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Data derived from electrode implantation in and electrical stimulation of cortical and subcortical areas in rat, cat, monkey, porpoise, and man indicate a biological substrate for instinct persistent throughout the philogenetic series. Buried within the large brain of the human, with its vast flexibility of response and complexity of registration, are instinct-subserving systems which seem to be present in the smaller brains of other mammals. If one accepts the principle that the smaller brain with its narrower range of freedom of action and reaction has instinctual reactions basically similar to those of the larger brain, then the data derived from animal research can usefully be applied to psychoanalytic constructs. Such data seem strongly to establish that there exist in the mammalian brain two richly interconnected systems: one subserving rewards, pleasurable sensations and activities; the other subserving punishments, painful and angry sensations and activities. These two systems are functionally represented throughout the entire brain, relatively concentrated in the subcortical centers, and progressively attenuated in the cortex with its relative predominance of memory stores. Ego functions are only fractionally mediated by the lower systems, and predominantly mediated by these vast cortical areas. Stimulation of very small areas in the lower centers produces diffuse and global affective (id) states which have relative prevalence over comparable stimulation responses of the cortical areas. As a result of the ubiquitous functional representation of the two systems there seems to be no aspect of mental functioning not connected with the rewarding and/or punishing concomitants served by the two systems. Bombardment of the lower centers with masses of excitation from the cortical areas in response to appropriate life situations very possibly has an effect analogous to the direct stimulation of the centers by weak electrical charges: the production of aff