Sublimation of instinct is an especially conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities, scientific, artistic or ideological, to play such an important part in civilized life. If one were to yield to a first impression, one would say that sublimation is a vicissitude which has been forced upon the instincts entirely by civilization. But it would be wiser to reflect upon this a little longer. In the third place, finally, and this seems the most important of all, it is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct, how much it presupposes precisely the non-satisfaction (by suppression, repression or some other means?) of powerful instincts. This ââ?¬Ë?cultural frustrationââ?¬â?¢ dominates the large field of social relationships between human beings;we know already that it is the cause of the antagonism against which all civilization has to fight.
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Whatever the movements of the soul, the spirit, the sensibility that are manifested in one's work, and whether the state is one of anguish or even despair, one's art inevitably bears the sign of... this liberation, this sublimation which evokes in us a finished form.
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And the first till last alshemist wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap available, his own body, till by its corrosive sublimation...
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