We cannot use our power of reason to deny our reason; for in so doing we affirm the very thing which we deny. Nor are we under the necessity of using our reason to affirm our reason, since that is the datum without which we cannot undertake our task.
If this view is sound, what practical conclusions can we draw from it? I wish to insist on this question because it was distinctly and positively with the practical end in mind that I ventured to write this paper, and I suggest the following as a few of these conclusions.
(I) We should not speak of the "Libido," in whatever sense this word is taken, as if it were a fixed quantity, like so much heat, or so much fluid, that is, as representing so much mesaurable force. One current notion which has played a very useful part in psychoanalytic work, yet is misleading in its tendency, is that the "Libido" may be likened to a river which if it cannot find an outlet through its normal channel is bound to overflow its banks and perhaps furrow out a new path. This conception is based on this same law of the conservation of energy to which reference has been made. If, however, I am right in my contention that the "Libido" is only one manifestation of an energy,— greater than simply "vital,"—which can be studied to the best purpose only among men whose powers have been cultivated to the best advantage, then it will be seen that this conception of "Libido" as a force of definite amount is not justifiable by the facts.
One does not find that love or reason is subject to this quantitative law. On the contrary, the persons whom most of us recognize as of the highest type do not love any given individual less because their love takes in another. The bond of love holds not only three, but an indefinite number.
The same statement may be made with regard to reason and to will. The power and quantity of them are not exhausted but are increased by use.
I maintain, then, that although the "Libido," in so far as it is regarded as an instinct, does not stand on the same footing with the reason and disinterested love of a person of high cultivation and large views, neither does it stand on the same footing with the physical energy that manifests itself in light and heat and gravitation.
When we come to deal with man and any of his attributes, or as we find them at any age, we ought to look upon him, in my estimation, as animated in some measure by his self-foreshadowing best. And whether it is dreams with which we have to do, or neurotic conflicts, or wilfulness, or regression, we shall learn to see, more and more, as we become accustomed to look for evidences thereof, the signs of this sort of promise, just as we might hope to learn to find, more and more, through the inspection of a lot of seeds of different plants, the evidences which would enable us to see the different outcomes which each one is destined to achieve, even though, at first, they all looked just alike.
(2) The next point has reference to "sublimation." This outcome of individual evolution, as defined by Freud, has a strictly social, not an ethical, meaning. Jung also, in the interesting paper referred to, in his description of the rational aims of psychoanalysis, makes sublimation (though he does not there use the word) the equivalent of a subjective sense of well being, combined with the maximum of biologic effectiveness.
"Die Psychoanalyse soll eine biologische Methode sein, welche das hoechste subjektive Wohlbefinden mit der wertwollsten biologischen Leistung zu vereinigen sucht."
But in my opinion, while it may be true that the psychoanalyst may often have reason to be thankful if he can claim a therapeutic outcome of this sort, the logical goal of a psychoanalytic treatment is not covered by the securing of a relative freedom from subjective distress, even when combined with the satisfactory fulfillment of one's biologic mission. A man has higher destinies than this, and the sense of incompleteness felt by the neurotic patient, which was emphasized by Janet and is recognized by us all, must be more or less painfully felt by every man whose conscience does not assure him that he is really working for an end greater than that here specified. The logical end of a psychoanalytic treatment is the recovery of a full sense of one's highest destiny and origin and of the bearings and meanings of one's life.