STEVEN MARCUS
531
systematic, the concrete and the abstract, and the contingent and the
determined, and in the delicacy with which that equilibrium is sus–
tained . On a later occasion, Freud addressed this difficult subject
directly:
So long as we trace the development from its final outcome back–
wards, the chain ofevents appears continuous, and we feel we have
gained an insight which is completely satisfactory or even exhaus–
tive . But ifwe proceed the reverse way, ifwe start from the premises
inferred from the analysis and try to follow these up to the final
result, then we no longer get the impression of an inevitable se–
quence ofeventswhich could not have been otherwise determined.
We notice at once that there might have been another result, and
that we might have been just as well able to understand and explain
the latter. The synthesis is thus not so satisfactory as the analysis; in
other words, from a knowledge of the premises we could not have
foretold the nature of the result . . . . But we never know before–
hand which of the determining factors will prove the weaker or the
stronger. We only say at the end that those which succeeded must
have been the stronger. Hence the chain ofcausation can always be
recognized with cerrainty
if
we follow the line of analysis, whereas
to predict it along the line ofsynthesis is impossible . •
Such a passage suggests Freud's awareness that psychoanalytic theory,
like the modern theory of evolution, is essentially a historical theory;
its powers are explanatory rather than predictive.
With the arrival of puberty a further series of transformations take
place. New objects appear along with a new sexual aim. And the com–
ponent instincts must now be brought together, assembled, inte–
grated, and subordinated to "the primary of the genital zone." In
addition, "the sexual instinct is now subordinated to the reproductive
function; it becomes, so to say, altruistic. " This is at the other extreme
from the archaic or primitive or perverse arrangements in which the
instinct itself is idealized. Freud then passes on to the extremely com–
plex question of the differentiation between men and women, a dif–
ferentiation in which the notion of bisexuality makes an important
return . In addition, this transformation involves for women a further
change . In little girls, genital sexuality is experienced on aphallicmodel
or prototype, with the clitoris as the organ of stimulation and pleasure.
When a girl turns into a woman, this organ both enlarges and relin-
•" The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman " (1920).
