Chapter XIV: The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes216 (2)

After all, does a more moral view-point exist than the let-instinct-live theory? Is there a more heroic morality than this? That is why Nietzsche, the heroic, is especially partial to it. It is natural and inborn cowardice that makes people say, "God preserve me from following my instincts," thinking that they thus prove their high moral standard. They do not understand that following one's bent is really much too costly for them, too strenuous, too dangerous, and finally it cuts somewhat against that sense of decency which most people associate rather with taste than with a categorical imperative. The unpardonable fault of the let-instinct-live theory is, that it is much too heroic, too idealogic for the multitude.

There is, therefore, probably no other way for the immoral man but to accept the moral corrective of his unconscious, just as he who is moral must come to terms as best he may, with his demons of the netherworld. It cannot be gainsaid that the Freudian School is so convinced of the fundamental, and even exclusive importance of sexuality in neurosis, that it has been courageous enough to face the consequences of its convictions by heroically attacking the sexual morality of the present day. Many different opinions prevail upon this subject. What is significant is, that the problem of sexual morality is being widely discussed at the present time. This is doubtless both useful and necessary, for hitherto we have not really had any sexual morality at all, but merely a low barbaric view, quite insufficiently differentiated. In the Middle Ages, usury was considered absolutely despicable, for at that time the morality of finance was not casuistically differentiated; there was nothing but a kind of lump-morality. So nowadays, there exists nothing but sexual morality in the lump. A girl who has an illegitimate child is condemned, without any inquiry as to whether she is a decent person or not. Any form of love that has no legal sanction is immoral, no matter whether it occurs between thoughtful people of value or irresponsible scamps. People are still barbarically hypnotised by the thing itself, to such an extent that they forget the individual.

Therefore the discussion of and attack upon sexual morality of the present day signifies at bottom, a moral deed, constraining people towards a differentiated and really ethical conception of the subject.

As already stated, Freud sees the great conflict between the ego and natural instinct chiefly under its sexual aspect. This aspect does exist, but a big query should be placed behind its actuality. The question is whether what appears in a sexual form must always essentially be sexuality? It is conceivable that one instinct may disguise itself under another. Freud himself has supplied several notable instances of such a disguise, proving therewith, convincingly, that many of the deeds and aims of human kind are, at bottom, nothing but somewhat figurative expressions substituted, on account of embarrassment, in place of important elementary things. The substitution is not seen through on account of reasons of mutual consideration. There is nothing to hinder certain elementary things being also pushed conveniently into the foreground, in place of more necessary but less pleasant ones, under the illusion that the elementary things only are really in question.

_The theory of sexuality although one-sided is absolutely right up to a certain point. It would, therefore, be just as false to repudiate it as to accept it as universally valid._

III.--THE OTHER VIEWPOINT: THE WILL TO POWER.

We have so far considered the problem of the psychology of unconscious processes mainly from the point of view of Freud. We have thereby doubtless gained an inkling of a real truth, which perhaps our pride, our consciousness of civilisation, tries to deny, although something else in us affirms it. This situation is extremely irritating to some people, arousing resistances, and at the same time they are terror-stricken by it, a fact which they are most unwilling to acknowledge. There is something terrible in admitting this conflict, for it is an acknowledgment of being swayed by instinct. Has it ever been understood what it means to confess to the sway of instinct? Nietzsche desired to be so swayed and advocated it most seriously. He even sacrificed himself throughout his whole life, with rare passion, to the idea of the Superman, that is to the idea of the man who, obeying his instincts, transcends even his very self. And what was the course of his life? It turned out as Nietzsche himself prophesied in the passage in "Zarathustra" relating to the fatal fall of the rope-dancer, of the man who did not want to be "surpassed." Zarathustra says to the dying rope-dancer: "Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body." And later, the dwarf says to Zarathustra: "Oh, Zarathustra, thou stone of wisdom! Thou threwest thyself high, but every thrown-stone must fall! Condemned of thyself, and to thine own stoning: oh, Zarathustra, far indeed threwest thou the stone--but upon _thyself_ will it recoil!"

When he cried his "ecce homo" over himself, it was again too late, and the crucifixion of the soul began even before the body was dead. He who thus taught _yea-saying_ to the instincts of life, must have his own career looked at critically, in order to discover the effects of this teaching upon the teacher. But if we consider his life from this point of view, we must say that Nietzsche lived _beyond instinct_, in the lofty atmosphere of heroic "sublimity." This height could only be maintained by means of most careful diet, choice climate and above all by many opiates. Finally, the tension of this living shattered his brain. He spoke of yea-saying, but lived the nay. His horror of people, especially of the animal man, who lives by instinct, was too great. He could not swallow the toad of which he so often dreamt, and which he feared he must yet gulp down. The Zarathustrian lion roared all the "higher" men, who craved for life, back into the cavernous depths of the unconscious. That is why his life does not convince us of the truth of his teaching. The "higher man" should be able to sleep without chloral, and be competent to live in Naumburg or Basle despite "the fogs and shadows." He wants woman and offspring; he needs to feel he has some value and position in the herd, he longs for innumerable commonplaces, and not least for what is humdrum: it is this instinct that Nietzsche did not recognise; it is, in other words, the natural animal instinct for life.

