“Magisque in decoris armis et militaribus equis, quam in scortis et conviviis libidinem habebant.”[[235]]
Also:
“Quod si tibi bona libido fuerit patriæ, etc.”
The use of libido is so general that the phrase “libido est scire” merely had the significance of “I will, it pleases me.” In the phrase “aliquam libido urinæ lacessit” libido had the meaning of urgency. The significance of sexual desire is also present in the classics.
This general classical application of the conception agrees with the corresponding etymological context of the word, libido or lubido (with libet, more ancient lubet), it pleases me, and libens or lubens = gladly, willingly. Sanskrit, lúbhyati = to experience violent longing, lôbhayati = excites longing, lubdha-h = eager, lôbha-h = longing, eagerness. Gothic = liufs, and Old High German liob = love. Moreover, in Gothic, lubains was represented as hope; and Old High German, lobôn = to praise, lob = commendation, praise, glory; Old Bulgarian, ljubiti = to love, ljuby = love; Lithuanian, liáupsinti = to praise.[[236]] It can be said that the conception of libido as developed in the new work of Freud and of his school has functionally the same significance in the biological territory as has the conception of energy since the time of Robert Mayer in the physical realm.[[237]] It may not be superfluous to say something more at this point concerning the conception of libido after we have followed the formation of its symbol to its highest expression in the human form of the religious hero.
CHAPTER II
THE CONCEPTION AND THE GENETIC THEORY OF LIBIDO
The chief source of the history of the analytic conception of libido is Freud’s “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory.” There the term libido is conceived by him in the original narrow sense of sexual impulse, sexual need. Experience forces us to the assumption of a capacity for displacement of the libido, because functions or localizations of non-sexual force are undoubtedly capable of taking up a certain amount of libidinous sexual impetus, a libidinous afflux.[[238]] Functions or objects could, therefore, obtain sexual value, which under normal circumstances really have nothing to do with sexuality.[[239]] From this fact results the Freudian comparison of the libido with a stream, which is divisible, which can be dammed up, which overflows into branches, and so on.[[240]] Freud’s original conception does not interpret “everything sexual,” although this has been asserted by critics, but recognizes the existence of certain forces, the nature of which are not well known; to which Freud, however, compelled by the notorious facts which are evident to any layman, grants the capacity to receive “affluxes of libido.” The hypothetical idea at the basis is the symbol of the “Triebbündel”[[241]] (bundle of impulses), wherein the sexual impulse figures as a partial impulse of the whole system, and its encroachment into the other realms of impulse is a fact of experience. The theory of Freud, branching off from this interpretation, according to which the motor forces of a neurotic system correspond precisely to their libidinous additions to other (non-sexual) functional impulses, has been sufficiently proven as correct, it seems to me, by the work of Freud and his school.[[242]] Since the appearance of the “Three Contributions,” in 1905, a change has taken place[[243]] in the libido conception; its field of application has been widened. An extremely clear example of this amplification is this present work. However, I must state that Freud, as well as myself, saw the need of widening the conception of libido. It was paranoia, so closely related to dementia præcox, which seemed to compel Freud to enlarge the earlier limits of the conception. The passage in question, which I will quote here, word for word, reads:[[244]]
“A third consideration which presents itself, in regard to the views developed here, starts the query as to whether we should accept as sufficiently effectual the universal receding of the libido from the outer world, in order to interpret from that, the end of the world: or whether in this case, the firmly rooted possession of the ‘I’ must not suffice to uphold the rapport with the outer world. Then one must either let that which we call possession of the libido (interest from erotic sources) coincide with interest in general, or else take into consideration the possibility that great disturbance in the disposition of the libido can also induce a corresponding disturbance in the possession of the ‘I.’ Now, these are the problems, which we are still absolutely helpless and unfitted to answer. Things would be different could we proceed from a safe fund of knowledge of instinct. But the truth is, we have nothing of that kind at our disposal. We understand instinct as the resultant of the reaction of the somatic and the psychic. We see in it the psychical representation of organic forces and take the popular distinction between the ‘I’ impulse and the sexual impulse, which appears to us to be in accord with the biological double rôle of the individual being who aspires to his own preservation as well as to the preservation of the species. But anything beyond this is a structure, which we set up, and also willingly let fall again in order to orient ourselves in the confusion of the dark processes of the soul; we expect particularly, from the psychoanalytic investigations into diseased soul processes, to have certain decisions forced upon us in regard to questions of the theory of instinct. This expectation has not yet been fulfilled on account of the still immature and limited investigations in these fields. At present the possibility of the reaction of libido disturbance upon the possession of the ‘I’ can be shown as little as the reverse; the secondary or induced disturbances of the libido processes through abnormal changes in the ‘I.’ It is probable that processes of this sort form the distinctive character of the psychoses. The conclusions arising from this, in relation to paranoia, are at present uncertain. One cannot assert that the paranoiac has completely withdrawn his interest from the outer world, nor withdrawn into the heights of repression, as one sometimes sees in certain other forms of hallucinatory psychoses. He takes notice of the outer world, he takes account of its changes, he is stirred to explanations by their influence, and therefore I consider it highly probable that the changed relation to the world is to be explained, wholly or in great part, by the deficiency of the libido interest.”
