Both Bleuler and Freud gravitated into the paths taken by Darwin and others to span the bridge between ontogeny and phylogeny. Some mental manifestations show a direct transition from the unconscious present to the primordial past. This is seen in the reactions to the Oedipus and castration complexes, in animal phobias, especially in the phobia of being devoured by the father, and particularly in fixations on and regressions to earlier phases of libidinal development, e.g., the anal-sadistic one. All functions of the erstwhile cloaca still serve to reduce instinctual tension, a process which is pleasurable to the organism as a whole. Some forms of psychotic behavior and the animal-like expressions of some idiots suggest that ontogeny is not only an embryonic repetition of phylogeny, but that manifestations of the latter continue in distorted form in many human beings who live in our midst.