But how did he live if it was not from natural impulse? Should Nietzsche really be accused of a practical denial of his natural instincts? He would hardly agree to that; indeed he might even prove, and that without difficulty, that he really was following his instincts in the highest sense. But we may well ask how is it possible that human instincts could have led him so far from humanity, into absolute isolation, into an aloofness from the herd which he supported with loathing and disgust? One would have thought that instinct would have united, would have coupled and begot, that it would tend towards pleasure and good cheer, towards gratification of all sensual desires. But we have quite overlooked the fact that this is only one of the possible directions of instinct. There exists not only the instinct for the preservation of the species (the sexual instinct), but also the instinct for the preservation of the self.

Nietzsche obviously speaks of this latter instinct, that is of _the will to power_. Whatever other kinds of instinct may exist are for him only a consequence of the will to power. Viewed from the standpoint of Freud's sexual-psychology this is a gross error, a misconception of biology, a bad choice made by a decadent neurotic human being. For it would be easy for any adherent of sexual psychology to prove that all that was too lofty, too heroic, in Nietzsche's conception of the world and of life, was nothing but a consequence of the repression and misconception of "instinct," that is of the instinct that _this_ psychology considers fundamental.

This brings us to the _question of perception_, or rather it were better to say of the various lenses through which the world may be perceived. For it would hardly be permissible to pronounce a judgment on a life like Nietzsche's. It was lived with rare consistency, from the beginning to the fateful end, in accordance with his underlying natural fundamental instinct for power. It would hardly do to pronounce it to be merely figurative, otherwise we should make the same unjust condemnation that Nietzsche pronounced upon his polar opposite Richard Wagner, of whom he said, "_Everything in him is false_; what is genuine is hidden or disguised. He is an actor, in every bad and good meaning of the word." Why this judgment? Wagner is a precise representative of that other fundamental instinct, which Nietzsche overlooked, and upon which Freud's psychology is based. If we inquire whether the other main instinct--that of power--was unconsidered by Freud, we shall find that he has included it under the name of the "ego instinct." But these ego instincts drag out an obscure existence, according to his psychology, alongside the broad, all-too-broad, development of the sexual theme. In reality, however, human nature wages a cruel and hardly-to-be-ended warfare between the ego-principle and that of formless instinct. The ego is all barriers; instinct, on the other hand, is without any limits. Both principles are equally powerful. In a certain sense men may account themselves fortunate in being conscious of only one instinct: therefore he who is wise avoids getting to know the other. But if, after all, he does get to know the other instinct, he is indeed a lost man. For then he enters upon the Faustian conflict. Goethe has shown us in the first part of "Faust" what the acceptance of instinct involves, and in the second part, what the acceptance of the ego and of his gruesome unconscious world would signify. Everything that is insignificant, _petty_, and cowardly in us shrinks from it, and would avoid it--and there is one admirable means of doing so. Namely, by discovering that the other thing in us is "another fellow," a live man who actually thinks, feels, does and desires all the things that are despicable and odious. In this way the bogey is seized, and the battle against him is begun to our satisfaction. Hence arise, also, those chronic idiosyncrasies of which the history of morals has preserved a few examples for us. The instance of Nietzsche contra Wagner, already cited, is particularly transparent. But ordinary human life is crammed full of such cases. It is by these ingenuous devices that man saves himself from the Faustian catastrophe for which he evidently lacks both courage and strength. But a sincere man knows that even his bitterest opponent, or any number of them, does not by any means equal his one worst adversary, that is his other self who "bides within his breast." Nietzsche unconsciously had Wagner _in himself_, that is why he envied him his Parsifal. But even worse, he was a Saul and also had Paul within. That is why Nietzsche became a stigmatised outcast of the Spirit; he had like Saul to experience Christification when "the other self" inspired him with his "ecce homo." Which man in him "broke down before the cross," Wagner or Nietzsche?

It was ordained by destiny that one of Freud's earliest pupils, Adler,[234] should formulate a view of neurosis as founded exclusively upon the principle of power. It is interesting and even fascinating to observe how totally different the same things appear when viewed in another light. In order to emphasise the main contrast, I would like at once to draw attention to the fact that, according to Freud, everything is a strictly causal consequence of previously-occurring facts; Adler, on the contrary, sees everything as a finally conditioned arrangement. To take a simple example: A young woman begins to have attacks of terror. She wakes at night from some nightmare with a piercing cry; calming herself with difficulty, she clings to her husband, imploring him not to leave her, making him repeat again and again that he loves her, etc. Gradually a nervous asthma develops, attacks of which also come on during the day.

