No More Learning

Several incidents in his later years showed clearly that
this vulnerability and defensiveness persisted. Toward the end
of 1900 or early in 1901 he accused a man of playing a fool
trick on him and challenged him to a duel. That he himself
did not know how to use a sword and that his opponent was
his physical superior seemed matters of minor importance
to Otto Weininger. Despite these handicaps he wounded his
adversary in the duel while he himself did not suffer a scratch
(Taschenbuch, p. 13). Another event that showed Otto's met-
tle took place in 1902, probably in the spring. He was asked
to be a collaborator in a new literary enterprise. Since he was
a financially poor student, this job meant economic independ-
ence to him. But when a conflict arose between the editor and
a friend of Weininger's, he was forced either to break with the
friend or to sacrifice his job. He had the moral courage to de-
clare his agreement with the friend, and he freely told the
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? ADELHEID WEININGER
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? Towards the Future 19
t
publisher so. He unhesitatingly sacrificed his job and its fixed
income.
His pronounced critical attitude toward every type of author-
ity, expressed in his strong opposition to the school, probably
had its roots in his revolt against the environment of his child-
hood. His father's attitude here was of major importance. Re-
sistance to authority grew from the mingled affection and fear
Otto felt for the father who, as Otto's sister said, "knew no
moderation in his severity and criticism. He was loved and
feared by us all. . . . If we ever told a lie, he would punish us
at once. His demands upon us were enormous; if we did not
live up to them, he was mortally wounded" (Letter XIV).
Sensitiveness, self-assertion, and isolation from his environ-
ment were bound together in the arrogant and rebellious boy.
He was ever being driven further into his isolation. When he
was twenty he was to be talking to a conference of psychologists
on introspection as the most important method of exploring
the mind! Throughout his later life he showed a fear of re-
vealing himself. The persistent tendency to conceal his inner
life must have been firmly rooted in his boyhood and must
have come from his wish to cover up his sexual urges.
In a letter written some years later, he wrote to a friend:
"Apart from the life you know, I lead two or three other
lives of which you know nothing. I tell you this, and I must
beg of you never to try to find them out. " The statement re-
veals what must have been a characteristic tendency in Otto
Weininger when he was still a schoolboy. He felt division be-
tween his external activity, which brought him in contact with
the outer world, and his inner activity. His "two or three other
lives"--that is, the other way of life for Otto--were, and can
be regarded as, nothing but his secret existence deep in his
mind. There seems to have been developed in the boy a pro-
nounced contradiction in his mental life. On the surface he
was apparently in good rapport with the external world. In
the deeper layer of his mind he led his hidden life. There
was the world of his surging desires and sexual cravings, his
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? 20
Towards the Future
dreams, his hopes, and his fantasies. That world was, as we
shall see later, both sacred and profane, good and evil, the
home of God and Devil. Between this secret realm and the
external world there was opposition that led to great conflict.
Within him romantic feelings must have waned with a
more or less realistic attitude even when he was quite young.
He enjoyed nature in the most romantic fashion. Once in the
middle of a winter some years later he rented a garden room
in Gersthof, a suburb of Vienna, so that he might be near
the woods. 8 Indeed his love of nature seems to have been
strong, discriminating, and very comprehensive; the most
superb thing for him was a sunset; water in all its shapes had
strong meaning--the spring was birth, the river the Apol-
lonian principle, the ocean the Dionysian principle (U. L. D. ,
p. 9). His view not only was romantic but also was a fusion
of rational analysis with emotion.
A contradiction seems to have appeared in him as early as
his days in secondary school: a desire for life, a longing for
reality, which contrasted with his isolation from that same
reality--a separation which was later to develop so far that
he became afraid of life. In "Verdamnis" (translated in full at
the end of the Appendix), he said: "The artist always loves
himself; the philosopher hates himself. A glorious love is cre-
ated in the artist by the least sign of love and respect, while
the philosopher as such is never loved. But when one is mis-
judged and still loved, then one becomes hard, hard until one
is compassionate with oneself! . . .
