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In study groups or in private conversations with me I have often heard Eugenio Gaddini assert that you can't have science without quantity. To me this opinion seems to be directly linked to the economic principle of science , which constituted the basis of Freud's metapsychology (Gori 1991). In this way Freud integrated the quantitative-economic factors which derive from people's biological way of functioning into his metapsychology. This step was so important to Freud that it led him to claim psychoanalysis deserved the credit for having introduced the affects into the field of science, since they also form part of the economic hypothesis. As for Gaddini, whenever he turns to the instinctual process, he underlines that excessive tensions deriving from biological sources can overwhelm the infant's still immature psychical structures to such an extent that they cause serious harm. Following this line of thought he writes (1972) that the child feels pleasure when it discharges tensions outwards through muscular activity and action directed towards the object which can satisfy its needs. On the contrary, when the child discharges tension inwards, the result is