Conceptions of great importance do not arise only in one brain, but are floating in the air and dip here and there, appearing even under other forms, and in other regions, where it is often very difficult to recognize the common fundamental idea. Thus it happened with the splitting up of sexuality into the polymorphic perverse sexuality of childhood.
Experience forces us to accept a constant exchange of isolated components as we notice more and more that, for instance, perversities exist at the expense of normal sexuality, or that the increase of certain kinds of sex-manifestations causes corresponding deficiencies of another kind. To make the matter clearer, let me give you an instance: A young man had a homo-sexual phase lasting for some years, during which time women had no interest for him. This abnormal condition changed gradually toward his twentieth year and his erotic interest became more and more normal. He began to take great interest in girls, and soon the last traces of his homo-sexuality were conquered. This condition lasted several years, and he had some successful love-affairs. Then he wished to get married; he had here to suffer a great disappointment, as the girl to whom he proposed refused him. During the ensuing phase he absolutely abandoned the idea of marriage. After that he experienced a dislike of all women, and one day he discovered that he was again perfectly homo-sexual, that is, young men had an unusually irritating influence upon him. To regard sexuality as composed of a fixed hetero-sexual component, and a like homo-sexual element, will never suffice to explain this case, for the conception of the existence of fixed components excludes any kind of transformation.
To understand the case, we have to admit a great mobility of the sexual components, which even goes so far that one of the components can practically disappear completely, whilst the other comes to the front. If only substitution took place, if for instance the homo-sexual component entered the unconscious, leaving the field of consciousness to the hetero-sexual component, modern scientific knowledge would lead us to conclude that equivalent effects arose from the unconscious sphere. Those effects would have to be conceived as resistances against the activity of the hetero-sexual component, as a repugnance towards women.
Experience tells us nothing about this. There have been some small traces of influences of this kind, but of such slight intensity that they cannot be compared with the intensity of the former homo-sexual component. On the conception that has been outlined, it is also incomprehensible how this homo-sexual component, regarded as so firmly fixed, can ever disappear without leaving active traces. To explain things, the process of development is called in, forgetting that this is only a word and explains nothing. You see, therefore, the urgent necessity of an adequate explanation of such a change of scene. For this we must have a dynamic hypothesis. Such commutations are only conceivable as dynamic or energic processes. I cannot conceive how manifestations of functions can disappear if I do not accept a change in the relation of one force to another. Freud’s theory did have regard to this necessity in the conception of components. The presumption of isolated functions existing side by side began to be somewhat weakened, more in practice than theoretically. It was replaced by an energic conception. The term chosen for this conception is “libido.”
CHAPTER III
The Conception of Libido
Freud had already introduced the idea of libido in his[[5]] “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory” in the following words:
“In biology, the fact that both mankind and animals have a sexual want is expressed by the conception of the sexual desire. This is done by analogy with the want of nourishment, so-called hunger. Popular speech has no corresponding characterization for the word ‘hunger,’ and so science uses the word ‘libido.’”
In Freud’s definition, the term “libido” appears as exclusively a sexual desire. “Libido” as a medical term is certainly used for sexual desire, and especially for sexual lust. But the classical definition of this word as found in Cicero, Sallust, and others, was not so exclusive. The word is there used in a more general sense for every passionate desire. I only just mention this definition here, as further on it plays an important part in our considerations, and as it is important to know that the term “libido” has really a much wider meaning than is associated with it through medical language.
The idea of libido (while maintaining its sexual meaning in the author’s sense as long as possible) offers us the dynamic value which we are seeking in order to explain the shifting of the psychological scenery. With this conception it is much simpler to formulate the phenomena in question, instead of by the incomprehensible substitution of the homo- by the hetero-sexual component. We may say now that the libido has gradually withdrawn from its homo-sexual manifestation and is transferred in the same measure into a hetero-sexual manifestation. Thus the homo-sexual component practically disappears. It remains only an empty possibility, signifying nothing in itself. Its very existence, therefore, is rightly denied by the laity, just as we doubt the possibility that any man selected at random would turn out to be a murderer. By the use of this conception of libido many relations between the isolated sexual functions are now easily explicable.
The early idea of the multiplicity of sexual components must be given up: it savors too much of the ancient philosophical notion of the faculties of the mind. Its place is taken by libido which is capable of manifold applications. The earlier components only represent possibilities of activities. With this conception of libido, the original idea of a divided sexuality with different roots is replaced by a dynamic unity, without which the formerly important components remain but empty possibilities of activities. This development in our conception is of great importance. We have here the same process which Robert Mayer introduced into dynamics. Just as the conception of the conservation of energy removed their character as elements from the forces, imparting to them the character of a manifestation of energy, so the libido theory similarly removes from the sexual components the idea of the mental “faculties” as elements (“Seelen Vermögen”), and ascribes to them merely phenomenal value. This conception represents the impression of reality far more than the theory of components. With a libido-theory we can easily explain the case of the young man. The disappointment he met with, just at the time he had definitely decided on a hetero-sexual life, drove his libido again from the hetero-sexual manifestation into a homo-sexual form, thus calling forth his entire homo-sexuality.