"That is the worst: not being able to love when one is loved
and knows one is loved, with hatred toward that bitter feeling
of a desire to love deep down in the heart. This petrifaction,
this barrenness! An olive tree on the hardest granite! My soul
cannot free itself and enter into that of another who loves
me! "
He seems to have sought to establish relations with others,
1 Emfl Lucka, Otto Wefninger: Der Mensch und sein Werk (Vienna, 1905),
p. 6. Cited later in the text as Lucka.
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? Towards the Future
21
to join with the crowd. Yet to think that he enjoyed being in
the crowd would be a mistake. When he was part of a group,
he was with the others only superficially. He wanted to belong
to them, to share with them in youthful activity, so strong
was his longing for life. And yet he was freezing within, alone.
His contradictory feelings come through to expression in a
poem he wrote a little later, probably after one of his night
wanderings. His sister was kind enough to give me the poem,
which has never before been published.
SCHAUDER
Allmahlich kehr ich heim an diese Statte
Mit miiden Sinnen, schlaff und ohne Kraft;
Wie jeder andere ist der Tag verronnen.
Der Mond ist da, soil trosten fiir die Sonnen.
Des Winters schweigend' mitleidslose Kalte,
Der Himmel starr in seinem Leichentuch:
Es schneit in meinem Herzen, seine Sehnsucht
Erfrieret langsam vor des Lebens Zucht.
SHIVERING
Slowly my steps turn homeward to this place,
With weary soul, abject and powerless.
Like any other this day's course has run;
The moon is there, as solace for the sun.
Wrapped in the winter's mute, unpitying cold,
The sky is stiff and stark within its shroud.
With deeper winter, snow falls in my heart,
Where longing freezes ere life's growth can start.
His earnest desire for life evolves into a hatred and fear of it.
The stronger the longing, the stronger the fear.
The division within him appeared in many contradictory
and irreconcilable attitudes in the form of ambivalency (the
coexistence of antithetic and contrary tendencies) and split-
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? 22
Towards the Future
ting. This affective ambivalency became gradually apparent in
his attitudes toward women and toward Jews.
Ambivalency he had deeply ingrained in him. He came to
recognize his own worth consciously, but at the same time
he was struggling to conquer his sexual desires, his "lower
ego. " When in the world of his imagination, he was secure
in self-satisfaction. When faced with the world of reality, he
lost his sense of security and his confidence in himself. Because
reality thus threatened at any moment to destroy his. morbid
self-esteem, he was under a tightening strain. Hence, he clung
more firmly than ever to self-exaltation and transformed it into
a self-idolatry which was, of course, rooted in his narcissism.
Otto exaggerated his own imaginary strength and virility, and,
therefore, he felt compelled to exhibit his talents passionately.
His desire for attention was imperative, and in various activities
he gave symbolic expression to his urge.
Thus his self-assertion changed as external circumstances
varied, but it was always present and it grew stronger as his
life progressed. His letters from the summer of 1902 were
typical expressions of the strengthened feeling. "Today," he
wrote, "I have discovered in myself a special musical imag-
ination . . . which has filled me with great self-respect. "
Every detail of his actions took on great significance for him.
"I have now personally seen the Sistine Madonna," he wrote.
And: "On a two-day sea journey I am now being tested as to
whether I am a good sailor . . . I am a good sailor. "
The first page of Sex and Character contains bold, confident
language that expresses Weininger's self-exaltation. "This book
is an attempt to place sex relations in a new and decisive light.
It is an attempt not to collect the greatest number of distin-
guished authorities or to arrange into a system all the results
of scientific measurement and experiment, but to refer to a
single principle the whole contrast between man and woman.
In this respect the book differs from all other works on the
same subject. The investigation is here not of details, but of a
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? fey /tUu* *oT
FACSIMILE OF THE POEM "SCHAUDER"
IN WEININGER'S HANDWRITING
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? 24 Towards the Future
principle. " He certainly regarded his own investigations with
admiration and respect.
When contact with reality made him feel weak and power-
less, he found his defense in a corresponding increase of his self-
esteem. Thus he was always mild in manner when treating with
subordinates, such as maids, other servants, and people of
lower social standing, but he was in angry revolt against all
authority (see Der Fall, pp. 6-7). But when he felt superior
to the world, he wanted to pretend that he was unimportant.
When he gave a few coins to a beggar, he would, according
to Rappaport, always take off his hat--"so that he would not
make the beggar ashamed. " Such behavior is merely an ex-
pression of self-praise.
