H. W. MAGOUN 13 



as spatially stratified were, doubtless, unconscious ones. It seems an 

 exaggeration to propose that a continuum can be detected, in any literal 

 sense, in Freud's anatomical, neurological and psychoanalytical works. 

 Instances of a recurring effort to interpret neural organization and function 

 in evolutionary terms can, however, be noted. In his monograph on 

 Aphasia, published in 1891, Freud wrote (1953): 'In assessing the functions 

 of the speech apparatus under pathological conditions, we are adopting as 

 a guiding principle Hughhngs Jackson's doctrine that all these modes of 

 reaction represent instances of functional retrogression (disin volution) of a 

 highly organized apparatus, and therefore correspond to earlier stages of 

 its functional development. This means that under all circumstances an 

 arrangement of associations which, having been acquired later, belongs to 

 a higher level of functioning, will be lost, while an earlier and simpler one 

 will be preserved. From this point of view, a great number of aphasic 

 phenomena can be explained.' 



Pcpt-C5 



Fig. 4 

 Two diagrams by Freud (8, 8b), presenting the mental apparatus as 

 though spatially stratified. 



In a letter to Fleiss in 1896, Freud (1954) discussed a revision of his 

 Project for a Scientific Psychology and referred to his 'latest bit of specula- 

 tion, the assumption that our psychical mechanism has come about by a 

 process of stratification'. A quarter of a century later, Freud made two 

 attempts to diagram these ideas, with interesting differences in the form of 

 the figures. The first (Fig. 4, left), prepared in 1923, resembled an inverted 

 brain, although reference was made to it as an ovum. The second (Fig. 4, 

 right), prepared a decade later, was on the other hand really egg-shaped. 

 In his lecture on 'The Anatomy of the Mental Personality', Freud (1933) 

 elaborated upon the contents of these figures: 'Superego, ego and id are 



