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Freud found support for his arguments in Fechner's [[stability]] principle: "The dominating tendency of [[mental]] life . . . is the effort the reduce, to keep constant or to remove internal tension due to stimuli . . . a tendency which finds expression in the pleasure principle; and our [[recognition]] of this fact is one of our strongest reasons for believing in the [[existence]] of death instincts" (p. 55-56).

In 1924, Freud drew a clear distinction between [[three]] principles: "The Nirvana principle [Barbara Low's term], belonging as it does to the death instinct, has undergone a modification in living organisms through which it has become the pleasure principle ... the <i>pleasure</i> principle represents the [[demands]] of the libido; and the modification of the latter principle, the <i>[[reality]]</i> principle, represents the influence of the [[external]] world" (1924c, p. 160). Although Freud recognized the speculative [[nature]] of his final drive [[theory]], he continued to adhere to it throughout the rest of his [[work]].

The [[energy]] of this urge is fairly resistant to shaping, diversion, or [[displacement]] and it manifests in subtle but powerful ways. The operation of this almost invisible energy has been described as a "work of the negative" (André Green). Its [[object]] is the implementing organ—the musculature—that enables the aim to be fulfilled. Paradoxically, the libido, subject to restraint by the <i>[[destrudo]]</i> (Edoardo Weiss's term), and leading to primary masochism and sadism, is the object of the death drive here. According to Freud's descriptions, its [[goal]] is dissociation, [[regression]], or even dissolution. While leading [[organic]] life back to an inorganic state is the final [[stage]], "the [[purpose]] of the death drive is to fulfil as far as is possible a <i>disobjectalising function</i> by means of unbinding" (Green, p. 85). It is therefore an entropic [[process]] in the strict [[sense]].

After explaining the [[notion]] of the death instinct in <i>Beyond the [[Pleasure Principle]]</i>, Freud returned to it a [[number]] of [[times]] in his later works. He mentioned it in <i>Group [[Psychology]] and the [[Analysis]] of the Ego</i> (1921c) as the source of [[aggression]] and hostility between [[people]] and in "The Libido Theory" (1923a), and then developed the theory in <i>The Ego and [[the Id]]</i> (1923b), especially in the chapters on "the two classes of instincts" and "the dependent relationships of the ego." In this work, he connected his new drive theory with the [[structural]] theory that he had just expounded.

==References==

<references/>

# ——. (1921c). [[Group psychology]] and the analysis of the ego. SE, 18, 65-143.

# ——. (1923a). The libido theory. SE, 18, 255-259.

# ——. (1924c). The economic problem of masochism. SE, 19, 155-170.

# ——. (1925h). Negation. SE, 19, 233-239.

# ——. (1933a [1932]). New introductory lectures on [[psycho]]-analysis. SE, 22, 1-182.

# ——. (1933b [1932]). Why war? (Einstein and Freud). SE, 22, 195-215.

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