In such a case, the Freudian system begins at once to burrow in the inner causality of the illness: What did the initial anxiety-dreams contain. She recalls wild bulls, lions, tigers, bad men. What does the patient associate with them? She told a story of something that had happened to her when she was still single. It ran as follows: She was staying at a summer-resort in the mountains, a great deal of tennis was played, the usual acquaintances being made. There was a young Italian who played particularly well, and who also knew how to handle the guitar in the evenings. A harmless flirtation developed, leading once to a moon-light walk. On this occasion, the Italian temperament "unexpectedly" broke through, running away with the young man to the great terror of the unsuspecting girl. He "looked at her with such a look," that she could never forget it. This look follows her even in her dreams; the wild animals that persecuted her had it. As a matter of fact, does this look originally come from the Italian? Another reminiscence enlightens us. The patient had lost her father through an accident, when she was about fourteen years old. The father was a man of the world, and travelled a great deal. Not long before his death he took her to Paris, where, among other things, they visited the _Follies Bergères_. Something happened there that at the time made a deep impression upon her. As they were leaving the theatre, a rouged female suddenly pressed close up to her father in an impertinent way. She looked at her father in fear as to what he would do--and then she saw that look, that animal glare in his eyes. An inexplicable something clung to her day and night. From this moment her attitude to her father was quite changed. At one instant she was irritable and full of venomous moods, at another she loved him extravagantly; then causeless fits of crying suddenly began, and, for a time, whenever her father was at home, she was tormented by terrible choking at table, with apparent attacks of suffocation, which were usually followed by voicelessness lasting from one to two days. When the news of her father's sudden death arrived, she was overcome by uncontrolled grief ending in hysterical laughter. But she soon calmed down, her condition improving quickly, and the neurotic symptoms disappearing almost completely. It seemed as if a veil of forgetfulness had descended over the past. Only the experience with the Italian roused something in her of which she was afraid. She had broken off completely with the young man. A few years later she married. The present neurosis only began after the birth of her second child, that is at the moment when she discovered that her husband took a certain tender interest in another woman.

This history raises a number of questions. For instance, what do we know about the mother? It should be said of her that she was very nervous, and had tried many kinds of sanatoria and systems of cure. She also had symptoms of fear and nervous asthma. The relations between her and her husband had been very strained as far back as the patient could remember. The mother did not understand the father; the daughter always felt that she understood him better. She was moreover her father's declared favourite, being inwardly correspondingly cool towards her mother.

These facts are indications for a survey of the meaning of the illness. Behind the present symptoms phantasies are operative, connected in the first place with the young Italian, but further clearly referring to the father, whose unhappy marriage furnished the little daughter with an early opportunity of acquiring a position that really should have been filled by her mother. Behind this conquest there lies, of course, a phantasy of being the woman who was really suited to her father. The first attack of neurosis broke out at the moment when this phantasy received a violent shock, presumably similar to that the mother had once experienced (a fact that was, however, unknown to the child). The symptoms are easily comprehensible as the expression of disappointed and rejected love. The choking is based upon a sensation of tightening in the throat that is a well-known accompanying phenomenon of violent effects which we cannot quite "swallow." The metaphors of language often refer to similar physiological occurrences. When the father died, it seemed that her consciousness sorrowed deeply but her unconscious laughed, after the manner of Till Eulenspiegel, who was sad when he went downhill but was jolly when climbing laboriously, happy in anticipation of what was coming. When the father was at home the girl was low-spirited and ill, but whenever he was away she felt much better. Herein she resembles numerous husbands and wives who as yet are mutually hiding from each other the secret that they are not under all circumstances indispensable to one another.

That the unconscious had some right to laugh was shown by the subsequent period of good health. She succeeded in letting all that had passed retire behind the trap-door. The experience with the Italian, however, threatened to bring the netherworld up again. But she quickly pulled the handle and shut the door. She remained quite well until the dragon of neurosis came creeping in, just when she imagined herself to be already safely out of her troubles, in the so-to-say perfected state of wife and mother. Sexual psychology finds the cause of the neurosis in the fact that the patient is not at bottom free from the father. This forces her to resuscitate her former experience at the moment when she discovered in the Italian the very same disturbing something that had formerly made such a deep impression upon her when perceived in her father. These recollections were naturally revived by the analogous experience with another man, and formed the starting-point of the neurosis. It might therefore be said that the content and cause of the neurosis lay in the conflict between the phantastic infantile-erotic relation to the father on the one hand, and her love for the husband on the other.

But if we now consider the course of the same illness from the standpoint of the other instinct, that is, of the will to power, a different complexion is put upon the matter. Her parents' unhappy marriage afforded an excellent opportunity for the exhibition of childish instinct for power. The instinct for power desires that, under all circumstances, the ego should be "on top," whether by straight or crooked means. At all costs the integrity of the personality must be preserved.

