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

the psychic apparatus. This amount, on the other hand, is increased by pain.
Examination of the most intense pleasurable excitement accessible to man,
the pleasure which accompanies the performance of the sexual act, leaves
small doubt on this point. Since such processes of pleasure are concerned
with the destinies of quantities of psychic excitation or energy, we call
considerations of this sort economic. It thus appears that we can describe the
tasks and performances of the psychic apparatus in different and more
generalized terms than by the emphasis of the pursuit of pleasure. We may
say that the psychic apparatus serves the purpose of mastering and bringing
to rest the mass of stimuli and the stimulating forces which approach it. The
sexual instincts obviously show their aim of pleasurable excitement from the
beginning to the end of their development; they retain this original function
without much change. The ego instincts strive at first for the same thing. But
through the influence of their teacher, necessity, the ego instincts soon learn
to adduce some qualification to the principle of pleasure. The task of avoiding
pain becomes an objective almost comparable to the gain of pleasure; the
ego learns that its direct gratification is unavoidably withheld, the gain of
pleasurable excitement postponed, that always a certain amount of pain must
be borne and certain sources of pleasure entirely relinquished. This educated
ego has become "reasonable." It is no longer controlled by the principle of
pleasure, but by the principle of fact, which at bottom also aims at pleasure,
but pleasure which is postponed and lessened by considerations of fact.
The transition from the pleasure principle to that of fact is the most important
advance in the development of the ego. We already know that the sexual
instincts pass through this stage unwillingly and late. We shall presently learn
the consequence to man of the fact that his sexuality admits of such a loose
relation to the external realities of his life. Yet one more observation belongs
here. Since the ego of man has, like the libido, its history of evolution, you
will not be surprised to hear that there are "ego-regressions," and you will
want to know what role this return of the ego to former phases of
development plays in neurotic disease.
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