Passing on to the mechanisms of paranoia, we can only note a recent formulation by Abraham that whilst the libido development has never got beyond the anal-sadistic stage, the relation of ego to object has not passed the stage of part-love, and that in the paranoic regression a partintrojection of the object, penis, faeces and probably breast, takes place as compared with the complete introjection of melancholia. At any rate we can readily imagine that as object relations have never been stable in these cases, the formation of the ego-ideal must necessarily be even more unstable, and indeed we can see in the delusional formations, how the ego-ideal has deteriorated and crumbled until criticism is once more heard as the voice from without.

This deterioration of the ego-ideal leads naturally to the consideration of an interesting group of conditions, where there is no psychotic appeal to the mechanism of projection but where, nevertheless, normal introjection of the criticising instances has not been completely effected. The voice from without, however, is a real voice and the punishment no less real, in the one instance social obloquy and in the other the ministrations of the penal code. The most fascinating examples are alcoholism. and drug taking, and in no conditions can we find greater wealth of illustration of mouth influences in development. Needless to say, here as elsewhere the root of the matter lies in the overcoming of traumatic experience at the Oedipus stage, but the venue of the conflict has been widely displaced, and a factitious integrity of the genital system has been preserved by flight to socially infantile regressions whilst unconscious guilt is appeased by social criticism, ostracism or punishment. Indeed, if we go back to the ancient codes, we can see punishment reflecting an unconscious appreciation of the infantile structure behind these habits. A Chinese Edict of 1100 B.C. institutes the death penalty (symbolic castration) for drunkenness, and in the Laws of Manu it is said, “any twice born who has intentionally drunk the spirit of rice (sura) through perverse delusion of mind, may drink more spirit in flame and atone for his offence by burning his body: or he may drink boiling hot, until he die, the urine of a cow or pure water or milk or clarified butter or juice expressed from cow dung1."

It is curious to note that whilst in both conditions a flight from homosexual impulses plays a large part in determining the nature of the habit, in the case of drug-taking by mouth, there is, as far as my observation goes, a deeper repression of the active impulses and a corresponding increase in the heinousness (or naughtiness) of the habit. In both instances 1 Institutes of Hindoo Law: Ordinances of Manu (Wm Jones). Allen & Co.

there is an exceedingly strong oral libido-fixation, and as a consequence a strong precastration setting. It is interesting to observe how frequently in the series of adolescent tabus, the mouth plays directly or indirectly a constant part: masturbation, of course, stands by itself in this respect, but the series of adolescent prohibitions roughly runs in the order, swearing, smoking, drinking, gambling and direct sexual intimacies, the earliest of which are kissing and hugging (pseudo-incorporation). Smoking itself forms an interesting transition study, not only on account of its special technique but because in the judgment of modern society adult indulgence stands midway between alcoholism and some other mouth gratifications, such as tea-drinking and sweet-eating which are either regarded as normal or when excessive as indications of at the most a neurotic character. Here, again, there are distinctions within the habit. Like all other gratifications, it provides condensed expression for libidoformations arising at other erogenous areas and dating from more advanced stages of development, but special habit forms may be contributed largely from one special zone or stage. Thus whilst cigarette, cigar and pipe-smoking obviously mingle gratifications of an anal type with displaced genital representation, tobacco-chewing is much more subject to an anal-sadistic tabu. Once more we find an ascending series from the point of view of social criticism; viz. cigarette, cigar, pipe and chewing quid. Even in the colour and scent of tobacco there are expressed reaction-formations varying from an appreciation of fine bouquet to apprehension of 'lowness' associated with the consumption of black twist. The same can be said of the shape and size of smoking appurtenances, from the delicate innuendo of the, now old-fashioned, ladies' midget cigarette to the frankly phallic 'chest-warmer' pipe1.

Considerations of this sort add to the difficulty of distinguishing between neurotic or perverted formations associated with the mouth and the neurotic mouth characteristic, which itself shades off gradually into mouth character traits. Theoretically the distinction can be drawn by a consideration of the instinct mechanisms involved together with an appraisement of the degree of ego-ideal formation. Thus in alcoholism we find evidence of miscarriage of repression, together with a strenuous attempt to prevent the 'return of the repressed,' whilst the ego-ideal formations, as has been suggested, are unstable and tend to seek reinforcement from without. At the same time, by overstepping what are

1 See also Brill, “Tobacco and the Individual," International Journal of Psychoanalysis, III, 1923, and Hiller, ibid.

2 Freud, "Die Disposition zur Zwangsneurose," Sammlung kleiner Schriften, 4te Folge.

socially regarded as the necessities of the case, they clearly place themselves in the category of abnormal states. We may say roughly that what distinguishes the neurotic character from these more severe conditions is the fact that whilst the libidinal gratification of impulses is direct and real, it is seldom recognised as such by the individual, whilst the punishment situation is less directly associated with social blame and more with individual consequences. The dynamic situation, however, is essentially the same: repression, reaction-formation and sublimation have not been entirely effective, whilst the ego-ideal exhibits some degree of instability.