Every attempt, even what appears to be an attempt of the surroundings, to bring about the slightest subjection of the individual, is retorted to by the "masculine protest," as Adler expresses it. The mother's disappointment and her taking refuge in a neurosis brought about an opportunity for the development of power and the attainment of a dominating position. Love and excellence of conduct are, as everybody knows, extremely well-adapted weapons for the purposes of the instinct for power. Virtue is not seldom made the means of _forcing_ recognition from others. Already as a child she knew how to obtain a privileged position with her father by means of specially pleasing and amiable behaviour, even occasionally to supplant her mother. This was not out of love for her father, although love was a good means of obtaining the coveted superiority. The hysterical laughter at the death of her father is a striking proof of this fact. One is inclined to consider such an explanation as a deplorable depreciation of love, if not actually a malicious insinuation. But let us pause a moment, reflect, and look at the world as it really is. Have we never seen those innumerable people who love, and believe in their love, only until its purpose is achieved, and who then turn away as if they had never loved? And, after all, does not Nature herself do the same? In fact, is a "purposeless" love possible? If so, it belongs to the highest human virtues, which confessedly are extremely rare. Perhaps there is a general disposition to reflect as little as possible about the nature and purpose of love; discoveries might be made which would show the value of one's own love to be less considerable than we had supposed. However, it were dangerous to life to subtract anything from the value of fundamental instincts, perhaps specially so to-day, when we seem to have only a minimum of values left.

So the patient had an attack of hysterical laughter at the death of her father; she had finally arrived at the top. It was hysterical laughter, therefore a psychogenic symptom, that is, something proceeding from unconscious motives and not from those of the conscious ego. That is a difference that should not be underrated, for it enables us to recognise whence and how human virtues arise. Their contraries led to hell, that is, in modern terms, to the unconscious, where the counterparts of our conscious virtue have long been gathering. That is why our very virtue makes us desire to know nothing of the unconscious; indeed, it is even the summit of virtuous wisdom to maintain that there is no unconscious at all. But unfortunately we are all in a like predicament with Brother Medardus in E. T. A. Hoffman's "The Elixir of the Devil": somewhere or other there exists a sinister, terrible brother, our own incarnate counterpart bound to us by flesh and blood, who comprehends everything, maliciously hoarding whatever we most desire should disappear beneath the table.

The first outbreak of neurosis occurred in our patient at the moment when she became aware of the fact that there was something in her father which she did not control. And then it dawned upon her of what use her mother's neurosis was. When one meets with an obstacle that cannot be overcome by sensible and charming means, there yet exists an arrangement hitherto unknown to her which her mother had been beforehand in discovering, and that is neurosis. That is the reason why she now imitates her mother. But, the astonished reader asks, what is supposed to be the use of neurosis? What does it effect? Whoever has had a pronounced case of neurosis in his immediate environment, knows all that can be "effected" by a neurosis. In fact, there is altogether no better means of tyrannising over a whole household than by a striking neurosis. Heart attacks, choking fits, convulsions of all kinds achieve enormous effects, that can hardly be surpassed. Picture the fountains of pity let loose, the sublime anxiety of the dear kind parents, the hurried running to and fro of the servants, the incessant sounding of the call to the telephone, the hasty arrival of the physicians, the delicacy of the diagnosis, the detailed examinations, the lengthy courses of treatment, the considerable expense; and there, in the midst of all the uproar, lies the innocent sufferer, to whom the household is even overflowingly grateful, when he has recovered from the "spasms."

The girl discovered this incomparable "arrangement" (to use Adler's term), applying it on occasion when the father was there with success. It became unnecessary when the father died, for now she was finally uppermost. The Italian was soon dismissed, because he laid too much stress upon her femininity by an inopportune reminder of his manliness. When the way opened to the possibility of a suitable marriage, she loved, adapting herself without any complaint to the deplorable rôle of the queen bee. As long as she held the position of admired superiority, everything went splendidly. But when her husband evinced a small outside interest, she was obliged again to have recourse to the extremely efficacious "arrangement," that is, to the indirect application of power, because she had once again come upon that thing--this time in her husband--that had already previously withdrawn her father from her influence.

That is how the matter appears from the standpoint of the psychology of power. I fear that the reader will feel as did the Kadi, before whom the counsel of one party spoke first. When he had ended, the Kadi said: "Thou hast spoken well. I perceive that thou art right." Then spoke the counsel for the other party, and when he had ended, the Kadi scratched himself behind his ear and said: "Thou hast spoken well. I perceive that thou also art right." There is no doubt that the instinct for power plays a most extraordinary part. It is true that the complexes of neurotic symptoms are also exquisite "arrangements," that inexorably realise their aims with incredible obstinacy and unequalled cunning. The neurosis is final; that is, it is directed towards an aim. Adler merits considerable distinction for having demonstrated this.

Which of the two points of view is right? That is a question that might well cause much brain-racking. For the two explanations cannot be simply combined, being absolutely contradictory. In one case, it is love and its course that is the principal and decisive fact; and in the other case, it is the power of the ego. In the first case the ego is merely a kind of appendage to the passion for love; and in the second love is upon occasion merely a means to the end, that of gaining the upper hand. Whoever has the power of the ego most at heart rebels against the former conception, whilst he who cares most about love, will never be able to be reconciled to the latter.

