part cannot be utilized by us, but goes to sustain the regular course of life. Hence the libido is apportioned by nature to the various functional systems, from which it cannot be wholly withdrawn. The libido is invested in these functions as a specific force that cannot be transformed. Only where a symbol offers a steeper gradient than nature is it possible to canalize libido into other forms.

The history of civilization has amply demonstrated that man possesses a relative surplus of energy that is capable of application apart from the natural flow. The fact that the symbol makes this deflection possible proves that not all the libido is bound up in a form that enforces the natural flow, but that a certain amount of energy remains over, which could be called excess libido. It is conceivable that this excess may be due to failure of the firmly organized functions to equalize differences in intensity. They might be compared to a system of water-pipes whose diameter is too small to draw off the water that is being steadily supplied. The water would then have to flow off in one way or another. From this excess libido certain psychic processes arise which cannot be explained—or only very inadequately—as the result of merely natural conditions.

How are we to explain religious processes, for instance, whose nature is essentially symbolical? In abstract form, symbols are religious ideas; in the form of action, they are rites or ceremonies. They are the manifestation and expression of excess libido. At the same time they are stepping-stones to new activities, which must be called cultural in order to distinguish them from the instinctual functions that run their regular course according to natural law.

[92] I have called a symbol that converts energy a “libido analogue.” By this I mean an idea that can give equivalent expression to the libido and canalize it into a form different from the original one. Mythology offers numerous equivalents of this kind, ranging from sacred objects such as churingas, fetishes, etcetera, to the figures of gods. The rites with which the sacred objects are surrounded often reveal very clearly their nature as transformers of energy. Thus the primitive rubs his churinga rhythmically and takes the magic power of the fetish into himself, at the same time giving it a fresh “charge.” A higher stage of the same line of thought is the idea of the totem, which is closely bound up with the beginnings of tribal life and leads straight to the idea of the palladium, the tutelary tribal deity, and to the idea of an organized human community in general. The transformation of libido through the symbol is a process that has been going on ever since the beginnings of humanity and continues still. Symbols were never devised consciously, but were always produced out of the unconscious by way of revelation or intuition. In view of the close connection between mythological symbols and dream-symbols, and of the fact that the dream is “le dieu des sauvages,” it is more than probable that most of the historical symbols derive directly from dreams.

or are at least influenced by them. We know that this is true of the choice of totem, and there is similar evidence regarding the choice of gods. This age-old function of the symbol is still present today, despite the fact that for many centuries the trend of mental development has been towards the suppression of individual symbol-formation. One of the first steps in this direction was the setting up of an official state religion, a further step was the extermination of polytheism, first attempted in the reforms of Amenophis 4. We know the extraordinary part played by Christianity in the suppression of individual symbol-formation. But as the intensity of the Christian idea begins to fade, a recrudescence of individual symbol-formation may be expected. The prodigious increase of Christian sects since the eighteenth century, the century of “enlightenment,” bears eloquent witness to this. Christian Science, theosophy, anthroposophy, and “Mazdaznan” are further steps along the same path.

[93] In practical work with our patients we come upon symbol-formations at every turn, the purpose of which is the transformation of libido. At the beginning of treatment we find the symbol-forming process at work, but in an unsuitable form that offers the libido too low a gradient. Instead of being converted into effective work, the libido flows off unconsciously along the old channels, that is, into archaic sexual fantasies and fantasy activities. Accordingly the patient remains at war with himself, in other words, neurotic. In such cases analysis in the strict sense is indicated, that is, the reductive psychoanalytic method inaugurated by Freud, which breaks down all inappropriate symbol-formations and reduces them to their natural elements. The power-station, situated too high and unsuitably constructed, is dismantled and separated into its original components, so that the natural flow is restored. The unconscious continues to produce symbols which one could obviously go on reducing to their elements ad infinitum.

