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In 1938, Freud penned some notes that were published posthumously as “Findings, Ideas, Problems” (1953/1964). In the first, dated June 16, he writes: “It is interesting that in connection with early experiences, as contrasted with later experiences, all the various reactions to them survive, of course including contradictory ones.”
All the entries in these notes are exactly such conundrums, each making the argument for a rational, mature psyche more problematic, until the end, on August 22nd: “Space may be the projection of the extension of the psychical apparatus. No other derivation is probable. Instead of Kant's a priori determinants of our psychical apparatus. Psyche is extended; knows nothing about it.”
What is striking about these notes is not only their content, but their date of composition: the first was written ten days after Freud's arrival at Victoria Station in his flight from the Nazis (Gay, 1988, p. 629). The entire text was finished in a few months, and