Evening star., 1935-05-25

The single-celled protozoan. wrig-
Cling under the microscope, may hold
the keys to the mysteries Of mother
love and war.
This smallest Of living things ex-
presses in their simplest terms two
primary instincts out of which has
| been spun the whole rich fabric OF
| history, according to a new theory
of the instincts presented before the
| American PSychoanalytical Society
meeting here by Dr. William V. Silver
/ berg of New York
In fact, says DR.. Silverberg, any,
thing not found among them cannot
/ be considered as a real instinct,
which he defines as "a tendency innate
| in living tissues to reach a certain
goal" 1t would necessarily be the
same throughout the whole structure
/ of life. The expression of such q
| primary instinct, however. is by i'm
pulses and tendencies that differ ac-
cording to the biological nature OF
the organism and the opportunities
of the environment.
Dominant in all the higher animals
and reaching its climax in man is
mother love" Upon this devotion Of
parent to offspring depends the con-
tinued existence of the species. and
it has usually been postulated as one
of the most fundamental of all the
instructive drives.
But there Is no mother love among
the protozoans. The individual ami
NAL grows to critical size and
then splits in two, forming two COM
| plete individuals. The process goes
on indefinitely. Each individual is
equal from the start. What DR.. Sill
verberg finds in the protozoa he
characterizes as primary narciSsism. N
| There is a supply of ''libido," or
energy arising from an instinct, which
is entirely consumed upon the self
The protozoan behaves toward itself
| lust about as the mammalian mother
behaves toward her offspring. 1t is
nothing more than the self preserva-
tive tendency which is common to all
life. This is the first of DR.. Silver
berg's primary instincts.
But an organism cannot grow, or
survive very long, by concentrating all
it's energy on itself. 1t must take in
food and it must make the materials
in it's environment suitable to be taken
into its system. The drive to do this
is the second of the primary instincts
outlined in the theory. Whereas the
first expends all its energy on the self
the second expendS all its energy
upon objects outside itself.
Now there is some law of nature,
| as vet quite obscure, which sets limits
to cell growth. Each cell consists of
a nucleus set in a mass of cytoplasm.
When the ratio between the cytoplasm
and the nucleus reaches a certain
point. there is apparently some dam
ger to the continued existence of the
cell which can only be avoided by
restoring q better ratio-that is, by
dividing and becoming two !ndivid-
uals.
The cell, in sense. must destroy
itself in order to survive. The pri-
mary maternal instinct. devoted en-
tirely to self-love, is threatened If the
hunger instinct goes on ingesting food
and seeking new food to increase the
size of the cytoplasm. So this same
hunger instinct is turned from the
outside upon the cell body itself to
split it in two. Then this hunger"
instinct once more is turned upon the
outside world.
Here, Dr. Suverberg finds. v the
origin of I,otherhood and the i'm
pulses and tendencies associated with