All concepts in "The Ego and the Id" are built upon the presupposed existence of conscious and unconscious thoughts. On the first line, Freud states, "consciousness and the unconscious there is nothing new to be said... the division of mental life into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise on which psycho-analysis is based" (9). He further distinguishes between two types of unconscious thoughts: "preconscious" ideas, which are latent yet fully capable of becoming conscious; and "unconscious" ideas, which are repressed and cannot become conscious without the help of psychoanalysis.