In all these manifestations the dominant motive would seem to consist in a desire to escape from the troubles, labours, anxieties and excitements of the world, to a place where there is rest and peace with no necessity for effort. Now there can be no doubt that the intra-uterine life of the child represents by far the nearest approach to such a blissful state of repose that is ever enjoyed by us during any period of our earthly existence. In this pre-natal life the child lives effortlessly, free from danger and with all its needs provided; in striking contrast to post-natal (and more especially adult) life, where in general the stern rule holds that "if any will not work, neither shall he eat", and where the individual constantly finds his strength all too small to do battle with the formidable obstacles that so often stand in the way of the fulfilment of his desires.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of the process of adaptation to reality]
It is, as Ferenczi[49] has been at pains to show, only in so far as we free ourselves from the habits, associations and implications of this pre-natal life that we can learn to achieve the fulfilment of our wishes by taking the necessary steps to bring about their accomplishment in the outer world, instead of endeavouring to make the outer world conform to our desires by the shorter and easier method of imagination and delusion. In the earliest stages of our existence we are in a sense indeed omnipotent, inasmuch as provision is made for all our requirements and desires as it were automatically and without the necessity for effort on our own part. In early childhood this state persists in some degree, the child's wants being, to a large extent, fulfilled by others as soon as he indicates their nature. This power of automatically bringing about the satisfaction of our needs is destined to undergo a continually increasing degree of restriction, as childhood changes through adolescence to maturity; a greater individual adaptation to reality being achieved at the cost of greater individual effort and of the loss of the childish confidence in our ability to achieve our ends by the simple process of desiring their achievement. Under the stresses and difficulties of life on this developed plane, it is only too easy to sink back to the earlier and simpler state where less effort is demanded, and if we retrace our steps in this direction as far as they will lead us, we return eventually to the primitive condition of our pre-natal life. It is thus, apparently, that a return to this earliest stage of our existence has come to stand as the supreme goal and object of all desire to escape from the turmoil, labour and conflict which developed life inevitably brings in its train.