The discovery of fire seems to be due to a very similar regression to the presexual stage, more particularly to the nearest stage of the displaced rhythmic manifestation. The libido, introverted from the incest prohibition (with the more detailed designation of the motor components of coitus), when it reaches the presexual stage, meets the related infantile boring, to which it now gives, in accordance with its realistic destination, an actual material. (Therefore the material is fittingly called “materia,” as the object is the mother as above.) As I sought to show above, the action of the infantile boring requires only the strength and perseverance of an adult man and suitable “material” in order to generate fire. If this is so, it may be expected that analogous to our foregoing case of onanistic boring the generation of fire originally occurred as such an act of quasi-onanistic activity, objectively expressed. The demonstration of this can never be actually furnished, but it is thinkable that somewhere traces of this original onanistic preliminary exercise of fire production have been preserved. I have succeeded in finding a passage in a very old monument of Hindoo literature which contains this transition of the sexual libido through the onanistic phase in the preparation of fire. This passage is found in Brihadâranyaka-Upanishad:[[309]]
“In truth, he (Âtman)[[310]] was as large as a woman and a man, when they embrace each other. This, his own self, he divided into two parts, out of which husband and wife were formed.[[311]] With her, he copulated; from this humanity sprang. She, however, pondered: ‘How may he unite with me after he has created me from himself? Now I shall hide!’ Then she became a cow; he, however, became a bull and mated with her. From that sprang the horned cattle. Then she became a mare; he, however, became a stallion; she became a she-ass; he, an ass, and mated with her. From these sprang the whole-hoofed animals. She became a goat; he became a buck; she became an ewe; he became a ram, and mated with her. Thus were created goats and sheep. Thus it happened that all that mates, even down to the ants, he created—then he perceived: ‘Truly I myself am Creation, for I have created the whole world!’ Thereupon he rubbed his hands (held before the mouth) so that he brought forth fire from his mouth, as from the mother womb, and from his hands.”
We meet here a peculiar myth of creation which requires a psychologic interpretation. In the beginning the libido was undifferentiated and bisexual;[[312]] this was followed by differentiation into a male and a female component. From then on man knows what he is. Now follows a gap in the coherence of the thought where belongs that very resistance which we have postulated above for the explanation of the urge for sublimation. Next follows the onanistic act of rubbing or boring (here finger-sucking) transferred from the sexual zone, from which proceeds the production of fire.[[313]] The libido here leaves its characteristic manifestation as sexual function and regresses to the presexual stage, where, in conformity with the above explanation, it occupies one of the preliminary stages of sexuality, thereby producing, in the view expressed in the Upanishad, the first human art, and from there, as suggested by Kuhn’s idea of the root “manth,” perhaps the higher intellectual activity in general. This course of development is not strange to the psychiatrist, for it is a well-known psychopathological fact that onanism and excessive activity of phantasy are very closely related. (The sexualizing-autonomizing of the mind through autoerotism[[314]] is so familiar a fact that examples of that are superfluous.) The course of the libido, as we may conclude from these studies, originally proceeded in a similar manner as in the child, only in a reversed sequence. The sexual act was pushed out of its proper zone and was transferred into the analogous mouth zone[[315]]—the mouth receiving the significance of the female genitals; the hand and the fingers, respectively, receiving the phallic meaning.[[316]] In this manner the regressively reoccupied activity of the presexual stage is invested with the sexual significance, which, indeed, it already possessed, in part, before, but in a wholly different sense. Certain functions of the presexual stage are found to be permanently suitable, and, therefore, are retained later on as sexual functions. Thus, for example, the mouth zone is retained as of erotic importance, meaning that its valuation is permanently fixed. Concerning the mouth, we know that it also has a sexual meaning among animals, inasmuch as, for example, stallions bite mares in the sexual act; also, cats, cocks, etc. A second significance of the mouth is as an instrument of speech, it serves essentially in the production of the mating call, which mostly represents the developed tones of the animal kingdom. As to the hand, we know that it has the important significance of the contrectation organ (for example, among frogs). The frequent erotic use of the hand among monkeys is well known. If there exists a resistance against the real sexuality, then the accumulated libido is most likely to cause a hyperfunction of those collaterals which are most adapted to compensate for the resistance, that is to say, the nearest functions which serve for the introduction of the act;[[317]] on one side the function of the hand, on the other that of the mouth. The sexual act, however, against which the opposition is directed is replaced by a similar act of the presexual stage, the classic case being either finger-sucking or boring. Just as among apes the foot can on occasions take the place of the hand, so the child is often uncertain in the choice of the object to suck, and puts the big toe in the mouth instead of the finger. This last movement belongs to a Hindoo rite, only the big toe was not put in the mouth, but held against the eye.[[318]] Through the sexual significance of the hand and mouth these organs, which in the presexual stage served to obtain pleasure, are invested with a procreating power which is identical with the above-mentioned destination, which aims at the external object, because it concerns the sexual or creating libido. When, through the actual preparation of fire, the sexual character of the libido employed in that is fulfilled, then the mouth zone remains without adequate expression; only the hand has now reached its real, purely human goal in its first art.
