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of sexual variations expressed in neurotic symptoms, character-traits,

etc.

Freud has been accused of failing to define clearly what he means by sexual, although no one who reads him comprehendingly is left in any doubt as to what he means.

It is true that he has never given a cut and dried definition of sexuality, for to do so exhaustively would involve describing the manifold part played by sexual strivings not only in their manifest expression but in their cultural absorption in countless activities directed to non-sexual goals and unaccompanied by conscious sexual pleasure and their veiled symptomatic gratification in the widespread incidence of neurosis.

He has, however, done something much more worth while. He has formulated his Libido theory, which intelligibly strings together developmental data and accounts for such impressive facts as that of Displacement, which constitutes the outstanding feature of Man's mastery of his sexual impulses and that of Regression, following his all too frequent failure.

It is a matter for regret that this discussion has centred too exclusively on the less distinctively mental aspects of what Freud calls the Libido-function, as thereby quite a false impression is given of its scope and orientation in human life. Nothing has been said for instance of the vicissitudes of the Love life consequent on early libidinal disturbances and fixations and, while we have been saying a good deal about erotogenic zones, little has been said of their far-reaching relationships to character formation. This is only one out of a large number of purely psychological topics properly included in a discussion of Freud's Libido theory.

Finally a word might be said regarding the symposium itself. It is a matter for congratulation of my two courteous critics, that their examination of an unpopular standpoint has been conducted with such conspicuous fairness. Indeed I sense in the attitude of both something akin to a willingness to compromise if only the standpoint I represent were not so intransigent and I would seek to disarm them with the following analogy; for a discussion of the existence or non-existence of a sexual component in any given human tendency differs in one respect from all other scientific discussions whatsoever.

Imagine two analytical chemists arguing the exact percentage of two metals in an alloy of a base inferior metal lead and a refined noble metal gold. One asserts that there is 75 per cent. of lead and 25 per cent. of

gold whereas the other would reverse these proportions, accusing his opponent of Pan-Plumbism or appealing to his refinement and gentlemanly susceptibilities to be reasonable and split the difference.

The bearing of my opponents has been such that it seems almost boorish not to make some concession to their respective points of view, but a moment's reflection reveals the irrelevance of such a consideration in a discussion of what I repeat are ultimately matters of fact and not of opinion.

THE CONCEPTION OF SEXUALITY (V)

DR HADFIELD'S REPLY.

DR GLOVER's criticism of my paper may be grouped under two headings: I. The conception of infantile sexuality.

II. The teleological point of view.

As regards the first, Dr Glover appears to have misunderstood my opinions, for his criticism is largely directed against things I did not say, and against views I do not hold. He says, for instance, "Dr Hadfield goes so far as to say that even genital excitation in the child is merely sensuous and not sexual." Again, “Dr Hadfield maintains that it (the aggressive impulse) cannot be called sexual until it meets the requirements of his formula and is normally directed to sexually loved objects and arouses impulses whose natural end is reproduction, i.e. in the aggression of the sexually mature male." Again: "the emergence de novo of a sexual instinct at puberty as Dr Hadfield's thesis implies." I need hardly say that I do not for a moment hold that sexuality does not emerge till puberty, nor do I deny the existence of the perversions like Sadism in early childhood. My paper has assumed throughout that even in childhood there are manifested impulses destined ultimately to lead to reproduction, even though this end is temporarily thwarted by immaturity and so on. Anyone acquainted with a nursery at first hand will be convinced that children commonly engage in sexual activities and sometimes of a perverted nature. What I do mean to combat is the view that all sensuous experiences of childhood are to be called sexual. There are sensuous activities of the child which are distinctly sexual, like masturbation, exhibitionism: there are other activities of a sensuous nature, like sucking and defecation, which are neither sexual nor in themselves "perversions," but normal biological activities of childhood. There are a further group of activities in which the earlier activities like sucking and defaecation may morbidly persist and thus get linked up with the later genital activities, in which case we have the perversions; that is to say, instead of these genital sensations having free development towards their natural end (which, of course, they can only achieve later on in adult life), they are held by their attachment to these earlier sensuous tendencies, and they are therefore diverted from their natural ends. All this occurs before puberty. We may add, however, that while this is true, a great change nevertheless

takes place at puberty, for then the perversions become much more distressing, since the sex feelings then become more urgent and dominant.

