ABSTRACT
Civilisation standards are by no means absolute but change from one country to another and from one period to another in the same country. This standard is always set by the ruling class in each society and shows a similar curve of development in the Western European countries. The fact that the individual has to arrive at the level of civilisation reached by its surrounding society, thereby passing through phases similar but not identical to the historical stages, is described as "sociogenetic principle". Psychoanalysis has hitherto tried to trace the sources of the all-important super-ego formation in the human species mainly in two directions: firstly, the phylogenetic, as a precipitation of pre-history; secondly, the psychogenetic, as an outcome of the history of the individual. In addition to these two modes of approach people seem to get gradual access to material which opens the way for a third, and perhaps not less important, one, namely the sociogenetic.
