Beyond the pleasure principle · Sigmund Freud
EDITORIAL PREFACE
I have revised this translation, so carefully made by Miss Hubback, several times, but I feel that it calls for special indulgence on the part of the reader. On account, doubtless, of the extreme complexity and remarkable novelty of the ideas which Professor Freud here expounds, comprising as they do his thoughts on the ultimate problems of life, the style is one of exceptional difficulty. As it is more important to render his ideas precisely than to clothe them in another garb, we decided to adhere faithfully to the original even at the expense of some uncouthness as regards the English. The word _Unlust_, as in the phrase pleasure-pain principle, has been translated as ‘pain’; pain without inverted commas signifies _Schmerz_ in the original. The word _Besetzung_ (literally: state of being occupied), as in the expressions _Besetzungsenergie_ and _Energiebesetzung_ has been rendered by the words ‘investment’ or ‘charge’, the latter being taken from the analogy of electricity. These and other technical terms will be discussed in a Glossary which it is intended to publish as a supplement to the _International Journal of Psycho-Analysis_.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.