On December 27, 1901, we find him writing modestly to
Professor Jodl: "The poor style and lack of proportion in my
manuscript are only too clear to me; and it makes me even
sadder because my subject would tolerate and deserves a good
and formally beautiful treatment. " Here it is interesting to
note the mixture of self-abasement and self-exaltation and to
see how his feeling of inferiority about his work was quickly
converted to superiority.
These feelings, which appeared in exaggerated form in his
later life, were undoubtedly present in the schoolboy. From
early years his mind had difficulty in adapting itself to a situa-
tion; his mood and the accompanying actions were always
above or below the circumstances.
It would seem, then, that his attitude was wrong--or at
least odd--because of the contradictions within him. And we
may certainly guess not only that even in his schooldays he
was different from others but also that he enjoyed the feeling
of being different. His maladjustment was basically due to his
strong inner conflict, accompanied as it was by symptoms of
anxiety and fear--in short, of manifestations which appeared
on the surface as neurotic.
One may properly believe that these conflicts in his per-
sonality structure gave rise to his ever-flowing spring of self-
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? Towards the Future 25
reflection and self-contemplation. Early in Sex and Character
he wrote: "It is easier for the complex man to understand an-
other person when he has within himself simultaneously the
nature of that other person and its opposite. Duality is the
condition for noticing and understanding. " This statement is
made with so much passion that one may suspect that Wein-
inger actually enjoyed having those contradictions within him-
self.
The contrasts in Otto Weininger did not necessarily imply
a split personality or the existence of a psychosis--at least not
in his schooldays. They merely showed that his personality
make-up was peculiar, and we may find hints of this peculiar-
ity in several other members of his family. His father, his
brother Richard, and his sisters Mathilde and Karoline all
have the same aberrant mentality, though there is no evidence
of insanity in the family (Letter X). Looking deeper into the
family background, we find that several members of the fam-
ily, particularly his father, Richard, and Karoline, reveal intel-
lectual and artistic gifts. Another peculiar fact is that we find
lightheartedness in some members of the family. Finally we
also see in some of Otto's relatives the same ambiguity shown
in himself. That discovery would seem to support the belief
that there were in the family some odd traits which most prob-
ably had a schizoid coloring.
4
In Otto this ambiguity and these contradictions were to com-
bine with a flow of neurotic manifestations. Here was the be-
ginning of the course that ended in mental crisis. The duality
which was first present in his own mind he later found in ex-
treme form in the external world.
* A schizoid person is to a greater or a lesser degree unable to adjust to a
situation. His most outstanding trait is his autism, the tendency to be en-
grossed in himself. This agocentriciry seems to be closely related to the per-
son's sexual life, his autoeroticism, which is the root of narcissism.
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? The City by
the River
If ever duality existed, it was in the city of Vienna. On the
surface gaiety, in the depths despair. On the surface a strug-
gle for life, in the depths a struggle against death. Before the
glittering background of "wine, women, and song" revelry
for which Vienna was famous, a nagging, ceaseless warfare
for existence went on. Every situation, whether in daily life
or in art, science, or philosophy, came to be a testing of reality.
Such testing was taking place throughout Europe in the late
nineteenth century: in Paris, in London, in Berlin, and, last
but not least, in Vienna.
This dualism showed, too, in the physical aspects of Vienna.
Vienna late in the nineteenth century was a changing city, not
only in its spiritual life, but in its very physical appearance.
Its medieval look was vanishing. The Ringstrasse was modern,
luxurious, and aristocratic. On it stood the opera house in its
French Renaissance elegance, while the new museums and the
other new buildings near by--the Burg theater, the Parlia-
ment buildings, the Rathaus--clustered about on the Rathaus-
park. All were splendid, and in going through the parks, the
Rathauspark, the Heldenplatz, the Volksgarten, the Marie-
Theresien-Platz, one could look about and wonder if Vienna
were not indeed a worthy rival of Paris.
As Paris had the Seine, so Vienna had the Danube. The
city was mostly on the right bank, but only one arm of the
river passed through Vienna. Across the Danube Canal and
between the canal and the mainstream lay the commercial
quarter, inhabited by many Jews. The Danube was one of the
links between Vienna and the surrounding world. The Danube,
blue as at times it might be, gave the city force as well as
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? City by the River 27
beauty. The Viennese loved it. The blue Danube belonged to
Vienna just as much as the buildings rooted in the earth of
the city.
