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But, as I have indicated in a previous communication, 2 I differ from Melanie Klein on a point of fundamental importance in holding that the source of the little girl's anxiety connected with her fear of being penetrated, perforated or ripped open is something anterior to and independent of a super-ego in any shape or form.
I believe that the biological reaction of fear manifested by an organism in the face of what may be described in very general terms as penetration or irruption into its own substance, is something extremely primitive.
Let us try to imagine for a moment a mass of primal protoplasm. Surrounded and threatened from every quarter by hostile forces this primitive organism must defend itself against these dangers if it is to survive at all. But what forms do these threats and dangers take? There is the danger of dessication; or the danger of solid objects of greater strength penetrating into the substance and even destroying it. We may suppose that the tiny protoplasmic mass will, in virtue of life's mysterious powers of adaptation to environment, have had to learn to react with some signal to the external dangers which threaten it. It will surround itself with a protective membrane against dessication;