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Once I lived like the gods, and more is not needed.
Among the many seminal ideas which flowed from Freud's fertile pen, there was one which appears to have fallen on barren ground. This is the concept of a universal and inherent death instinct. Indeed, if Brun's survey of the literature3 is correct, after 1942, the few psychoanalysts still writing about the death instinct rejected it. It received its coup de grace in 1957 at the hands of Freud's Boswell, Ernest Jones.12 R.I.P.
The idea of a death instinct resident in man is not likely, however, to rest in peace. Its potential for explaining a wide range of phenomena is so vast and the need for comprehending this man-made world in which we live and die is so urgent that it must eventually receive the serious consideration it deserves. For the death instinct to become a dead issue in a world which is wrapping itself in a radioactive winding sheet is more than irony; it is criminal negligence.
Fortunately, the situation vis à vis the death instinct is not so desperate as we have painted it. Within the last ten years, strong voices have spoken out in its behalf. First and foremost among these is the eloquent voice of Norman Brown.2 No writer on psychoanalytic theory that I know of, excepting Freud himself, has written more cogently of the life and death instincts. In fact, Brown's book is unique not only because of its acceptance of the death instinct but also because it is one of the few books published since the death of Freud which contains a