Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/232

 nearest stage of the displaced rhythmic manifestation. The libido, introverted from the incest prohibition (with the more detailed designation of the motor components of coitus), when it reaches the presexual stage, meets the related infantile boring, to which it now gives, in accordance with its realistic destination, an actual material. (Therefore the material is fittingly called "materia," as the object is the mother as above.) As I sought to show above, the action of the infantile boring requires only the strength and perseverance of an adult man and suitable "material" in order to generate fire. If this is so, it may be expected that analogous to our foregoing case of onanistic boring the generation of fire originally occurred as such an act of quasi-onanistic activity, objectively expressed. The demonstration of this can never be actually furnished, but it is thinkable that somewhere traces of this original onanistic preliminary exercise of fire production have been preserved. I have succeeded in finding a passage in a very old monument of Hindoo literature which contains this transition of the sexual libido through the onanistic phase in the preparation of fire. This passage is found in Brihadâranyaka-Upanishad:[28]

"In truth, he (Âtman)[29] was as large as a woman and a man, when they embrace each other. This, his own self, he divided into two parts, out of which husband and wife were formed.[30] With her, he copulated; from this humanity sprang. She, however, pondered: 'How may he unite with me after he has created me from himself? Now I shall hide!' Then she became a cow; he, however, became a bull and mated with her. From that sprang the horned cattle. Then she became a mare; he, however,