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A scientist's life and personality generally do not arouse such passionate interest as those of statesmen or poets. Freud is an exception. It is fortunate that now, when Freud's centenary draws more public attention to him as a person, we have received several books which help us to understand Freud the man. His work, although produced in the daily treatment of patients, is so much born out of self-observation and self-exploration, is such a singular combination of indefatigable research and of creation out of the innermost self, that to study the man Freud becomes a fascinating part of studying his scientific achievement.
These books complement each other. They have already changed the picture that most people had of Freud. He is no longer the calm, cold, rigid scientist, but a man of violent passions in whom, as in all great men, the forces of the unconscious were constantly raging.
The Letters to Fliess offer an opportunity to explore the early stages of psychoanalysis. Ernst Kris has written a lucid and penetrating introduction, a guide of great assistance to the reader who tries to follow Freud's development from physiology and neurology to