Pleasure, Gratification, Stimulation

In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud infers the existence of a Death Drive from behavior that he calls "repetition compulsion".  The pivotal stage in his reasoning is that such behavior is not Pleasure-seeking, but is motivated by "an urge to restore an earlier stage of things".  In turn, he concludes that the ultimate such stage is inorganic existence, i. e. death.  However, his concept of Pleasure preempts the possibility of a different earlier stage.  For, that concept--Gratification--entails that Pleasure can occur at only the end of some behavioral episode, thereby abstracting from the possibility of Pleasure at the outset of an episode, i. e. excitation.  In other words, he fails to consider that Pleasure can also be Stimulation, which, as occurring at an "earlier stage of things", could explain Repetition Compulsion without need of recourse to a Death Drive.