The mouth has, as we saw, a further important function, which has just as much sexual relation to the object as the hand, that is to say, the production of the mating call. In opening up the autoerotic ring (hand-mouth),[[319]] where the phallic hand became the fire-producing tool, the libido which was directed to the mouth zone was obliged to seek another path of functioning, which naturally was found in the already existing love call. The excess of libido entering here must have had the usual results, namely, the stimulation of the newly possessed function; hence an elaboration of the mating call.
We know that from the primitive sounds human speech has developed. Corresponding to the psychological situation, it might be assumed that language owes its real origin to this moment, when the impulse, repressed into the presexual stage, turns to the external in order to find an equivalent object there. The real thought as a conscious activity is, as we saw in the first part of this book, a thinking with positive determination towards the external world, that is to say, a “speech thinking.” This sort of thinking seems to have originated at that moment. It is very remarkable that this view, which was won by the path of reasoning, is again supported by old tradition and other mythological fragments.
In Aitareyopanishad[[320]] the following quotation is to be found in the doctrine of the development of man: “Being brooded-o’er, his mouth hatched out, like as an egg; from out his mouth (came) speech, from speech, the fire.” In Part II, where it is depicted how the newly created objects entered man, it reads: “Fire, speech becoming, entered in the mouth.” These quotations allow us to plainly recognize the intimate connection between fire and speech.[[321]] In Brihadâranyaka-Upanishad is to be found this passage:
“‘Yayñavalkya,’ thus he spake, ‘when after the death of this man his speech entereth the fire, his breath into the wind, his eye into the sun, etc.’”
A further quotation from the Brihadâranyaka-Upanishad reads:
“But when the sun is set, O Yayñavalkya, and the moon has set, and the fire is extinguished, what then serves man as light? Then speech serves him as light; then, by the light of speech he sits, and moves, he carries on his work, and he returns home. But when the sun is set, O Yayñavalkya, and the moon is set, and the fire extinguished, and the voice is dumb, what then serves man as light? Then he serves himself (Atman) as light; then, by the light of himself, he sits and moves, carries on his work and returns home.”
In this passage we notice that fire again stands in the closest relation to speech. Speech itself is called a “light,” which, in its turn, is reduced to the “light” of the Atman, the creating psychic force, the libido. Thus the Hindoo metapsychology conceives speech and fire as emanations of the inner light from which we know that it is libido. Speech and fire are its forms of manifestation, the first human arts, which have resulted from its transformation. This common psychologic origin seems also to be indicated by certain results of philology. The Indo-Germanic root bhâ designates the idea of “to lighten, to shine.” This root is found in Greek, φάω, φαίνω, φάος[[322]]; in old Icelandic bán = white, in New High German bohnen = to make shining. The same root bhâ also designates “to speak”; it is found in Sanskrit bhan = to speak, Armenian ban = word, in New High German bann = to banish, Greek φᾱ-μί, ἔφαν, φấτις.[[323]] Latin fâ-ri, fânum.