But man can never rest content with the natural course of things, because he always has an excess of libido that can be offered a more favourable gradient than the merely natural one. For this reason he will inevitably seek it, no matter how often he may be forced back by reduction to the natural gradient. We have therefore reached the conclusion that when the unsuitable structures have been reduced and the natural course of things is restored, so that there is some possibility of the patient living a normal life, the reductive process should not be continued further. Instead, symbol-formation should be reinforced in a synthetic direction until a more favourable gradient for the excess libido is found. Reduction to the natural condition is neither an ideal state nor a panacea. If the natural state were really the ideal one, then the primitive would be leading an enviable existence. But that is by no means so, for aside from all the other sorrows and hardships of human life the primitive is tormented by superstitions, fears, and compulsions to such a degree that, if he lived in our civilization, he could not be described as other than profoundly neurotic, if not mad. What would one say of a European who conducted himself as follows?—A Negro dreamt that he was pursued by his enemies, caught, and burned alive. The next day he got his relatives to make a fire and told them to hold his feet in it, in order, by this apotropaic ceremony, to avert the misfortune of which he had dreamed. He was so badly burned that for many months he was unable to walk.66

Mankind was freed from these fears by a continual process of symbol-formation that leads to culture. Reversion to nature must therefore be followed by a synthetic reconstruction of the symbol. Reduction leads down to the primitive natural man and his peculiar mentality. Freud directed his attention mainly to the ruthless desire for pleasure, Adler to the “psychology of prestige.” These are certainly two quite essential peculiarities of the primitive psyche, but they are far from being the only ones.

For the sake of completeness we would have to mention other characteristics of the primitive, such as his playful, mystical, or “heroic” tendencies, but above all that outstanding quality of the primitive mind, which is its subjection to supra-personal “powers,” be they instincts, affects, superstitions, fantasies, magicians, witches, spirits, demons, or gods. Reduction leads back to the subjection of the primitive, which civilized man hopes he had escaped. And just as reduction makes a man aware of his subjection to these “powers” and thus confronts him with a rather dangerous problem, so the synthetic treatment of the symbol brings him to the religious question, not so much to the problem of present-day religious creeds as to the religious problem of primitive man. In the face of the very real powers that dominate him, only an equally real fact can offer help and protection. No intellectual system, but direct experience only, can counterbalance the blind power of the instincts.

Over against the polymorphism of the primitive's instinctual nature there stands the regulating principle of individuation. Multiplicity and inner division are opposed by an integrative unity whose power is as great as that of the instincts. Together they form a pair of opposites necessary for self-regulation, often spoken of as nature and spirit. These conceptions are rooted in psychic conditions between which human consciousness fluctuates like the pointer on the scales.

The primitive mentality can be directly experienced by us only in the form of the infantile psyche that still lives in our memories. The peculiarities of this psyche are conceived by Freud, justly enough, as infantile sexuality, for out of this germinal state there develops the later, mature sexual being. Freud, however, derives all sorts of other mental peculiarities from this infantile germinal state, so that it begins to look as if the mind itself came from a preliminary sexual stage and were consequently nothing more than an offshoot of sexuality. Freud overlooks the fact that the infantile, polyvalent germinal state is not just a singularly perverse preliminary stage of normal and mature sexuality; it seems perverse because it is a preliminary stage not only of adult sexuality but also of the whole mental make-up of the individual.

Out of the infantile germinal state there develops the complete adult man; hence the germinal state is no more exclusively sexual than is the mind of the grown man. In it are hidden not merely the beginnings of adult life, but also the whole ancestral heritage, which is of unlimited extent. This heritage includes not only instincts from the animal stage, but all those differentiations that have left hereditary traces behind them. Thus every child is born with an immense split in his make-up: on one side he is more or less like an animal, on the other side he is the final embodiment of an age-old and endlessly complicated sum of hereditary factors. This split accounts for the tension of the germinal state and does much to explain the many puzzles of child psychology, which certainly has no lack of them.