On this point Dr Glover challenges with a test case, namely, that of interest in faeces. "Dr Hadfield asserts that a child's curiosity in its faeces or in the passing of water is not essentially different from its interest in its food or in strangers." In reply to this, Dr Glover calls on the child himself to arbitrate, and maintains that the child himself discriminates in a most dramatic way between the two, manifesting shame in the one case, but not in the other. Now this is true of many children, but it is emphatically not true of children who are brought up naturally and without having a sense of shame imposed on them by adults. This is a good test case of one of the fundamental fallacies in a good deal of Freudian argument, namely, to regard as inherent, tendencies of mind which the child has had imposed on it by its environment. Many of us have personal experience to vouch for the fact that if a child is permitted to satisfy its curiosity in regard to faeces, the facts of birth, a baby feeding at the breast, and other such things, it soon ceases to be curious and takes no further interest in the proceedings, speaking of them openly and treating them all as a matter of course. The child Dr Glover has called in to arbitrate is an abnormal child, whose 'shame' and 'guilt' are due to cultural restraints; and one cannot take this reaction to these activities as proving their 'sexual' nature. Dr Glover seems to feel the weakness of his argument and recognises that the parents have something to do with this shame, but vaguely remarks that "the child in some way meets the external pressure with inherited readiness." True! the inherited readiness is the fear of a smacking!

This leads us to Dr Glover's second important criticism, to the teleological point of view. He gives us the three criteria-the biological, the descriptive and the genetic. My definition of the sexual as those impulses whose natural end is reproduction he places under the first heading as defining sex in terms of its biologically conceived end. This he describes as savouring of a 'worn-out teleology.'

I find it difficult to understand why he should object to my use of the term 'end' when he himself uses the term 'goals.' Beside which, the whole of psychoanalytic literature is filled with teleological terms, like ‘wish' and ‘aim.' What does the term ' perversion' signify if it does not mean perverted from achieving certain ends? What do we mean by egoistic impulses unless we imply that these impulses subserve the ego and egoistic aims?

If there is any objection to be raised to the teleological point of view Med. Psych. v

14

as being 'worn out,' it is in attributing purposes where there are only ends. When people used to speak of the 'purposes' of Nature, as though Nature were conscious of its ends and deliberately planned them, they were open to the charge-for instance, that the 'purpose' of the April showers is to germinate the seed, or that Nature gives the animal its coloration in order that it might be hidden. The principle of 'natural selection' now prevents our saying this. But that does not prevent us from observing the fact that the actual result of the April showers is the germination of the seed, nor that the actual end of certain impulses given free and full development normally and naturally end in reproduction. Nor does it deny the fact that these are the natural ends, even though, owing to immaturity, perversion, or otherwise, the end is not actually achieved. A 'purpose' is a consciously conceived end (like the word 'aim' or 'goal'); an 'end' is merely an observed result, and it is in this sense that I use it when I speak of impulses whose natural end is reproduction.

But Dr Glover, admitting the teleological point of view by his use of the term 'goal,' would still object to my definition of the sexual in terms of reproduction in that this is not the psychological end, but only an end as we intellectually conceive it. To this, the 'biological' criterion, he opposes the 'psychological goal,' namely, the actual appropriate situation which brings its drive to an end.

The situation, he says, which in hunger brings satisfaction is the act of eating, which is, therefore, its psychological goal. Let us for a moment adopt this criticism. The situation which brings to an end the drive of the exhibitionist's impulse is exposing himself. According to this view, then, we should distinguish this activity as psychologically completely different from an activity in which coitus is the appropriate situation which brings its drive to an end. On these psychological lines then, we have no right to call them both sexual.

But, in point of fact, Dr Glover, whilst advocating the 'psychological' point of view, abandons it in favour of the 'genetic.' We call early tendencies sexual because they exhibit psychological identity with later tendencies admittedly sexual. I raise no objection to the genetic point of view any more than I object to the psychological; but surely this genetic standpoint is open to exactly the same objection as the one brought against the 'biological,' namely that it describes a tendency as sexual in that it demonstrably subserves some intellectually apprehended result. But the 'genetic' point of view is also intellectually apprehended and conceived. The only difference is that the biological or teleological tells us how an impulse ends, whereas the genetic tells us how it begins:

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