ABSTRACT
On account of the dazzling effect of the impressive unfolding of growth at the beginning of life, the view has tended to be that in infants only just brought into the world the life instincts were greatly preponderant. There has been a disposition to represent the life and death instincts as a simple complementary series in which the life maximum was placed at the beginning of life, and the zero point at the most advanced age. The etiological assumption is based upon a theoretical view differing from the accepted one as to the operation of the life and death instincts at various ages. The ‘life-force’ which rears itself against the difficulties of life has not therefore any great innate strength. Corresponding to the drop in the curve of mortality and disease in middle age, the life-instinct would only counterbalance the destructive tendencies at the age of maturity.
