CHAPTER VI
CONTROL
§ 128
Evolution has produced in man a being in whom the erotic has now a greater significance than the egoistic-social impulse. In the development of plant and animal forms, science recognizes certain new productions that differ from the norm of the species in which they appear, in such a way that they were at first called freaks or mutations. But as they breed true to their form, they are necessarily regarded not as freaks (lusus naturæ), but as well established varieties.
The establishment of the erotic as a norm in humans has the further implication that here we have a phenomenon existent nowhere else in life, namely the non-procreative or social love episode.
Indeed it may be that love itself, as distinguished from sensual desire, is a mutation on the psychical level, a form not recognized in any description of natural phenomena until late in man’s evolution—the love that comprises both physical and spiritual reaction for the man, and both physical and spiritual counter-reaction from the woman. Without this interaction man cannot be said truly to love.
For the man of today, who has succeeded in placing the erotic above the egoistic-social impulse, has achieved a height that few, if any, have attained before him, has gained a joy and fullness of living compared with which the so-called happiness of successful marriage according to former standards is but foredawn to noon-day.
The existence of this higher type of erotic control leading to the establishment of the non-procreative or social love episode, brings into clearest relief the distinction between control as repression and control as expression.
Control as expression is analogous to driving a horse and getting somewhere, control as repression is like unharnessing him and letting him run away. Control of the erotic instinct by repressing is not like shooting the horse, because repression never annihilates an impulse but only removes it from conscious control.
Keeping in mind this difference between control by repression, which is only apparent, not real, annihilation, only removal from consciousness and not destruction of the impulse, we shall more easily note the necessary connection between self-control and individuality, i.e., personality.