but half the result, at most, could ensue; the other half lies within the individual disposition of the living material, without which it is obvious the specific reaction-formation could never be achieved. This principle must be applied also in psychology. The psyche does not only react; it also gives its own individual reply to the influences at work upon it, and at least half the resulting configuration and its existing disposition is due to this. Civilisation is never, and again never, to be regarded as merely reaction to environment. That shallow explanation we may abandon peacefully to the past century. It is just these very dispositions which we must regard as imperative in the psychological sphere; it is easy to get convincing proof daily of their compulsive power. What I call "biological duty" is identical with these dispositions.
In conclusion, I must deal with a matter which seems to have caused you uneasiness, namely, the moral question. Among our patients we see many so-called immoral tendencies, therefore the thought involuntarily forces itself upon the psychotherapist as to how things would go if all these desires were to be gratified. You will have discerned already from my earlier letters that these desires must not be estimated too literally. As a rule it is rather a matter of unmeasured and exaggerated demands, arising out of the patient's stored-up libido, which have usurped a prominent position, usually quite against his own wish. In most cases the canalisation of the libido for the fulfilment of life's simple duties, suffices to reduce these exaggerated desires to zero. But in some cases it must be recognised that such "immoral" tendencies are in no way removed by analysis; on the contrary, they appear more often and more clearly, hence it becomes plain that they belong to the individual's biological duties. And this is particularly true of certain sexual claims, whose aim is an individual valuation of sexuality. This is not a question for pathology, it is a social question of to-day which peremptorily demands an ethical solution. For many it is a biological duty to work for the solution of this question, to discover some sort of
