[30] ['Cathexis', from the Greek 'κατἑχω', 'I occupy'. The German word '_Besetzung_' has become of fundamental importance in the exposition of psycho-analytical theory. Any attempt at a short definition or description is likely to be misleading, but speaking very loosely, we may say that 'cathexis' is used on the analogy of an electric charge, and that it means the concentration or accumulation of mental energy in some particular channel. Thus, when we speak of the existence in someone of a libidinal cathexis of an object, or, more shortly, of an object-cathexis, we mean that the libidinal energy is directed towards, or rather infused into, the idea (_Vorstellung_) of some object in the outer world. Readers who desire to obtain a more precise knowledge of the term are referred to the discussions in 'Zur Einführung des Narzissmus' and the essays on metapsychology in _Kleine Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, Vierte Folge.--_Translator._] [31] See _Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse_. XXV, 3. Auflage, 1920. [_Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis._ Lecture XXV. George Allen and Unwin, 1922.] [32] Compare Bela v. Felszeghy's interesting though somewhat fantastic paper 'Panik und Pankomplex'. _Imago_, 1920, Bd. VI. [33] Compare the explanation of similar phenomena after the abolition of the paternal authority of the sovereign given in P. Federn's _Die vaterlose Gesellschaft_. Vienna, Anzengruber-Verlag, 1919. [34] 'A company of porcupines crowded themselves very close together one cold winter's day so as to profit by one another's warmth and so save themselves from being frozen to death. But soon they felt one another's quills, which induced them to separate again. And now, when the need for warmth brought them nearer together again, the second evil arose once more. So that they were driven backwards and forwards from one trouble to the other, until they had discovered a mean distance at which they could most tolerably exist.' (_Parerga und Paralipomena_, II. Teil, XXXI., 'Gleichnisse und Parabeln'.) [35] Perhaps with the solitary exception of the relation of a mother to her son, which is based upon narcissism, is not disturbed by subsequent rivalry, and is reinforced by a rudimentary attempt at sexual object-choice. [36] In a recently published study, _Jenseits des Lustprinzips_ (1920) [_Beyond the Pleasure Principle_, International Psycho-Analytical Library, No. 4], I have attempted to connect the polarity of love and hatred with a hypothetical opposition between instincts of life and death, and to establish the sexual instincts as the purest examples of the former, the instincts of life. [37] See 'Zur Einführung des Narzissmus', 1914. _Kleine Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, Vierte Folge, 1918.