In this passage Freud plainly touches upon the question whether the well-known longing for reality of the paranoic dement (and the dementia præcox patients),[[245]] to whom I have especially called attention in my book, “The Psychology of Dementia Præcox,”[[246]] is to be traced back to the withdrawal of the “libidinous affluxes” alone, or whether this coincides with the so-called objective interest in general. It is hardly to be assumed that the normal “fonction du réel” (Janet)[[247]] is maintained only through affluxes of libido or erotic interest. The fact is that in very many cases reality disappears entirely, so that not a trace of psychological adaptation or orientation can be recognized. Reality is repressed under these circumstances and replaced by the contents of the complex. One must of necessity say that not only the erotic interest but the interest in general has disappeared, that is to say, the whole adaptation to reality has ceased. To this category belong the stuporose and catatonic automatons.
I have previously made use of the expression “psychic energy” in my “Psychology of Dementia Præcox” because I was unable to establish the theory of this psychosis upon the conception of the displacement of the affluxes of libido. My experience, at that time chiefly psychiatric, did not enable me to understand this theory. However, the correctness of this theory in regard to neuroses, strictly speaking the transference neuroses, was proven to me later after increased experience in the field of hysteria and compulsion neuroses. In the territory of these neuroses it is mainly a question whether any portion of the libido which is spared through the specific repression becomes introverted and regressive into earlier paths of transference; for example, the path of the parental transference.[[248]] With that, however, the former non-sexual psychologic adaptation to the environment remains preserved so far as it does not concern the erotic and its secondary positions (symptoms). The reality which is lacking to the patients is just that portion of the libido to be found in the neurosis. In dementia præcox, on the contrary, not merely that portion of libido which is saved in the well-known specific sexual repression is lacking for reality, but much more than one could write down to the account of sexuality in a strict sense. The function of reality is lacking to such a degree that even the motive power must be encroached upon in the loss. The sexual character of this must be disputed absolutely,[[249]] for reality is not understood to be a sexual function. Moreover, if that were so, the introversion of the libido in the strict sense must have as a result a loss of reality in the neuroses, and, indeed, a loss which could be compared with that of dementia præcox. These facts have rendered it impossible for me to transfer Freud’s theory of libido to dementia præcox, and, therefore, I am of the opinion that Abraham’s investigation[[250]] is hardly tenable theoretically, from the standpoint of the Freudian theory of libido. If Abraham believes that through the withdrawal of the libido from the outer world the paranoid system or the schizophrenic symptomatology results, then this assumption is not justified from the standpoint of the knowledge of that time, because a mere libido introversion and regression leads, speedily, as Freud has clearly shown, into the neuroses, and, strictly speaking, into the transference neuroses, and not into dementia præcox. Therefore, the transference of the libido theory to dementia præcox is impossible, because this illness produces a loss of reality which cannot be explained by the deficiency of the libido defined in this narrow sense.