IV.--THE TWO TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGY.

It is at this point that our most recent researches may suitably be introduced. We have found, in the first place, that there are two types of human psychology.[235] In the one type the fundamental function is feeling, and in the other it is thought. The one feels his way into the object, the other thinks about it. The one adapts himself to his surroundings by feeling, thinking coming later; whilst the other adapts himself by means of thought, preceded by understanding. The one who feels his way transfers himself to some extent to the object; whilst the other withdraws himself from the object to some extent, or pauses before it and reflects about it. The first we called the _extroverted_ type, because in the main he goes outside himself to the object, the latter is called the _introverted_ type, because in a major degree he turns away from the object, withdrawing into himself and thinking about it.

These remarks only give the broadest outline of the two types. But even this quite inadequate sketch enables us to recognise that the two theories are the outcome of the contrast between the two types. The sexual theory is promulgated from the standpoint of feeling, the power theory from that of thought; for the extrovert always places the accent upon the feelings that are connected with the object, whereas the introvert always puts the accent upon the ego, and is as much detached by thought from the object as possible.

_The irreconcilable contradictions of the two theories are now to be understood, because both theories are the product of a one-sided psychology._ We find an instance of the contrast of types in Nietzsche and Wagner. The dissension between the two is due to the contrast in their ideas of psychological values. What is most prized by the one is "affectation" for the other, and is deemed false to the very core. Each depreciates the other.

If we apply the sexual theory to an extrovert it tallies with the facts of the case; but if we apply it to an introvert, we simply maltreat and do violence to his psychology. The same applies to the contrary case. The relative rightness of the two hostile theories is explained by the fact that each one draws its material from cases that prove the correctness of the theory. There is a remnant of persons whom neither theory fits--has not every rule its exceptions?

Criticism of both theories is indispensable. Recognition of facts showed the necessity of overcoming their contrast, and of evolving a theory that should do justice not only to one or the other type, but equally to both.

Even the layman will to some extent have been struck by the fact that in spite of their correctness both theories really have a very unpleasant character and one not altogether pertinent under all circumstances to the strict views of science. The sexual theory is unæsthetic and unsatisfying intellectually. The power theory, on the other hand, is decidedly venomous. Both inevitably reduce high-flown ideals, heroic attitudes, pathos, and deep convictions, in a painful manner to a reality which is hackneyed and trite; that is, if these theories are applied to such things--but they should certainly not be so applied. Both theories are really only therapeutic instruments out of the tool-chest of the physician, whose sharp and merciless knife cuts out all that is pernicious and diseased. It was just such a misapplication of theory Nietzsche tried with his destructive criticism of ideals. He regarded ideals as rampant diseases of the soul of humanity; as indeed they really are. However, in the hands of a good physician who really knows the human soul, who, as Nietzsche says, "has a finger for the slightest shade," who applies the treatment only to what is really diseased in a soul--in such hands both theories prove wholesome caustics. The application must be adapted to the individual case. It is a dangerous therapy in the hands of those who do not understand how to deal out the treatment. These applications of criticism do good when there is something that should and must be destroyed, dissolved or brought low, but can easily damage what is being built up, or growing in response to life's requirements.

Both theories might, therefore, be allowed to pass without attack, in so far as they, like medicinal poisons, are entrusted to the safe hands of the physician. But fate has ordained that they should not remain solely in the care of those who are qualified to use them. First of all they naturally became known to the medical public. Every practising physician has an indefinitely high percentage of neurotics among his patients; he is therefore more or less obliged to look out for new and suitable systems of treatment. He ultimately lights upon the difficult method of psychoanalysis. He is at first not competent for this, for how should he have learnt about the secrets of the human soul? Certainly not through his academic studies. The smattering of psychiatry that he acquired for his examination barely suffices to enable him to recognise the symptoms of the commonest mental disturbances, and is far from giving him any sufficient insight into the human soul. He is, therefore, practically quite unprepared to apply the analytic method. An unusually far-reaching knowledge of the soul is indeed necessary in order to be able to apply this caustic treatment with advantage. One must be in a position to differentiate elements that are diseased and should be discarded, from those which are valuable and should be retained. This is plainly a matter of great difficulty. Any one who wishes to get a vivid impression of the way in which a psychologysing physician may unwarrantably violate a patient through an ignoble pseudo-scientific prejudice, should read what Moebius has written about Nietzsche. Or he may study various psychiatric writings about the "case of Christ," and will surely not hesitate to lament the lot of the patient whose fate it is to meet with such "understanding." Psychoanalysis--greatly to the regret of the medical man who, however, had not accepted it--then passed over into the hands of the teaching profession. This is right: for it is really, when rightly understood and handled, an educational method, and one of the social sciences. I would, however, never personally recommend that Freud's purely sexual analysis should be exclusively applied as an educational method. It might do much harm because of its one-sidedness. In order to make psychoanalysis available for educational purposes, all the metamorphoses that have been the work of the last few years were needed. The method had to be expanded from a general psychological point of view.