In the case of oral neurotic character, as with all other neurotic character formations, there are two main streams, one in which the gratification is in the 'thing' itself, activities associated with the self or object, and one where gratification is obtained through 'word '-presentations. A very brief study of speech formations will serve to show that in the colloquial and formal use of words, wide gratification is permitted the oral subject. Indeed, they are capable of loose subdivision in accordance with developmental instinct activities. The oral sadist not only adopts incisive speech to eat up his victim but revels in the use of words which describe the biting process; his sarcasm is biting, he flavours his sharp-tongued speech with corrosive wit, a process which usually ends in feeding-up his opponent. Less aggressive types chew the cud of reflection, whilst others, still more passive, prefer to drink in the distillations of wisdom. In Isaiah the word of God is likened to wine and milk1. We assimilate and digest information or, according to taste, eschew and spue it out of our mouth; too voracious reading ends, as we are accustomed to hear, in mental indigestion. We might note, too, an interesting example of 'word-amphimixis' in one of the innumerable colloquial equivalents for coitus, viz. 'a cut off the joint.'

It is impossible to do more than mention the multiformity of gratifications in action; they penetrate into every nook and cranny of our daily life. One generalisation, however, can be made; all gratifications are capable of distinction in accordance with the satisfaction of active or passive aims: they stamp respectively the biter or the sucker. Study the mouthpieces of pipes, the stub ends of pencils, offer your friends chocolate caramels, ask them if they like new bread or stale, dry or buttered toast, time them over an inhospitable piece of steak, observe the degree of partial incorporation of the soup-spoon, the preference for jam or jelly, for apple or orange, for cutlet and saute or sausage and

1 Isaiah, lv. i.

mashed potatoes, and in a few minutes you will be able to hazard a guess as to instinct modification after birth which may require the deepest analysis to bring home to the individual. Even in the melancholic atmosphere of the vegetarian restaurant, you will find the conscientious biter at his nut cutlet, the sucker at his instant postum; there is but one striking difference, a cannibalistic tabu reigns supreme over the heavily burdened unconscious of the hungry ones. Small wonder they are advised to think happily whilst they eat.

To the next stage in classification of oral characteristics we have already alluded in the more exaggerated form of alcoholism: there is, however, a minor degree of indulgence in eating and drinking, the feature of which is that whilst not notably neurotic, it does not conform to the mere necessities of self-preservative appetites. Here, as has been suggested, we will find the café frequenter, the diner-out, the theatre addict who, like the baby, combines viewing with sustenance, although in this case not milk but chocolate cream. There is just a trace of compulsion in their make-up, and around the public houses of a Sunday evening, one can invariably find a small crowd in a minor state of optimistic impatience, whose nursery battle-cry 'want a dink' once rent the fretful watches of the night. Amongst the third group, where mouth habits bear no relation to self-preservative appetite, we can include artists whose activities are confined to the stub-end of the pencil, paper chewers and blanket suckers, transatlantic gum masticators, and a horde of other miniature mouth perverts.

We have the key here to one other generalisation about mouth traits, viz. that the necessities of self-preservation and the toleration extended to ceremonial eating provide a screen behind which purely erotic activities can take cover and defy the censoring attentions of the ego-ideal. An immediate consequence of this is that there is not so much necessity for displacement on to a psychical plane, such as exists with the anal and urethral impulses which, being more definitely under suspicion and infinitely less tolerated, must attain gratification in the disguise of psychical character traits. But oral psychical traits do exist and have been neglected merely because they so closely resemble the so-called urinary character. Indeed we can add quite definitely that the same intermingling of erotogenic influences from mouth, urethra and anus takes place in character trait formation which we have already noted in neurotic mechanisms. Impatience, envy and ambition constitute the oral triad: a sense of immediate urgency, a necessity to 'get the thing over' (one thinks of the throat), an accompanying motor restlessness, an

envy of the achievement of others, a desire to climb (one thinks of the dizzy height of breast and lap), a hankering after the plums, and yet behind it all a feeling that the silver spoon is or ought to have been in the mouth. This fact, indeed, does help to distinguish oral from urethral ambition. As Abraham has pointed out1, the ambition of the oral erotic always tends to security and regularity; in the case of the permanent official we see one who quietly, calmly and diligently sucks at the regularly proferred nipple of the public purse. There is, moreover, an echo of the old oral omnipotence to be traced in the ambition of the oral erotic. If the worst comes to the worst, it is, he conceives, his inalienable claim on society to be supported. He is in that sense an optimist; something is bound to turn up and doubtless he clings in the secret recesses of his mind to the magic formula, “Table! Cover thyself." But there is another side to his character; let reality come too perilously near, if he but guess that society is prepared to let him go wanting, that the nipple he confidently anticipated is only a dummy, immediately the sponge is thrown up; he turns his back on the unfaithful bosom and drifts into that irresponsibility which borders on primal narcissism. Or, again, he may turn in a rage on society and seek to get his rights by force or rapine, as once on a time he furiously clawed at his mother's bodice. Even in the absence of dire necessity this aggressive reaction can be noted, and oral impulses are seen to emerge in the less urgent gesture of kleptomania.

One more mode of oral representation demands our attention, the autoplastic, or, to limit it to one variety, the physiognomic2. Abraham has remarked on the surly expression of anal erotics, the raising of the upper lip and contraction of the nasal wings as if in the act of smelling. Oral physiognomy need hardly go beyond the lips and jaw musculature. At this point the stern-jawed hero of romance comes into his own and testifies to a lifelong steadiness of oral purpose in striking contrast to the darling of the music-hall with his slack jaw and loose bibulous lips. These, indeed, speak louder than words, and in their firm or loose line, pursed or tremulous set, pout or pucker, moistness or dryness, bear silent witness to the instinct tendencies of life as they existed in the first few months after birth.

1 Abraham, "Beiträge der Oralerotik zur Charakterbildung," International Psychoanalytic Congress, April, 1924.

2 Abraham, "Erganzungen zur Lehre vom Analcharakter," Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1, 1923.