a-general-introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud

in the woman's part she was to play. This higher moral and intellectual
evolution of her ego was in conflict with the claims of her sexuality.
I should like to consider today one more point in the development of the ego,
partly because it opens wide vistas, partly because it will justify the sharp,
perhaps unnatural line of division we are wont to draw between sexual and
ego impulses. In estimating the several developments of ego and of libido, we
must emphasize an aspect which has not frequently been appreciated
heretofore. Both the ego and the libido are fundamentally heritages,
abbreviated repetitions of an evolution which mankind has, in the course of
long periods of time, traversed from primeval ages. The libido shows its
phylogenetic origin most readily, I should say. Recall, if you please, that in
one class of animals the genital apparatus is closely connected with the
mouth, that in another it cannot be separated from the excretory apparatus,
and in others it is attached to organs of locomotion. Of all these things you
will find a most fascinating description in the valuable book of W. Bölsche.
Animals portray, so to speak, all kinds of perversions which have become set
as their permanent sexual organizations. In man this phylogenetic aspect is
partly clouded by the circumstance that these activities, although
fundamentally inherited, are achieved anew in individual development,
presumably because the same conditions still prevail and still continue to
exert their influence on each personality. I should say that originally they
served to call forth an activity, where they now serve only as a stimulus for
recollection. There is no doubt that in addition the course of development in
each individual, which has been innately determined, may be disturbed or
altered from without by recent influences. That power which has forced this
development upon mankind, and which today maintains the identical
pressure, is indeed known to us: it is the same self-denial enforced by the
realities—or, given its big and actual name, Necessity, the struggle for
existence, the ’Ανἁγχη. This has been a severe teacher, but under him we
have become potent. The neurotics are those children upon whom this
severity has had a bad effect—but there is risk in all education. This
appreciation of the struggle of life as the moving force of development need
not prejudice us against the importance of "innate tendencies in evolution" if
their existence can be proved.
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