If now, by means of a reductive procedure, we uncover the infantile stages of the adult psyche, we find as its ultimate basis germs containing on the one hand the later sexual being in statu nascendi, and on the other all those complicated preconditions of the civilized being. This is reflected most beautifully in children's dreams. Many of them are very simple"childish" dreams and are immediately understandable, but others contain possibilities of meaning that almost make one's head spin, and things that reveal their profound significance only in the light of primitive parallels.

This other side is the mind in nuce. Childhood, therefore, is important not only because various warpings of instinct have their origin there, but because this is the time when, terrifying or encouraging, those far-seeing dreams and images appear before the soul of the child, shaping his whole destiny, as well as those retrospective intuitions which reach back far beyond the range of childhood experience into the life of our ancestors. Thus in the child-psyche the natural condition is already opposed by a "spiritual" one. It is recognized that man living in the state of nature is in no sense merely "natural" like an animal, but sees, believes, fears, worships things whose meaning is not at all discoverable from the conditions of his natural environment. Their underlying meaning leads us in fact far away from all that is natural, obvious, and easily intelligible, and quite often contrasts most sharply with the natural instincts. We have only to think of all those gruesome rites and customs against which every natural feeling rises in revolt, or of all those beliefs and ideas which stand in insuperable contradiction to the evidence of the facts. All this drives us to the assumption that the spiritual principle (whatever that may be) asserts itself against the merely natural conditions with incredible strength. One can say that this too is “natural,” and that both have their origin in one and the same “nature.” I do not in the least doubt this origin, but must point out that this “natural” something consists of a conflict between two principles, to which you can give this or that name according to taste, and that this opposition is the expression, and perhaps also the basis, of the tension we call psychic energy.

For theoretical reasons as well there must be some such tension of opposites in the child, otherwise no energy would be possible, for, as Heraclitus has said, “war is the father of all things.” As I have remarked, this conflict can be understood as an opposition between the profoundly primitive nature of the newborn infant and his highly differentiated inheritance. The natural man is characterized by unmitigated instinctuality, by his being completely at the mercy of his instincts. The inheritance that opposes this condition consists of mnemonic deposits accruing from all the experience of his ancestors.

People are inclined to view this hypothesis with scepticism, thinking that “inherited ideas” are meant. There is naturally no question of that. It is rather a question of inherited possibilities of ideas, “pathways” gradually traced out through the cumulative experience of our ancestors. To deny the inheritance of these pathways would be tantamount. to denying the inheritance of the brain. To be consistent, such sceptics would have to assert that the child is born with the brain of an ape. But since it is born with a human brain, this must sooner or later begin to function in a human way, and it will necessarily begin at the level of the most recent ancestors. Naturally this functioning remains profoundly unconscious to the child.

At first he is conscious only of the instincts and of what opposes these instincts—namely, his parents. For this reason the child has no notion that what stands in his way may be within himself. Rightly or wrongly it is projected on to the parents.

This infantile prejudice is so tenacious that we doctors often have the greatest difficulty in persuading our patients that the wicked father who forbade everything is far more inside than outside themselves. Everything that works from the unconscious appears projected on others. Not that these others are wholly without blame, for even the worst projection is at least hung on a hook, perhaps a very small one, but still a hook offered by the other person.

Although our inheritance consists of physiological pathways, it was nevertheless mental processes in our ancestors that traced them. If they come to consciousness again in the individual, they can do so only in the form of other mental processes; and although these processes can become conscious only through individual experience and consequently appear as individual acquisitions, they are nevertheless pre-existent pathways which are merely “filled out” by individual experience. Probably every “impressive” experience is just such a breakthrough into an old, previously unconscious river-bed.

These pre-existent pathways are hard facts, as indisputable as the historical fact of man having built a city out of his original cave. This development was made possible only by the formation of a community, and the latter only by the curbing of instinct. The curbing of instinct by mental and spiritual processes is carried through with the same force and the same results in the individual as in the history of mankind. It is a normative or, more accurately, a “nomothetical”67 process, and it derives its power from the unconscious fact of these inherited pathways. The mind, as the active principle in the inheritance, consists of the sum of the ancestral minds, the “unseen whose authority is born anew with the child.

