While Freud held that an infinite number of such instincts exist, he reduced them to a basic few, which he divided into two broad groups. Eros, the life instinct, covers all self-preservation and erotic instincts; Thanatos, the death instinct, covers all aggressive, self-destructive, and cruel instincts. Thus it is incorrect to think of Freud as asserting that all human actions spring from sexual motivation. Those that spring from Thanatos are not sexually motivated; moreover, as we shall see, the life and death instincts can be fused.
