left long ago, and to which it harks back again by all the
circuitous paths of development.... _The goal of all life is
death...._

"Through a long period of time the living substance may have ...
had death within easy reach ... until decisive external influences
altered in such a way as to compel [it] to ever greater deviations
from the original path of life, and to ever more complicated and
circuitous routes to the attainment of the goal of death. These
circuitous ways to death, faithfully retained by the conservative
instincts, would be neither more nor less than the phenomena of
life as we know it."

Freud puts forth these interesting suggestions with much modesty,
admitting that they are vague and uncertain and (what it is even more
important to notice) mythical in their terms; but it seems to me that,
for all that, they are an admirable counterblast to prevalent follies.
When we hear that there is, animating the whole universe, an _Élan vital_,
or general impulse toward some unknown but single ideal, the terms used
are no less uncertain, mythical, and vague, but the suggestion conveyed is
false--false, I mean, to the organic source of life and aspiration, to the
simple naturalness of nature: whereas the suggestion conveyed by Freud's
speculations is true. In what sense can myths and metaphors be true or
false? In the sense that, in terms drawn from moral predicaments or from
literary psychology, they may report the general movement and the
pertinent issue of material facts, and may inspire us with a wise
sentiment in their presence. In this sense I should say that Greek
mythology was true and Calvinist theology was false. The chief terms
employed in psycho-analysis have always been metaphorical: "unconscious
wishes", "the pleasure-principle", "the Oedipus complex", "Narcissism",