The ego and the id · Sigmund Freud
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13. SELECTED PAPERS. By KARL ABRAHAM. (To appear shortly.) ___________________________________________________________________________ [1] _Beyond the Pleasure Principle_, London, 1922; translated from _Jenseits des Lustprinzips_, Vienna, 1920. [2] This may be compared with my ‘Note on the Unconscious in Psycho-Analysis’ (1912), _Collected Papers_, vol. iv. A new turn taken by criticisms of the unconscious deserves consideration at this point. Many investigators, who do not refuse to recognize the facts of psycho-analysis but who are unwilling to accept the unconscious, find a way out of the difficulty in the fact, which no one contests, that in consciousness (regarded as a phenomenon) it is possible to distinguish a great variety of gradations in intensity or clarity. Just as there are ideas which are very vividly, keenly, and definitely conscious, so we also entertain others which are but faintly, hardly even noticeably conscious; those that are most faintly conscious are, it is argued, the ones to which psycho-analysis wishes to apply the unsuitable name unconscious. These, however (the argument proceeds), are also conscious or ‘in consciousness’ just as much as the others, and can be made fully and intensely conscious if sufficient attention is paid to them.
In so far as it is possible to influence by arguments the decision of a question of this kind which is based either on a convention or on emotional factors, we may make the following comments. The reference to gradations of clarity in consciousness is in no way conclusive and has no more evidential value than such analogous statements as: ‘There are so many gradations in illumination—from the brightest and most dazzling light to the dimmest glimmer—that we may conclude that there is no such thing as darkness at all’; or, ‘There are varying degrees of vitality, consequently there is no such thing as death’. Such statements may in a certain sense have a meaning, but for practical purposes they are worthless. This will be seen if one proceeds to draw certain conclusions from them, such as, ‘it is not necessary, therefore, to strike a light’, or, ‘therefore all living things are immortal’. Further, to include ‘what is unnoticeable’ under the concept of ‘what is conscious’ is simply to play havoc with the one and only piece of direct and certain knowledge that we have about the mind. And after all, a consciousness of which one knows nothing seems to me a good deal more absurd than an unconscious mind. Finally, this attempt to equate what is unnoticed with what is unconscious is obviously made without taking into account the dynamic conditions involved, which were the decisive factors in formulating the psycho-analytic view. For it ignores two facts: first, that it is exceedingly difficult and requires very great effort to concentrate enough attention on something unnoticed of this kind; and secondly, that when this has been achieved the thought which was previously unnoticed is not recognized by consciousness, but often seems utterly alien and opposed to it and is promptly disavowed by it. Escaping from the unconscious in this way and taking refuge in what is scarcely noticed or unnoticed is, therefore, after all only an expression of the preconceived belief which regards the identity of mental and conscious as settled once and for all.
In order to simplify my presentment I shall discuss only identification with the father. [16] Cf. _Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego_, chap. vii. [17] [This sentence represents a slight modification of the original text in accordance with direct instructions from the author.—TRANS.] [18] I am at the moment putting science and art on one side. [19] Cf. _Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego_; and ‘Certain Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality’ (1922), _Collected Papers_, vol. ii. [20] _Beyond the Pleasure Principle._ [21] In fact, according to our view it is through the agency of Eros that the destructive instincts that are directed towards the external world have been diverted from the self. [22] It may be said that the psycho-analytical or metapsychological ego stands on its head no less than the anatomical ego—the ‘cortical homunculus’.
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