358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



effect. Or such a train of thought may form still other associations, 

 and sink to lower depths of the soul, still to be considered. This upper 

 layer of the unconscious, then, which we find in Freud's theory, is very 

 like the usual sense in which the word " unconscious " is used, especially 

 by those who would see something mental in its activities. 



But the unique contribution which Freud has made to the subject is 

 in his theory of the lower layer of the unconscious, which is in many 

 respects totally different in its structure and activities from the upper 

 layer which we have been considering. In order to see his conception 

 more clearly, let us follow for a moment the development of the indi- 

 vidual. We all know that the child exhibits many tendencies which in 

 the adult would be signs of criminality, insanity or abnormality. Our 

 conscious personality as it exists to-day is the result of a long process of 

 growth, each stage built on the ruins of the one beneath. The child is 

 savage, primitive ; it is only by degrees that he becomes adapted to the 

 restraints of our modern civilization, and represses his old activities. 

 But now, says Freud, such repressed activities leave their traces behind. 

 They may not seem to affect us consciously ; we may have even forgotten 

 many of the old ways of thinking and acting, but their traces still exist. 

 What has become of the energy which went to the gratification of our 

 old selfish, individual, feral, modes of thought and action ? With most 

 of us the energy has found for the most part new outlets, it has pro- 

 duced the motive force for new developments. It has been " sub- 

 limated " to higher uses. But the draining off of the energy from the 

 old modes of action has not been complete. The old primitive tenden- 

 cies still persist unconsciously in the best of us, and will crop out in 

 some form or other if the provocation be sufficient. We have repressed 

 our childish desires so long that we may have forgotten that they ever 

 existed, but yet they are not quite dead. Particularly is this true in 

 the realm of sex — for Freud holds that the child has a sex life of his 

 own as truly as the adult. It has, to be sure, not yet come to a head in 

 the sexual organs, but it is none the less existent, and in ways which in 

 the adult would be called perversions; which, indeed, if not repressed, 

 are the origin of perversions in later life. Now these old ways of 

 sexual satisfaction are usually repressed under the influence of the 

 environment, yet the tendency to their gratification still exists; we 

 may see it cropping out in the most normal of us in dreams, for ex- 

 ample. The energy that went to the satisfaction of such impulses has 

 for the most part been drained off into new channels, but a little of it 

 still remains locked up with the old complexes. Perhaps none of us 

 have as much energy at our disposal for mental work as we ought to 

 have, for some of it still is attached to old and outworn tendencies, 

 making it a little easier and a little more possible for them to come 

 into operation under favoring circumstances than for new tendencies 

 so to do. 