The philosophical concept of mind as “spirit” has still not been able to free itself, as a term in its own right, from the overpowering bond of identity with the other connotation of spirit, namely “ghost.” Religion, on the other hand, has succeeded in getting over the linguistic association with “spirits” by calling the supreme spiritual authority “God.” In the course of the centuries this conception came to formulate a spiritual principle which is opposed to mere instinctuality. What is especially significant here is that God is conceived at the same time as the Creator of nature. He is seen as the maker of those imperfect creatures who err and sin, and at the same time he is their judge and taskmaster. Simple logic would say: if I make a creature who falls into error and sin, and is practically worthless because of his blind instinctuality, then I am manifestly a bad creator and have not even completed my apprenticeship. (As we know, this argument played an important role in Gnosticism.) But the religious point of view is not perturbed by this criticism; it asserts that the ways and intentions of God are inscrutable.

Actually the Gnostic argument found little favour in history, because the unassailability of the God-concept obviously answers a vital need before which all logic pales. (It should be understood that we are speaking here not of God as a Ding an sich, but only of a human conception which as such is a legitimate object of science.)

Although the God-concept is a spiritual principle par excellence, the collective metaphysical need nevertheless insists that it is at the same time a conception of the First Cause, from which proceed all those instinctual forces that are opposed to the spiritual principle. God would thus be not only the essence of spiritual light, appearing as the latest flower on the tree of evolution, not only the spiritual goal of salvation in which all creation culminates, not only the end and aim, but also the darkest, nethermost cause of Nature's blackest deeps. This is a tremendous paradox which obviously reflects a profound psychological truth.

For it asserts the essential contradictoriness of one and the same being, a being whose innermost nature is a tension of opposites. Science calls this "being" energy, for energy is like a living balance between opposites. For this reason the God-concept, in itself, is possibly paradoxical, may be so satisfying to human needs that no logic however justified can stand against it. Indeed the subtlest cogitation could scarcely have found a more suitable formula for this fundamental fact of inner experience.

[104] It is not, I believe, superfluous to have discussed in considerable detail the nature of the opposites that underlie psychic energy. Freudian theory consists in a causal explanation of the psychology of instinct. From this standpoint the spiritual principle is bound to appear only as an appendage, a by-product of the instincts. Since its inhibiting and restrictive power cannot be denyed, it is traced back to the influence of education, moral authorities, convention and tradition. These authorities in their turn derive their power, according to the theory, from repression in the manner of a vicious circle. The spiritual principle is not recognized as an equivalent counterpart of the instincts.

[105] The spiritual standpoint, on the other hand, is embodied in religious views which I can take as being sufficiently known. Freudian psychology appears threatening to this standpoint, but it is not more of a threat than materialism in general, whether scientific or practical. The one-sidedness of Freud's sexual theory is significant at least as a symptom. Even if it has no scientific justification, it has a moral one. It is undoubtedly true that instinctuality conflicts with our moral views most frequently and most conspicuously in the realm of sex. The conflict between infantile instinctuality and ethics can never be avoided. It is, it seems to me, the sine qua non of psychic energy. While we are all agreed that murder, stealing, and ruthlessness of any kind are obviously inadmissible, there is nevertheless what we call a “sexual question.” We hear nothing of a murder question or a rage question; social reform is never invoked against those who wreak their bad tempers on their fellow men.

Yet these things are all examples of instinctual behaviour, and the necessity for their suppression seems to us self-evident. Only in regard to sex do we feel the need of a question mark. This points to a doubt—the doubt whether our existing moral concepts and the legal institutions founded on them are really adequate and suited to their purpose. No intelligent person will deny that in this field opinion is sharply divided.

