Freud on vehicles?

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat 06 Mar 2004 - 07:21:42 GMT

  • Next message: Scott Chase: "Freud on vehicles?"

    Selfish gene enthusiasts might want to grok this one from Freud that, in its very archaic way, touches on the issue of individuals as vehicles carrying immortal coils. Freud says (BTW, I've sifted through a lot of silt for this gold nugget so cut me some slack):

    (bq)"The individual does actually carry on a double existence: one designed to serve his own purposes and another as a link in a chain, in which he serves against, or at any rate without, any volition of his own. The individual himself regards sexuality as one of his own ends; while from another point of view he is only an appendage to his germ-plasm, to which he lends his energies, taking in return his toll of pleasure- the mortal vehicle of a (possibly) immortal substance- like the inheritor of an entailed property who is only the temporary holder of an estate which survives him."(eq)

    Granted this has been translated from the German by somebody named Cecil Baines and I've no idea how the original reads compared to the translation, but the use of words like mortal vehicle and immortal substance strikes me as rather fascinating.

    This quote is from Freud's "On Narcissism" (1914) as found on page 401 of
    _The Major Works of Sigmund Freud_ (Great Books of the Western World (vol54) 1952/1986. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. Chicago)

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