But the two theories of which I have spoken are not general theories. They are, as I have said, caustics to be applied, so to say, "locally," for they are both destructive and reductive. They explain to the patient that his symptoms come from here or there, and are "nothing but" this or that. It would be very unjust to wish to maintain that this reductive theory is wrong in a given case, but when exalted into a general explanation of the nature of the soul--whether sick or healthy--_a reductive theory becomes impossible_. For the human soul, whether it be sick or healthy, cannot be _merely_ reductively explained. Sexuality it is true is always and everywhere present; the instinct for power certainly does penetrate the heights and the depths of the soul; but the soul itself is not solely either the one or the other, or even both together, it is also that which it has made and will make out of them both. A person is only half understood when one knows how everything in him came about. Only a dead man can be explained in terms of the past, a living one must be otherwise explained. Life is not made up of yesterdays only, nor is it understood nor explained by reducing to-day to yesterday. Life has also a to-morrow, and to-day is only understood if we are able to add the indications of to-morrow to our knowledge of what was yesterday. This holds good for all expressions of psychological life, even for symptoms of disease. Symptoms of neurosis are not merely consequences of causes that once have been, whether they were "infantile sexuality" or "infantile instinct for power." They are endeavours towards a new synthesis of life. It must immediately be added, however, they are endeavours that have miscarried. None the less they are attempts; they represent the germinal striving which has both meaning and value. They are embryos that failed to achieve life, owing to unpropitious conditions of an internal and external nature.

The reader will now probably propound the question: What possible value and meaning can a neurosis have? Is it not a most useless and repulsive pest of humanity? Can being nervous do anybody good? Possibly, in a way similar to that of flies and other vermin, which were created by God in order that man might exercise the useful virtue of patience. Stupid as this thought is from the standpoint of natural science, it might be quite shrewd from that of psychology; that is, if we substitute "nervous symptoms" in the place of "vermin." Even Nietzsche, who had an uncommon disdain for anything stupid and trite in thought, more than once acknowledged how much he owed to his illness. I have known more than one person who attributed all his usefulness, and the justification for his existence even, to a neurosis, that hindered all decisive stupidities of his life, _compelling_ him to lead an existence which developed what was valuable in him; material that would have been crushed had not the neurosis with its iron grip forced the man to keep to the place where he really belonged. There are people the meaning of whose life--whose real significance--lies in the unconscious; in consciousness lies only all that is vain and delusive. With others the reverse is the case, and for them the neurosis has another significance. An extended reduction is appropriate to the one, but emphatically unsuitable to the other.

The reader will now, indeed, be inclined to agree to the possibility of certain cases of neurosis having such a significance but will nevertheless be ready to deny an expediency that is so far-reaching and full of meaning to ordinary cases of this illness. What value, for instance, might there be in the afore-mentioned case of asthma and hysterical attacks of fear? I confess that the value here is not so obvious, especially if the case be looked at from the standpoint of a reductive theory, that is, from that of a _chronique scandaleuse_ of the psychological development of an individual.

We perceive that both the theories hitherto discussed have this one point in common, viz. they relentlessly disclose everything that is valueless in people. They are theories, or rather hypotheses, which explain wherein the cause of the sickness lies. They are accordingly concerned not with the _values_ of a person, but with his lack of value that makes itself evident in a disturbing way. From this point of view, it is possible to be reconciled to both standpoints.

A "value" is a possibility by means of which energy may attain development. But in so far as a negative value is also a possibility through which energy may attain development--as may, for instance, be clearly seen in the very considerable manifestations of energy shown in neurosis--it also stands for a value, albeit it brings about manifestations of energy which are useless and harmful. In itself energy is neither useful nor harmful, neither full of value nor lacking in it; it is indifferent, everything depending upon the _form_ into which it enters. The form gives the quality to the energy. On the other side, mere form without energy is also indifferent. Therefore in order to bring about a positive value, on the one hand energy is necessary, and upon the other a valuable form. In a neurosis psychic energy is undoubtedly present, but in an inferior and not realisable form. Both the analytic methods that have been discussed above are of service only as solvents of this inferior form. They prove themselves good here as caustics.

By these methods we gain energy that is certainly free, but which, being as yet unapplied, is indifferent. Hitherto the supposition prevailed, that this newly acquired energy was at the patient's conscious disposal, that he might apply it in any way he liked. In so far as it was thought that the energy was nothing but the sexual impulse, people spoke of a sublimated application of the same, under the presumption that the patient could, without further ado, transfer what was thought of as sexual energy into a "sublimation"; that is, into a non-sexual form of use. It might, for instance, be transferred to the cultivation of an art, or to some other good or useful activity. According to this concept, the patient had the possibility of deciding, either arbitrarily or from inclination, how his energy should be sublimated.