Indeed, there would be no problem at all if public opinion were united about it. It is obviously a reaction against a too rigorous morality. It is not simply an outbreak of primitive instinctuality; such outbreaks, as we know, have never yet bothered themselves with moral laws and moral problems. There are, rather, serious misgivings as to whether our existing moral views have dealt fairly with the nature of sex. From this doubt there naturally arises a legitimate interest in any attempt to understand the nature of sex more truly and deeply, and this interest is answered not only by Freudian psychology but by numerous other researches of the kind. The special emphasis, therefore, that Freud has laid on sex could be taken as a more or less conscious answer to the question of the hour, and conversely, the acceptance that Freud has found with the public proves how well-timed his answer was.

[106] An attentive and critical reader of Freud's writings cannot fail to remark how wide and flexible his concept of sexuality is. In fact it covers so much that one often wonders why in certain places the author uses a sexual terminology at all. His concept of sexuality includes not only the physiological sexual processes but practically every stage, phase, and kind of feeling or desire. This enormous flexibility makes his concept universally applicable, though not always to the advantage of the resulting explanations. By means of this inclusive concept you can explain a work of art or a religious experience in exactly the same terms as an hysterical symptom. The absolute difference between these three things then drops right out of the picture. The explanation can therefore be only an apparent one for at least two of them. Apart from these inconveniences, however, it is psychologically correct to tackle the problem first from the sexual side, for it is just there that the unprejudiced person will find something to think about.

[107] The conflict between ethics and sex today is not just a collision between instinctuality and morality, but a struggle to give an instinct its rightful place in our lives, and to recognize in this instinct a power which seeks expression and evidently may not be trifled with, and therefore cannot be made to fit in with our well-meaning moral laws. Sexuality is not mere instinctuality; it is an indisputably creative power that is not only the basic cause of our individual lives, but a very serious factor in our psychic life as well. Today we know only too well the grave consequences that sexual disturbances can bring in their train. We could call sexuality the spokesman of the instincts, which is why from the spiritual standpoint sex is the chief antagonist, not because sexual indulgence is in itself more immoral than excessive eating and drinking, avarice, tyranny, and other extravagances, but because the spirit senses in sexuality a counterpart equal and indeed akin to itself. For just as the spirit would press sexuality, like every other instinct, into its service, so sexuality has an ancient claim upon the spirit, which it once—in procreation, pregnancy, birth, and childhood—contained within itself, and whose passion the spirit can never dispense with in its creations.

Where would the spirit be if it had no peer among the instincts to oppose it? It would be nothing but an empty form. A reasonable regard for the other instincts has become for us a self-evident necessity, but with sex it is different. For us sex is still problematical, which means that on this point we have not reached a degree of consciousness that would enable us to do full justice to the instinct without appreciable moral injury. Freud is not only a scientific investigator of sexuality, but also its champion; therefore, having regard to the great importance of the sexual problem, I recognize the moral justification of his concept of sexuality even though I cannot accept it scientifically.

[108] This is not the place to discuss the possible reasons for the present attitude to sex. It is sufficient to point out that sexuality seems to us the strongest and most immediate instinct, standing out as the instinct above all others. On the other hand, I must also emphasize that the spiritual principle does not, strictly speaking, conflict with instinct as such but only with blind instinctuality, which really amounts to an unjustified preponderance of the instinctual nature over the spiritual. The spiritual appears in the psyche also as an instinct, indeed as a real passion, a “consuming fire,” as Nietzsche once expressed it. It is not derived from any other instinct, as the psychologists of instinct would have us believe, but is a principle sui generis, a specific and necessary form of instinctual power. I have gone into this problem in a special study, to which I would refer the reader.

[109] Symbol-formation follows the road offered by these two possibilities in the human mind. Reduction breaks down all inappropriate and useless symbols and leads back to the merely natural course, and this causes a damming up of libido. Most of the alleged “sublimations” are compulsory products of this situation, activities cultivated for the purpose of using up the unbearable surplus of libido. But the really primitive demands are not satisfied by this procedure. If the psychology of this dammed-up condition is studied carefully and without prejudice, it is easy to discover in it the beginnings of a primitive form of religion, a religion of an individual kind altogether different from a dogmatic, collective religion.