In that city stood the buildings of the University, in pleasant
Renaissance style. The University itself was founded in 1365,
the oldest German foundation. For its scientific standing it
was Vienna's pride.
Not far from the University was the Votivkirche, which was
built in memory of Francis Joseph's escape from an attempted
assassination. This was the church about which Weininger
and a friend were walking on the night when Weininger for
the first time revealed his belief in his double, his inner thoughts
about himself. The Votivkirche thus became symbolically for
Weininger what it earlier had been for Francis Joseph.
The changes in the physical aspects of Vienna were to no
small extent due to the influence and commands of the em-
peror. The Stadtpark was an attractive place with many statues
of those who through their lives had given glory to Vienna. Here
were likenesses of the painter Rudolf von Alt; of Field Marshal
Radetzky, who quelled the Italian revolution in 1848; of Franz
Schubert and Johann Strauss; of Bruckner, the Empress Eliza-
beth, and Haydn.
And as Vienna changed physically, so also changed the
people. The ironical, frivolous and easygoing old Viennese was
yielding to a new type of man who was interested in politics
as far as that was possible. The different people within the
Austrian empire, Germans, Poles, Magyars, and Czechs, were
antagonistic to each other, fighting for their national rights
and all demanding a part in the government and the right to
vote. The political problem was European in nature, unlike
conditions in the United States. Vienna, like other capitals in
Europe, was a center of population as well as a center of gov-
ernment, though it did not have the marked local independ-
ence enjoyed by some other large cities.
Two factors complicated political conditions in the Austrian
capital. One was the fact that there was no universal right of
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? 28 City by the Rivet
suffrage. The other was the predominance of German in-
fluence.
The electors were divided into three classes: first, those who
paid a municipal tax of at least 200 florins a year; next those
who paid between 30 and 200 florins; and finally those who
paid more than 5 and less than 30 florins. The professional
classes fell into the last group, and thus because they were
unable to pay the high municipal tax, many who supposedly
had some insight into political affairs were eliminated from
the vote. By this system about 70 percent of the adults more
than 25 years of age (which was the voting age) were ex-
cluded from the vote. This meant that out of a population of
about a million and a half there were only about sixty thou-
sand electors. Each class had the right to elect one third of
the members of the council of Vienna. Of the total number
of electors 7^ percent made up the first class, while 24 percent
belonged to the second and 68? percent to the third. Under
these circumstances, the wealthy, conservative, anti-Semitic
groups held power. The result was that the anti-Semites had a
two-thirds majority in the city council about 1895. For some
time the anti-Semitic group had been gaining influence, partly
because of the municipal tax, partly because of the lack of
interest shown by the liberal party in progressive labor legis-
lation. The liberals had made themselves vulnerable to attack
by the extremists among the German population because
they had taken a conciliatory attitude toward the non-German
population of the Austrian empire. Thus, the anti-Semites in
Austria and in Germany were already trying to preserve what
they believed were national feelings and German institutions.
This, however, was only part of their true intention. In
reality, the Germans kept nationalism alive in Austria, prepar-
ing the way for chauvinism and all the thousands of misfor-
tunes which later were to befall Austria. As Nietzsche once
said: "The Germans are responsible for everything that exists
today, the sickliness and stupidity that oppose culture, the
neurosis, called nationalism, from which Europe suffers; they
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? City by the River 29
have robbed Europe itself of its meaning and its intelligence.
They have led it into a blind alley. "
A blind alley. There the Austrians of Vienna had arrived,
with their social and political hardships around 1895.
These hardships were promoted by the economic condi-
tions which prevailed in Vienna. The dreadful economic panic
about 1870 was felt by all classes, but particularly by those who
were most important in the industrial development of Vienna.
It should be kept in mind that a large part of the population
was occupied with the production of artistic fancy goods, such
as jewelry, leather, objets d'art, millinery. This industry was
jeopardized not only by the economic situation in Vienna, but
also by the tremendous competitive industry which was being
developed in Germany. The position of Vienna as a business
center was diminishing. The pressure of competition resulted
in dissatisfaction among the various classes, particularly in
members of the artisan class, who demanded legislation that
would improve their own condition by excluding the Jews
as a commercial group. A hatred was bred that was later to
be epitomized in the life of one chaotic man, Hitler, who be-
cause of his frustrations (developed partially in Vienna) turned
his hostility against Jews, excluding them from mankind.
