ABSTRACT
Rationale Toward the end of his life Freud began to return to the broad biological and evolutionary interests that had characterized his earlier and most pro ductive years. Yet only a relatively few subsequent workers (e.g., von Bertalanffy, 1955; Levy, 1954; Rioch, 1955; Rado and Daniels, 1956; Grinker, 1959; Mirsky and Katz, 1958; Heath, 1954; Pribram, 1965; Mandell, 1963) have remained deeply interested in what psychoanalysis can contribute to, or receive from, the more basic sciences of morphology and physiology, particularly the evolving higher neural functions and their correlations with the individual and social complexities of human conduct. This chapter will be largely devoted to a survey of biologic, ethologic, and comparative exper imental data relevant to various psychoanalytic theories of fundamental im port. Let us begin by posing a few fundamental questions:
W hat relationship do the “instinctive,” “innate,” or “unconditioned” behavior patterns of animals have to the concepts of pre-experimental “pri mary” or “libidinal” drives or “motivations” in man? Can the rate and order of the appearance of such patterns in young animals be correlated in
any way with the postulated stages of “psychosexual maturation'' in the child and adolescent? Are these phases related to metabolic processes and to the differential phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the nerv ous system?