[110] Since the making of a religion or the formation of symbols is just as important an interest of the primitive mind as the satisfaction of instinct, the way to further development is logically given: escape from the state of reduction lies in evolving a religion of an individual character. One's true individuality then emerges from behind the veil of the collective personality, which would be quite impossible in the state of reduction since our instinctual nature is essentially collective. The development of individuality is also impossible, or at any rate seriously impeded, if the state of reduction gives rise to forced sublimations in the shape of various cultural activities, since these are in their essence equally collective. But, as human beings are for the most part collective, these forced sublimations are therapeutic products that should not be underestimated, because they help many people to bring a certain amount of useful activity into their lives. Among these cultural activities we must include the practice of a religion within the framework of an existing collective religion.

The astonishing range of Catholic symbolism, for instance, has an emotional appeal which for many natures is absolutely satisfying. The immediacy of the relationship to God in Protestantism satisfies the mystic's passion for independence, while the toosophy with its unlimited speculative possibilities meets the need for pseudo-Gnostic intuitions and caters to lazy thinking.

greater than [111] These organizations or systems are “symbola” ( sigma upsilon mu beta sigma lambda sigma nu equals confession of faith) which enable man to set up a spiritual counterpole to his primitive instinctual nature, a cultural attitude as opposed to sheer instinctuality. This has been the function of all religions. For a long time and for the great majority of mankind the symbol of a collective religion will suffice. It is perhaps only temporarily and for relatively few individuals that the existing collective religions have become inadequate. Wherever the cultural process is moving forward, whether in single individuals or in groups, we find a shaking off of collective beliefs.

Every advance in culture is, psychologically, an extension of consciousness, a coming to consciousness that can take place only through discrimination. Therefore an advance always begins with individuation, that is to say with the individual, conscious of his isolation, cutting a new path through hitherto untrodden territory. To do this he must first return to the fundamental facts of his own being, irrespective of all authority and tradition, and allow himself to become conscious of his distinctiveness.

If he succeeds in giving collective validity to his widened consciousness, he creates a tension of opposites that provides the stimulation which culture needs for its further progress.

[112] This is not to say that the development of individuality is in all circumstances necessary or even opportune. Yet one may well believe, as Goethe has said, that “the highest joy of man should be the growth of personality.” There are large numbers of people for whom the development of individuality is the prime necessity, especially in a cultural epoch like ours, which is literally flattened out by collective norms, and where the newspaper is the real monarch of the earth. In my naturally limited experience there are, among people of maturer age, very many for whom the development of individuality is an indispensable requirement. Hence I am privately of the opinion that it is just the mature person who, in our times, has the greatest need of some further education in individual culture after his youthful education in school or university has moulded him on exclusively collective lines and thoroughly imbued him with the collective mentality. I have often found that people of riper years are in this respect capable of education to a most unexpected degree, although it is just those matured and strengthened by the experience of life who resist most vigorously the purely reductive standpoint.

[113] Obviously it is in the youthful period of life that we have most to gain from a thorough recognition of the instinctual side. A timely recognition of sexuality, for instance, can prevent that neurotic suppression of it which keeps a man unduly withdrawn from life, or else forces him into a wretched and unsuitable way of living with which he is bound to come into conflict. Proper recognition and appreciation of normal instincts leads the young person into life and entangles him with fate, thus involving him in life's necessities and the consequent sacrifices and efforts through which his character is developed and his experience matured.

For the mature person, however, the continued expansion of life is obviously not the right principle, because the descent towards life's afternoon demands simplification, limitation, and intensification—in other words, individual culture. A man in the first half of life with its biological orientation can usually, thanks to the youthfulness of his whole organism, afford to expand his life and make something of value out of it. But the man in the second half of life is oriented towards culture, the diminishing powers of his organism allowing him to subordinate his instincts to cultural goals. Not a few are wrecked during the transition from the biological to the cultural sphere.