This antagonism prevailing in Vienna made itself felt
among all sorts of people in all walks of life; it burdened
their discussions about politics, art, culture, and science. It
was reflected also in the various newspapers of Vienna. Among
the dailies was the New Freie Presse (New Free Press), which
was one of the best-edited newspapers on the Continent and,
like the Times of London and the Frankfurter Zeitung, an
authority on world affairs. About 1870 men such as Benedict,
Etienne, and Friedlander, started to bring contributions to the
newspaper, which thereby gained the highly literary tone and
broad views that later distinguished the Neue Freie Presse.
In addition to the large number of weeklies and monthlies
published in Vienna, there were a number of witty and clever
cartoon-papers, such as Kikiriki (Cock-a-doodle-do), Figaro,
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? jo City by the River
the Pikante Blatter (Piquant Journal), and the Humoristische
Blatter (Humorous Journal). And besides these there were
many artistic, technical, and scientific journals, all expressing
more or less their own desires and feelings.
The Viennese stuck to his newspaper, and kept a copy near
him in the shop. Since the greater part of the people did not
live in residential sections but in apartments located over
their shops, they were able to continue in the shop all the
everyday concerns that they could not finish upstairs. Their
homes were in the midst of their business. Here they lived and
created, busy with their own undertakings privately and in-
dividually. It is not surprising that department stores were
unknown in Vienna.
This individuality of the Viennese was also reflected in his
spirit of gaiety. Driving in the Prater in his open carriage, go-
ing to concerts in the Volksgarten, and attending the opera or
the theater, all were done in a matter-of-fact way. Such things
belonged to him, and he took them. It was in this atmosphere
that one might meet the typical Viennese, Johann Strauss, and
it was also in this atmosphere that one could see the old medi-
cal doctors who had had the great luck to study medicine in
Vienna. That was a time when Vienna had great men in the
medical world. There was Hebra, the dermatologist; there was
Theodore Billroth, the surgeon; there was Rokitansky, the
anatomist and pathologist; there was the diagnostician Joseph
Skoda.
In that life one saw the foreign students, Americans not
least among them, grouped around the Viennese doctors. It
was amusing to see how, after listening to the lectures, they
would celebrate with a supper in a little restaurant and then
go to the Wiener-Burger or to the Burg theater to enjoy
themselves, or would gather in the Weinkeller to drink toasts
and sing. After long hours walking about the streets of Vienna
at night and in the early morning, they would go to their at-
tic rooms and fall asleep with a last thought that this was
youth, this was life, this was Vienna.
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? City by the River 31
Yet there was more than the gay and carefree side of Vienna.
There were students of means, but there were also poor stu-
dents who sometimes went hungry and sometimes had no fuel
in their poorly furnished rooms. There were also the middle
and lower classes who found it hard to feed and clothe them-
selves. These contrasted with many others who had all the
privileges and who were more concerned about their clothing
than about their fellow citizens.
To be sure the upper-class Viennese man was urbane. Per-
haps he did not mean to do harm, but, he may have thought,
what was the use of being a hero when days were short and
pleasure their only good? This man with his courteous man-
ners, with his kindness, with his ability to listen to people and
to talk nicely, felt a sting of despair in his heart when he
thought of the days to come.