This conception may be accorded a justification for its existence, in so far as it is at all possible for a human being to assign a definite direction to his life, in which its course should run. But we know that there is no human forethought nor philosophy which can enable us to give our lives a prescribed direction, except for quite a short distance. Destiny lies before us, perplexing us, and teeming with possibilities, and yet only one of these many possibilities is our own particular right way. Who should presume to designate the one possibility beforehand, even though he have the most complete knowledge of his own character that a man can have? Much can certainly be attained by means of will-power. But having regard to the fate of certain personalities with particularly strong wills, it is entirely misleading for us to want at all costs to change our own fate by power of will. Our will is a function that is directed by our _powers of reflection_; it depends, therefore, upon how our powers of reflection are constituted. In order to deserve its name reflection must be _rational_, that is, according to reason. But has it ever been proved, or can it ever be proved, that life and destiny harmonise with our human reason, that is, that they are exclusively rational? On the contrary, we have ground for supposing that they are also irrational, that is to say, that in the last resort they too are based in regions beyond the human reason. The irrationality of the great process is shown by its so-called _accidentalness_, which perforce we ought to deny, since, obviously, we cannot think of a process not being causally and necessarily conditioned. But actually, accidentality exists everywhere, and does so indeed so obtrusively that we might as well pocket our causal philosophy! The rich store of life both is, and is not, determined by law; it is at the same time rational and irrational. Therefore, the reason and the will founded upon it are only valid for a short distance. The further we extend this rationally chosen direction, the surer we may be that we are thereby excluding the irrational possibilities of life, which have, however, just as good a right to be lived. Aye, we even injure ourselves, since we cut off the wealth of accidental eventualities by a too rigid and conscious direction. It was certainly very expedient for man to be able to give his life a direction; it would, therefore, be quite right to maintain that the attainment of reasonableness was the greatest achievement of mankind. But that is not to say that under all circumstances, this must or will always continue to be the case. The present fearful catastrophic world-war has tremendously upset the most optimistic upholder of rationalism and culture.

In 1913 Ostwald wrote[236] as follows: "The whole world agrees that the present state of armed peace is untenable, and is gradually becoming an impossible condition. It demands tremendous sacrifices from individual nations far surpassing the outlay for cultural purposes, without any positive values being gained thereby. Therefore, if mankind could discover ways and means of putting an end to these preparations for a war _that will never come_, this conscripting of a considerable part of the nation at the best and most capable age for training for war purposes, if it could overcome all the innumerable other injuries caused by the present customs, such an enormous saving of energy would be effected, that an undreamt-of development of the evolution of culture might be expected. For like a hand-to-hand fight, war is the oldest, and also the most unsuitable of all possible means of solving a conflict between wills, being indeed accompanied by the most deplorable waste of energy. The complete setting aside of potential as well as of actual warfare is, therefore, absolutely one of the most important tasks of culture in our time, a real necessity from the point of view of energy."

But the irrationality of destiny ordained otherwise than the rationality of the well-meaning thinker; since it not only determined to use the piled-up weapons and soldiers, but much more than that, it brought about a tremendous insane devastation and unparalleled slaughter. From this catastrophe humanity may possibly draw the conclusion, that only one side of fate can be mastered by rational intention.

What can be said of mankind in general applies also to individuals, for mankind as a whole consists of nothing but individuals. And whatever the psychology of mankind is, that is also the psychology of the individual. We are experiencing in the world-war a fearful balancing-up with the rational intentionality of organised culture. What is called "will" in the individual, is termed "imperialism" among nations, for the will is a demonstration of power over fate, that is, exclusion of what is accidental. The organisation of culture is a rational and "expedient" sublimation of free and indifferent energies, brought about by design and intention. The same is the case in the individual. And just as the hope of a universal international organisation of culture has experienced a cruel right-about through this war, so also must the individual, in the course of his life, often find that so-called "disposable" energies do not suffer themselves to be disposed of.

