ABSTRACT
In the interesting work in which Alexander seeks to connect the Sexual (life) instincts and Ego (death) instincts, as distinguished by Freud, with the most general biological and physical rules, he says, among other things, 'I would ask you now to test well my statement of the inhibiting function of the system Conscious'. That system “Conscious” was understood by Freud as something active, which governs motility. The only power, which belongs to the “Conscious”, the higher system, is an inhibitive one: it may repress, it may restrain the development of impulses or their gratification, or it may direct them. There are certainly many among us who would like to suppose that ultimately everything physical, physiological, and also psychical can be reduced to one primary system of laws; these might well in a certain sense be called monistic.
