by which we secure for ourselves the power to do it. But of course all
energies must work through structural media. In regard to hedonism, one must
recognize that pleasure counts as a partial motive, but when it comes to
taking it as the final motive it fails utterly. Our lives contain
determinants which we cannot range under the category of pleasure. We act in
certain ways because our structure and our functions and our wills are what
they are, and not exclusively by our temporary wishes. Our "meanings," when
thoroughly studied are found to coincide with the meaning of the universe as
a whole. It is only through getting hold of the entire scheme that you have
something that you can use as a criteria. The nearest approach to this is
obtained through the study of the most broadly developed, public spirited
men, and such men do not work in accordance with hedonistic principles.
President G. Stanley Hall, of Worcester, Mass., read a paper entitled, "The
Application of Freudian Mechanisms to Other Emotions."[*]
[*] Published in the June-July number, p. 81, of this Journal.
DISCUSSION
DR. JOHN T. MAC CURDY, New York City: I have been so interested in the
paper by Dr. Hall that I have been distinctly delighted by it and with your
permission I will refer to a point in Dr. Putnam's paper directly pertinent
to the issues raised by Dr. Hall. Dr. Putnam has spoken of the necessity
for metaphysics by which I presume he means the necessity for formulation.
Yesterday there was some antagonism in a discussion on formulation. We
cannot avoid formulating. Our advance in knowledge is purely empiric unless
it is directly dependent on formulation. We have not formulated enough. We
have stuck too much to our empiric data, have not made the necessary
deductions from it. What formulations there are have been based on
therapeutic data and explain the productions of symptoms. No attention has
been paid to the general psychoneurotic or psychotic Anlage. When this is
done I am sure that it will be found that there are just such primordial
reactions as President Hall has been talking about lying back of all the
sexual impulses. Sexual reactions have in the course of development come to
be the vehicle for more primitive ones. We know by observation that the
infant demonstrates anger in a much greater degree, and long before he gives
evidence of things sexual, in anything approaching the adult sense of that
term. The temporary formulation of psychoanalysts who attempt to explain
anger or temper by sadism are really ridiculous. President Hall rightly says
that sadism must be explained by anger. That is one of the primitive
emotions. Sex is merely a vehicle. The importance of this transference is
that the sex emotions are peculiarly adapted to repression and when once
unconscious, continue to operate all through the life of the individual.
This is less likely to occur in the sudden reaction of anger, which is much
more apt to be blown off at the time.
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