=Higher Levels.= Freud has called this spiritualization of natural forces by a term borrowed from chemistry.  As a solid is “sublimated” when transformed into a gas, so a primal impulse is said to be “sublimated” when it is diverted from its original object and made to serve other ends.  By this power of sublimation the little exhibitionist, who loved to show himself, may become an actor; the “cruel” boy who loved to dissect animals may become a surgeon; the sexually curious child may turn his curiosity to other things and become a scholar; the “born mother,” if denied children of her own or having finished with their upbringing, may take to herself the children of the city, working for better laws and better care for needy little ones; the man or woman whose sex-instinct is too strong to find expression in legitimate, direct ways, may find it a valuable resource, an increment of energy for creative work, along whatever line his talent may lie.

There is no more marvelous provision in all life than this power of sublimation of one form of energy into another, a provision shadowing forth almost limitless possibilities for higher adaptations and for growth in character.  As we think of the distance we have already traveled and the endless possibilities of ever higher excursions of the life-force, we feel like echoing Paul’s words:  “He who began a good work in you will perfect it unto the end.”  The history of the past holds great promise for the future.

=When Sublimation Fails.= But in the meantime we cannot congratulate ourselves too heartily.  Sublimation too often fails.  There are too many nervous wrecks by the way, too many weak indulgers of original desires, too many repressed, starved lives with no outlet for their misunderstood yearnings; and, as we shall see, too many people who, in spite of a big lifework, fail to find satisfaction because of unnecessary handicaps carried over from their childhood days.  “Society’s great task is, therefore, the understanding of the life-force, its manifold efforts at expression and the way of attaining this, and to provide as free and expansive ways as possible for the creative energy which is to work marvelous things for the future.”

If “the understanding of the life force” is to be available for use, it must be the property of the average man and woman, the fathers and mothers of our children, the teachers and physicians who act as their advisers and friends.[15] This chapter is intended to do its bit toward such a general understanding.

[Footnote 15:  “Appropriate educational processes might perhaps guide this enormous impulsive energy toward the maintenance instead of the destruction of marriage and the family.  But up to the present time, education with respect to this moral issue has commonly lacked any such constructive method.  The social standard and the individual impulse have simply collided, and the individual has been left to resolve the conflict, for the most part by his own resources.”—­G.A.  Coe:  Psychology of Religion, p. 150.]