Janus by Arthur Koestler

long detour in gathering
'the dispersed fragments of living substance' [1] into multicellular
aggregates with the final aim of restoring protoplasmic unity; in other
words, evolution appears as the product of inhibited regression, the
negation of a negation, a backing forward, as it were.

As a curiosity one may note Freud's rather dim view of the working of Eros.
According to this view, pleasure is always derived from 'the diminution,
lowering, or extinction of psychic excitation' and 'un-pleasure*
from an increase of it'. The organism tends towards stability;
it is guided by 'the striving of the mental apparatus to keep the
quantity of excitations present in it as low as possible or at least
constant. Accordingly, everything that tends to increase the quantity of
excitation must be regarded as adverse to this tendency, that is to say,
as unpleasurable.' [2]
* Unlust, dysphoria, as distinct from physical pain.

Now this is of course true, in a broad sense, in so far as the frustration
of elementary needs like hunger is concerned. But it passes in silence
a whole class of experiences to which we commonly refer as 'pleasurable
excitement'. The preliminaries of love-making cause an increase in sexual
tension and should, according to the theory, be unpleasant -- which they
decidedly are not. It is curious that in the works of Freud there is no
answer to be found to this embarrassingly banal objection. The sex-drive
in the Freudian system is essentially something to be disposed of --
through the proper channels or by sublimation; pleasure is derived not
from its pursuit, but from getting rid of it.*
* One might argue that in Freud's universe there is no place for
     amorous love-play because Freud, like D. H. Lawrence, was basically
     a puritan with a horror of frivolity, who treated sex
    'mit tierischem Ernst'. Ernest Jones says in his biography:
    'Freud partook in much of the prudishness of his time, when allusions
     to lower limbs were improper.' He then gives several examples --
     such as Freud 'sternly forbidding' his fiancée to stay 'with
     an old friend, recently married, who as she delicately put it,
    "had married before her wedding" '. [3]

Freud's concept of Thanatos -- the Todestrieb -- is as puzzling as
his Eros. On the one hand, the death-wish 'works silently, within the
organism towards its disintegration' by catabolic processes, breaking down
living into lifeless matter. This aspect of it may in fact be equated
with the Second Law of Thermodynamics ** -- the gradual dispersion of
matter and energy into a state of chaos. But, on the other hand, Freud's
death-instinct, which works so quietly within the organism, appears,
when projected outward, as active destructiveness or sadism. How these two
aspects of Thanatos can be harmonized and causally connected is difficult
to see. For the first aspect is that of a physico-chemical process which
tends to reduce living cells to quiescence and ultimately to dust; while
the second aspect shows a coordinated, violent aggression of the whole
organism against other organisms. The process by which the silent sliding
towards senescence and disintegration is converted into the infliction of
violence on others is not explained by Freud; the only link he provides
is the ambiguous use of words like 'death-wish' and 'urge to destruction'.
** We shall see later that this famous law applies only to so-called
     'closed systems' in physics, and not to living organisms; but this
     is a relatively recent discovery which Freud could not know.

Not only is the connection between these two aspects of the Freudian
Thanatos missing, but each in itself is highly questionable. Taking
the second aspect first, nowhere do we find in nature destruction for
destruction's sake. Animals kill to devour, not to destroy; and -- as
already mentioned -- even when they fight in competition for territory
or mates, the fight is ritualized like a fencing bout and is hardly ever
carried to a lethal end. To prove the