I was once consulted by a business man of about forty-five, whose case is a good illustration of the foregoing. He was a typical American self-made man, who had worked himself up from the bottom. He had been successful, and had founded a very extensive business. He had also gradually organised the business in such a way that he could now retire from its management. He had indeed resigned two years before I saw him. Until then he had only lived for his business, concentrating all his energy upon it, with that incredible intensity and one-sidedness that is so peculiar to the successful American man of business. He had bought himself a splendid country seat, where he thought he would "live," which he imagined to mean keeping horses, automobiles, playing golf and tennis, attending and giving parties, etc. But he had reckoned without his host. The energy that had become "disposable" did not enter into these tempting prospects, but betook itself capriciously to quite other ways. A couple of weeks after the commencement of his longed-for life of bliss, he began to brood over peculiar vague physical sensations. A few more weeks sufficed to plunge him into an unprecedented state of hypochondria. His nerves broke down completely. He, who was physically an uncommonly strong and exceptionally energetic man, became like a whining child. And that put an end to all his paradise. He fell from one apprehension to another, worrying himself almost to death. He then consulted a celebrated specialist, who immediately perceived quite rightly that there was nothing wrong with the man but lack of employment. The patient saw the sense of this, and betook himself to his former position. But to his great disappointment no interest for his business presented itself. Neither the application of patience nor determination availed to help. His energy would not by any means be forced back into the business. His condition naturally became worse than before. Energy that hitherto had been actively creative was now turned back into himself, with fearfully destructive force. His creative genius rose up, so to speak, in revolt against him, and instead of, as before, producing great organisations in the world, his demon now created equally clever systems of hypochondriac fallacies, by which the man was absolutely crushed. When I saw him, he was already a hopeless moral ruin. I tried to make clear to him that such a gigantic amount of energy might indeed be withdrawn from business, but the problem remained as to where it should go. The finest horses, the fastest automobiles, and the most amusing parties are in themselves no inducement for energy, although it is certainly quite rational to think that a man who has devoted his whole life to serious work, has a natural right to enjoy himself. This would necessarily be the case if things happened "humanly" in destiny; first would come work, then well-earned leisure. But things happen irrationally and inconveniently enough, energy requires a congenial channel, otherwise it is dammed up and becomes destructive. My arguments met with no response, as was indeed to be expected. Such an advanced case can only be taken care of till death; it cannot be cured.

This case clearly illustrates the fact that it does not lie in our power to transfer a "disposable" energy to whatever rationally chosen object we may like. Exactly the same may be said of those apparently available energies that are made available by the fact that the psychoanalytical caustic has destroyed their unsuitable forms. These energies can be arbitrarily applied, as has already been said, at the very most only for a short time. They resist following the rationally presented possibilities for any length of time. Psychic energy is indeed a fastidious thing, that insists upon having its own conditions fulfilled. There may be ever so much energy existing, but we cannot make it useful, so long as we do not succeed in finding a congenial channel for it.

The whole of my research work for the last years has been concentrated upon this question. The _first stage_ of this work was to discover the extent to which the two theories discussed above were tenable. The _second stage_ consisted in the recognition of the fact, that these two theories correspond to two opposite psychological types, which I have designated the introversion and the extroversion types. William James[237] was struck by the existence of these two types among thinkers. He differentiated them as the "tough-minded," and the "tender-minded." Similarly, Ostwald[238] discovered an analogous difference in the classical and romantic types among great scholars. I am not therefore alone in my ideas about the types, as is testified by mentioning only these two well-known names out of many others. Historical researches have proved to me that not a few of the great controversies in the history of thought were based upon the contrast between the types. The most significant case of this kind is the contrast between nominalism and realism, which, beginning with the difference between the Platonic and the Megarian schools, descended to scholastic philosophy, where Abelard won the immortal distinction of at least having ventured an attempt to unite the two contradictory standpoints in conceptualism. This conflict has continued down to the present day, where it finds expression in the antagonism of spiritualism and materialism.

Just as in the general history of thought, so too every individual has a share in this contrast of types. Close investigation proves that people of opposite types have an unconscious predilection for marrying each other, that they may mutually complement one another. Each type has one function that is specially well developed, the introvert using his thought as the function of adaptation, thinking beforehand about how he shall act; whilst the extrovert, on the contrary, feels his way into the object by acting. To some extent he acts beforehand. Hence by daily application the one has developed his thought, and the other his feeling. In extreme cases the one limits himself to thinking and observing, and the other to feeling and acting. It is true that the introvert feels also, very deeply indeed, almost too deeply; that is why an English investigator[239] has gone so far as to describe his as "the emotional type." True, the emotion is there, but it all remains inside, and the more passionate and deeper his feeling is, the quieter is his outward demeanour. As the proverb puts it, "Still waters run deep." Similarly, the extrovert _thinks_ also, but that likewise mostly inside, whilst his feelings visibly go outside, that is why he is held to be full of feeling whilst the introvert is considered cold and dry. But as the feeling of the thinker goes inwards, it is not developed as a function adapted to external situations, but remains in a relatively undeveloped state. Similarly the thinking of one who feels remains also relatively undeveloped.

But if comparatively well-adapted individuals are under consideration, then the introvert will normally be found to have his feeling directed outwards, and the result may be extraordinarily deceptive. He shows feelings; he is amiable, sympathetic, even emotional. But a critical examination of the expressions of his feelings reveals that they are markedly conventional. They are not individualised. He shows to every one, without any essential difference, the same friendliness and the same sympathy; whilst the extrovert's expressions of feeling are throughout delicately graded and individualised. With the introvert the expression of feelings is really a gesture that is artificially adopted and conventional. Similarly, the extrovert may apparently think, and that even very clearly and scientifically. But upon closer investigation, his thoughts are found to be really foreign property, merely conventional forms which have been artificially acquired. They lack anything individual and original, and are just as lukewarm and colourless as the conventional feelings of the introvert. Under these conventional disguises, quite other things are slumbering in both, which occasionally when awakened by some overpowering effect, suddenly break out to the astonishment and horror of the environment.