Our collective education makes practically no provision for this transitional period. Concerned solely with the education of the young, we disregard the education of the adult, of whom it is always assumed—on what grounds who can say?—that he needs no more education. There is an almost total lack of guidance for this extraordinarily important transition from the biological to the cultural attitude, for the transformation of energy from the biological form into the cultural form. This transformation process is an individual one and cannot be enforced by general rules and maxims.

It is achieved by means of the symbol. Symbol-formation is a fundamental problem that cannot be discussed here. I must refer the reader to Chapter 5 in my Psychological Types, where I have dealt with this question in detail.

4. The Primitive Conception of Libido

How intimately the beginnings of religious symbol-formation are bound up with a concept of energy is shown by the most primitive ideas concerning a magical potency, which is regarded both as an objective force and as a subjective state of intensity.

I will give some examples to illustrate this. According to the report of McGee, the Dakota Indians have the following conception of this “power.” The sun is wakonda, not the wakonda, or a wakonda, but simply wakonda. The moon is wakonda, and so are thunder, lightning, stars, wind, etcetera Men too, especially the shaman, are wakonda, also the demons of the elemental forces, fetishes, and other ritual objects, as well as many animals and localities of an especially impressive character. McGee says: “The expression [wakonda] can perhaps be rendered by the word 'mystery' better than any other, but even this concept is too narrow, because wakonda can equally well mean power, holy, old, greatness, alive, immortal.”72

Similar to the use of wakonda by the Dakotas is that of oki by the Iroquois and of manitu by the Algonquins, with the abstract meaning of power or productive energy. Wakonda is the conception of a “diffused, all-pervasive, invisible, manipulable and transferable life-energy and universal force."73 The life of the primitive with all its interests is centred upon the possession of this power in sufficient amount.

Especially valuable is the observation that a concept like manitu occurs also as an exclamation when anything astonishing happens. Hetherwick reports the same thing of the Yaos of central Africa, who cry mulungu! when they see something astonishing or incomprehensible. Mulungu means: (1) the soul of a man, which is called lisoka in life and becomes mulungu after death; (2) the entire spirit world; (3) the magically effective property or power inherent in any kind of object, such as the life and health of the body; (4) the active principle in everything magical, mysterious, inexplicable, and unexpected; and (5) the great spiritual power that has created the world and all life.

Similar to this is the wong concept of the Gold Coast. Wong can be a river, a tree, an amulet, or a lake, a spring, an area of land, a termite hill, crocodiles, monkeys, snakes, birds, etcetera Tylor erroneously interprets the wong force animistically as spirit or soul. But the way in which wong is used shows that it is a dynamic relation between man and objects.

The churinga"76 of the Australian aborigines is a similar energetic concept. It means: (1) the ritual object; (2) the body of an individual ancestor (from whom the life force comes); (3) the mystical property of any object.

Much the same is the zogo concept of the Australian tribesmen of the Torres Strait, the word being used both as a noun and an adjective. The Australian arunquiltha is a parallel concept of similar meaning, only it is the word for bad magic and for the evil spirit who likes to swallow the sun in an eclipse. Of similar character is the Malayan badi, which also includes evil magical relationships.

The investigations of Lumholtz have shown that the Mexican Huichols likewise have a fundamental conception of a power that circulates through men, ritual animals and plants (deer, mescal, corn, plumes, etcetera)

From the researches of Alice Fletcher among North American Indians it appears that the wakan concept is one of energetic relationship similar to those already discussed. A man may become wakan through fasting, prayer, or visions. The weapons of a young man are wakan; they may not be touched by a woman (otherwise the libido runs backwards). For this reason the weapons are prayed to before battle (in order to make them powerful by charging them with libido). Wakan establishes the connection between the visible and the invisible, between the living and the dead, between the part and the whole of an object.

