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In his book, “Civilization and Its Discontents,” Freud says that others approach profoundest understanding without any effort, while such as he “must force their way ceaselessly groping amid torturing uncertainties.” The modesty lying in this confession is appalling. But no uncertainty can be noticed in the book. Like all his previous works it was published long after it had been conceived and was first tested by new experiences. We can still see by the book how the author groped for his path, approaching from all sides the problem of what becomes of the instincts in civilization. This small book is rich in keen remarks and many a problem is solved concisely.
The following two theses are most important for the author and for their sake the book was written: firstly the existence of the death-instinct and secondly the production of the feeling of guilt from aggressive impulses. In the first thesis the opposition of sexual and ego instinct,, previously found, is replaced by the opposition of Eros and Death-instinct; the second is contradictory to the opinion that the feeling of guilt is increased by every instinctual privation. “One is now inclined to suggest the following statement as a possible formulation: when an instinctual trend undergoes repression its libidinal elements are transformed into symptoms and its aggressive components into a sense of guilt. Even if this statement is only approximately accurate it merits our interest.”
These views are of such importance that psychoanalysts must first ponder over them and apply them before they can form their opinion. No scientific pioneer should wonder that even understanding readers, that means those that have psychoanalytic knowledge, must grope for every new perception themselves and that it often