This was the world of Arthur Schnitzler. His characters
were kind but sophisticated. His was the world of despair and
weariness and an unceasing search for pleasure. Schnitzler him-
self belonged to the bourgeoisie. His father, a professor of
medicine at the University, fostered his son's talents. Schnitzler
was undecided in his youth whether to be a physician, a mu-
sician, or a writer. Finally, after a medical career, he decided
to devote his life to literature. He took a somewhat material-
istic stand about life, in contrast to his contemporary, the poet
Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. While the poet described and inter^
preted the environment, the Wiener Wald, the Stephans-
kirche, the Schonbrunn Palace, and the Burggarten, Schnitzler
interpreted the people themselves. Hoffmannsthal's world was
that of the creations of Vienna, which led him to be infatuated
with the souls of the people, to speak of their mutual destiny,
their past, and their future. He was the creator of beauty,
of spirit, and of form. He therefore spoke in his poetry and
in his dramas about men's dreams and their imaginings, crystal-
lizing them into a kind of symbolism, a symbolism which Rich-
ard Strauss tried to express in the music for the operas on which
he and Hoffmannsthal collaborated, Der Rosenkavalier and
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? 32 City by the River
Elektra. Most interesting were Hoffmannsthal's friendly rela-
tions with Jakob Wassermann, a poor Jewish fellow in con-
trast to the prosperous poet. But the contrasts do not end with
their relative wealth. Wassermann's world was the world of
Dostoyevsky, while Hoffmannsthal, with his eloquent spirit and
womanlike manners, was immersed in the world of French sym-
bolism. Wassermann and his fellow Viennese authors spoke
well, but Hoffmannsthal had such a variety of expression, such
a choice of words, such a charming intuition, that, compared
with his eloquence, the others seemed to stammer.
Hoffmannsthal proclaimed the soul of Vienna, the very same
soul which Schnitzler tried to find in the people. But Schnitzler
was frustrated in his hopes. He felt that people were too hedo-
nistic, too lazy, too rational to strive for things of the spirit.
It was in this search for the soul of Vienna that he created his
heroes, his aristocrats, and the women around them. Such a
hero was the man who could recite, play the piano, be ap-
plauded by his friends, and then think about what to do next
to please the world. This man, a gentleman of taste, played
at making love to a girl in a conquering way, neither promis-
ing marriage nor excluding hope of it. He might break the
heart of the girl, he might ruin her life. In spite of this, he
always felt free to walk to new pastures and start over again.
The world of Schnitzler was therefore a sad world, filled
with people shaken and ruined, not because they were bas-
ically malicious, but because they were too much filled with
themselves. Schnitzler's heroes did not know how to make
sacrifices, how to be useful in the struggle of life, where give-
and-take is the principle. This was not only because such be-
havior was fashionable and smart, but because it was in the
air, it was something which had to be done. No wonder that
this atmosphere gave the people a feeling of despair! This was
not the wine-sweet, nostalgic city; this was the city of weariness
and Weltschmerz.
In this same city with its mood of Weltschmerz, Sigmund
Freud started his work, first as an apprentice in medicine, later
as an investigator into the human mind; the cradle of psycho-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 08:38 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89038364857 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? City by the River 33
analysis was there. The city, the people, their blasted hopes,
the depressing influence of Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's
philosophy, all gave impetus to a reorientation of thinking in
general and of medical thinking in particular. At a time when
Fechner's, Weber's, and William Wundt's experimental psy-
chology gripped the minds of scholars within the medical and
psychological world, Freud made a complete turn about and
took their eyes from an academic experimental psychology to
the human psyche itself. His was the study of the mind: its
action and reaction, its drives, wishes, and hopes. This was in
strong contrast to the experimental psychologists, who were
interested in investigating common sensations and discover-
ing how an individual responded physiologically to ten or
fifteen drops of caffein, or how he reacted to a galvanic current.
Freud's searching eye without doubt had looked beneath
the surface gaiety of Viennese life and had seen the despair of
men and women searching for happiness; he had seen their
search for satisfaction of their emotional needs. He felt that
they had found nothing. He himself had been bewildered. As
a medical student, he had busied himself with studies in
neuroanatomy and then, dissatisfied with what Vienna had to
offer him in medicine, he had gone to Paris to study under the
great master of contemporary medicine, Charcot. It was in
Paris in the school of Charcot that Freud was inspired to
penetrate into the minds of humans. His earlier interest in
the anatomy of the nervous system was superseded when he
became acquainted with the studies of this French master
concerning the disturbances of hysteria. He learned hypnosis,
and upon his return to Vienna he established himself as a
physician and employed his knowledge of hypnosis as one
means to penetrate into the unconscious mind of the sick
person. His experience with hypnosis and his Studies of Hys-
teria (written with Breuer), which appeared in 1893 and was
the basis for his later viewpoint, prepared the way for a revo-
lutionary new approach to the study and treatment of the
diseased mind.
First, there were the problems of repression, of which he
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