Codrington says of the Melanesian concept of mana: “The Melanesian mind is entirely possessed by the belief in a supernatural power or influence, called almost universally mana. This is what works to effect everything which is beyond the power of the ordinary man, outside the common processes of nature; it is present in the atmosphere of life, attaches itself to persons and to things, and is manifested by results which can only be ascribed to its operation. … It is a power or influence, not physical, and in a way supernatural; but it shows itself in physical force, or in any kind of power or influence which a man possesses. This mana is not fixed in anything, and can be conveyed in almost anything; but spirits, whether disembodied souls or supernatural beings, have it and can impart it; and it essentially belongs to personal beings to originate it, though it may act through the medium of water, or a stone, or a bone."80

This description shows clearly that in the case of mana, as with the other concepts, we are dealing with a concept of energy which alone enables us to explain the remarkable fact of these primitive ideas. This is not to suggest that the primitive has an abstract idea of energy, but there can be no doubt that his concept is the preliminary concretistic stage of the abstract idea.

We find similar views in the tondi concept of the Bataks, in the atua of the Maoris, in the ani or han of Ponape, the kasinge or kalit of Palau, the anut of Kusaie, the yaris of Tobi, the ngai of the Masai, the andriamanitra of the Malagasy, the njom of the Ekoi, etcetera A complete survey is given by Söderblom in his book Das Werden des Gottesglaubens.

Lovejoy is of the opinion—with which I am in full agreement—that these concepts “are not primarily names for the 'supernormal' or the astonishing and certainly not for that which evokes awe, respect and love—but rather for the efficacious, the powerful, the productive.” The concept in question really concerns the idea of “a diffused substance or energy upon the possession of which all exceptional power or ability or fecundity depends. The energy is, to be sure, terrible (under certain circumstances) and it is mysterious and incomprehensible; but it is so because it is vastly powerful, not because the things that manifest it are unusual and 'supernatural' or such as 'defeat reasonable expectation.'” The pre-animistic principle is the belief in “a force which is conceived as working according to quite regular and intelligible laws, a force which can be studied and controlled.” For these concepts Lovejoy suggests the term “primitive energetics.”

Much that was taken by investigators animistically as spirit, demon, or numen really belongs to the primitive concept of energy. As I have already remarked, it is, in the strict sense, incorrect to speak of a “concept.” “A concept of primitive philosophy,” as Lovejoy calls it, is an idea obviously born of our own mentality; that is to say, for us mana would be a psychological concept of energy, but for the primitive it is a psychic phenomenon that is perceived as something inseparable from the object. There are no abstract ideas to be found among primitives, not even, as a rule, simple concrete concepts, but only “representations.” All primitive languages offer abundant proof of this. Thus mana is not a concept but a representation based on the perception of a “phenomenal” relationship. It is the essence of Lévy-Bruhl's participation mystique. In primitive speech only the fact of the relationship and the experience it evokes are indicated, as some of the above examples clearly show, not the nature or essence of that relationship, or of the principle determining it. The discovery of a suitable designation for the nature and essence of the unifying principle was reserved for a later level of culture, which substituted symbolic expressions.

In his classic study of mana Lehmann defines it as something “extraordinarily effective.” The psychic nature of mana is especially emphasized by Preuss and Röhr. We cannot escape the impression that the primitive view of mana is a forerunner of our concept of psychic energy and, most probably, of energy in general.

The basic conception of mana crops up again on the animistic level in personified form. Here it is souls, demons, gods, who produce the extraordinary effect. As Lehmann rightly points out, nothing “divine” attaches to mana, so that one cannot see in mana the original form of an idea of God. Nonetheless, it cannot be denyed that mana is a necessary or at least a very important precondition for the development of an idea of God, even though it may not be the most primitive of all preconditions. Another essential precondition is personification, for whose explanation other psychological factors must be adduced.

The almost universal incidence of the primitive concept of energy is a clear expression of the fact that even at early levels of human consciousness man felt the need to represent the sensed dynamism of psychic events in a concrete way. If, therefore, in our psychology we lay stress on the energetic point of view, this is in accord with the psychic facts which have been graven on the mind of man since primordial times.