ID. The id is the great reservoir of the libido, from which the ego seeks to distinguish itself through various mechanisms of repression. Because of that repression, the id seeks alternative expression for those impulses that we consider evil or excessively sexual, impulses that we often felt as perfectly natural at an earlier or archaic stage and have since repressed. The id is governed by the pleasure-principle and is oriented towards one's internal instincts and passions. Freud also argues on occasion that the id represents the inheritance of the species, which is passed on to us at birth; and yet for Freud the id is, at the same time, "the dark, inaccessible part of our personality" ("New Introductory Lectures" 22.328). See also Freud Module I on psychosexual development.