200 AUGUST STARCKE
the nervous system have to be considered objectively just like the factors themselves. These effects are sifted and regulated by the structural plan; and together form the inner world of the animal" {op. cit, p. 6.). ^
Von Uexktill considers the distinction between inner and ex- ■ ternal world as self-evident, but this is only permissible if the ego of the animal is represented as sharply limited from the beginning. The distinction between external and inner world is not at all self-evident if, as the author demands, one takes the standpoint of the animal; this distinction has rather an anthropocentric cha- racter. It is probable that in living beings this distinction is only gradually acquired, ^ and that in the beginning a period exists in which no distinction is made between ego and external world.
I have already indicated that it is the processes of sucking, defaecation and micturition (perhaps also undressing in human beings) which are the chief factors in bringing about this separation. On account of this the stage of primitive narcissism gives way to a life of pleasure divided into two parts — namely, narcissism and object-erotism; these two then carry out their evolution separately, although with reciprocal efifects. The separation occurs gradually, and does not take place in the different erotogenic zones simul- taneously.
Since the separation does not exist during the phase of pri- mitive narcissism, 2 one cannot speak of an external and inner world; all that can be said is that engram complexes are im- printed, and that their ecphoria at the same time represents that which latter will be distinguished as ego and external world.
The infant at the breast at first does nothing else than suck, urinate and defaecate, — suck, urinate and defaecate. But it un- doubtedly has — that is to say, according to its structural plan — sensations other than we should have in the same situation. When we drink out of a glass, the glass remains a glass, that is, a part of the exemal world, and our ego remains the same ego. But when the infant suclvS, the nipple or dummy belongs to it and remains belonging to it, although it is clear to us that this is not so.
• See S. Ferenczi: "Introjektion und trbertragung", Jahrb, d. Psa., 1909, Bd. 1, S. 422—457-, S. Ferenczi, "Zur Begriffsbestimmung der Introjektion", ZtHtralhlatt fur Psa., 1912, Bd. U, S. 198—200.
- That is to say, if one puts oneself on the standpoint of the individual
under consideration.
JJi
