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Studies of neuroses, psychoses, and anomalies of character, present the original and basic field of psychoanalytic investigation; however, psychoanalysis gradually came out of the confines of this framework and began to concern itself with the study of normal traits of character and psychic functions as a whole; thus it started on its way towards an ultimate goal of becoming a general psychology, i.e. a complete theory of human personality. It began with the consideration of the most irrational, instinctive attitudes and functions of man—those closest to and most highly charged with unconscious energy: feelings, desires, severe affects and general behavior. Following this it turned its attention to such higher functions as will, seeking to understand their deeper and unconscious foundations.
In this essay we shall endeavor to examine intelligence and higher mental functions from the same point of view.
Our purpose is to uncover the hidden sources of higher psychic activity and thus to demonstrate that this higher mental activity is not a mysterious form of life which has no connection with the elementary phenomena of living, but that it is rather a derivative of the latter attained by way of slow evolution. Thus, it is possible to demonstrate that will is among other things an expression of sado-masochistic tendencies and of the internalized Oedipus complex; that it is, in addition, a coördinated expression of partial drives which are arranged in the form of a hierarchy and are subjugated to a superior drive; in other words, will is a resultant of a series of superimposed impulses of the individual which become more and more general.
The question arises whether it is possible to reduce intellectual activity to a series of equally schematic formulations. We