H. W. MAGOUN 15 



the id. In popular language, we may say that the ego stands for reason and 

 circumspection, while the id stands for the untamed passions. One might 

 compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his 

 horse: the horse provides the locomotive energy, and the rider has the 

 prerogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his 

 powerful mount. 



'The role which the supcrc<^o undertakes later in life is at hrst played by 

 an external power, by parental authority. It can be traced back to the 

 influence of parents, teachers and so on, and is based upon an over- 

 whelmingly important biological fact, namely, the lengthy dependence 

 of the human child on his parents. We have allocated to the superego the 

 activities of self-observation, conscience and the holding up of ideals. It 

 is the representative of all moral restrictions, the advocate of the impulse 

 towards perfection. In short, it is as much as we have been able to appre- 

 hend psychologically of what people call the "higher things in human 

 life". It becomes the vehicle of tradition and of all the age-long values 

 which have been handed down from generation to generation. The 

 ideologies of the superego perpetuate the past, the traditions of the race 

 and the people, which yield but slowly to the influence of the present and 

 to new developments.' 



In discussing the interrelations ot these parts, Freud, like Spencer, 

 appeared to invoke Lamarckian views : 'The ego has the task of bringing 

 the influence of the external world to bear upon the id. In the ego, percep- 

 tion plays the part which, in the id, develops upon instinct. The experiences 

 undergone by the ego seem at tnst to be lost to posterity ; but, when they 

 have been repeated often enough and with sufficient intensity in the 

 successive individuals of many generations, they transform tlicmselves so 

 to say into experiences of the id, the impress of which is preserved by 

 inheritance. Thus in the id, which is capable of being inherited, are stored 

 up vestiges of the existences led by countless former egos; and, when the 

 ego forms its superego out of the id, it may perhaps only be reviving 

 images of egos that have passed away and be securing them a resurrection. 



'The poor ego has, then, to serve three harsh masters and to do its best 

 to reconcile their claims and demands. These demands are always diver- 

 gent and often seem quite incompatible; no wonder the ego so frequently 

 gives way under its task. The three tyrants arc the external world, the 

 superego and the id. It feels itself hemmed in on three sides and threatened 

 by three kinds of danger, towards which it reacts by developing anxiety 

 when too hard pressed. 



'Having originated in the experiences of the perceptual system, it is 



