Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/531

 symbols for the primitive object, the mother (as the Rigveda says, the creator of the world, "hiding his origin," enters into things). From this the thought or the phantasies proceed, as a desexualized manifestation of an originally sexual libido.

From the standpoint of the libido, the term "incest barrier" corresponds to one aspect, but the matter, however, may be considered from another point of view.

The time of undeveloped sexuality, about the third and the fourth year, is, at the same time, considered externally, the period when the child finds himself confronted with increased demands from the world of reality. He can walk, speak and independently attend to a number of other things. He sees himself in a relation to a world of unlimited possibilities, but in which he dares to do little or nothing, because he is as yet too much of a baby and cannot get on without his mother. At this time mother should be exchanged for the world. Against this the past rises as the greatest resistance; this is always so whenever man would undertake a new adaptation. In spite of all evidence and against all conscious resolutions, the unconscious (the past) always enforces its standpoint as resistance. In this difficult position, precisely at this period of developing sexuality, we see the dawning of the mind. The problem of the child at this period is the discovery of the world and of the great trans-*subjective reality. For that he must lose the mother; every step out into the world means a step away from the mother. Naturally, all that which is retrogressive in men rebels against this step, and energetic attempts are