STEVEN MARCUS
breast.
It
is only later that the instinct loses that object , just at the
time , perhaps , when the child is able to form a total idea of the
person to whom the organ that is
givin~
him satisfaction belongs .
533
It
is then, Freud writes inconsistently, that the instinct becomes auto–
erotic, and not until latency has been passed through is it ready to re–
sume and restore the original relation. The inconsistency has ro do with
his earlier statement that at first, at its origin, the sexual instinct in
infants has no object. And since he is making conjectural inferences
about such occluded matters as the origin and formation of object rela–
tions-matters about which reliable data are still today very hard to
come by-one can understand his lack of certitude and his oscillation .
His conclusion, however, has a sturdy coherence to it. " There are thus
good reasons," he wrote, "why a child sucking at its mother's breast
has become the prototype of every relation of love. The finding of an
object is in fact a refinding of it ." The past is the prehistory of the
present in the sense that it is the necessary precondition ofpresent exist–
ence . And history repeats and recapitulates prehistory , though at a
further state oforganization and development.
Although love takes many forms , the kind of love Freud has
ideally in mind is associated with the idea of a vigorous and autono–
mous adult human being . This autonomy is a goal that cannot be
reached directly , for the object that is found in adult life cannot be the
identical refound object of infancy and early childhood. The Oedipal
experience must be gone through and resolved . The barrier against
incest- ' 'a cultural demand made by society" -must be internalized ,
along with other prohibitions and restraints . When at puberty the
incestuous fantasies are rearoused , they must again be overcome and
repudiated. If this work is gone through successfully, "one of the most
significant , but also one of the most painful , psychical achievements of
the pubertal period is completed : detachment from parental author–
ity, a process that alone makes possible the opposition, which is so
important for the progress of civilization , between the new generation
and the old ." In view of the widespread tendency to regard Freud's
thinking as essentially classical and conservative in affinity, it is helpful
to be reminded of such a remark . Freud is also one of the last great
legatees of the Romantic tradition in European thought . His theories
are grounded in the idea of conflict, and this conflict exists in the realm
of the normal as much as it does in the pathological. Even his concep-
