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The paper surveys our present knowledge of the early phases of ego-development. It begins with a critical description of the sources from which we derive our knowledge. The newly-born child is much more helpless than most of the newly-born mammals. Its perception of the surrounding world is as little developed as its motility, and it is unable to bind internal tension by countercathexis. This is what we mean by saying that the new-born child has not yet developed an ego. The development of the ego starts with birth and finishes with the decline of the Oedipus complex. The first traces of consciousness do not make a differentiation between ego and non-ego. Tension and relaxation are its first contents. The first recognized object has its root in a frustration-situation; something, which is already known, and which has on previous occasions removed a tension, is lacking. Primitive perception is closely linked up with motor reaction. Each stimulus calls for an immediate discharge of tension. Another characteristic of primitive perception is its close relation to identification. The first reality is the eatable. Fenichel then deals with the question if introjection is necessarily ambivalent. He answers the question in the negative as love and hate are, at this primitive state, not yet developed as opposites. It is not quite accurate to say that the primitive ego is weak. It is true that the ego is rather helpless against its own impulses, but as it still includes the surrounding world it considers itself omnipotent. The 'omnipotence of thought' is only a special case of this general omnipotence. The 'omnipotence of movement' is experienced as magic force when the external world reacts to screaming and unco-ordinated movements by relieving tension. The separation of the ego from the external world is a gradual process. Introjection and projection are based on the reversible character of this preliminary separation. When the child is forced through ex