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In the theory of psychoanalysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe, that is to say, that the course of those events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering or supension1 of that tension - that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure. In taking that course into account in our consideration of the mental processes which are the subject of our study, we are introducing an economic2 point of view into our work; and if, in describing those processes, we try to estimate this economic factor in addition to the topographical and dynamic ones, we shall, I think, be giving the most complete description of them of which we can at present conceive, and one which deserves to be distinguished by the term metapsychological.
It is of no concern to us in this connection to inquire how far, with this hypothesis of the pleasure principle, we have approached or adopted any particular, historically established, philosophical system.3 We have arrived at these speculative assumptions in an attempt to describe and to account for the facts of daily observation in our field of study. Priority and originality are not among the aims that psychoanalytic work sets itself; and the impressions that underlie the hypothesis of the pleasure principle are so obvious that they can scarcely be overlooked. On the other hand, we would readily express our gratitude to any philosophical or psychological theory which was able to inform us of the