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The writings of psycho-analysts are often stigmatised as being farfetched and over-imaginative. More indubitable, however, is the extraordinarily stimulating effect that psycho-analysis produces on the imagination of those who possess but a bowing acquaintance with it. This article is really a supreme example of the process.
The author begins with a conventional account of the views expressed by various writers on the subject of bisexuality, a concept he appears fully to accept. Then follows an extremely sketchy and inaccurate account of Freud's and Adler's theory of the neuroses. His acquaintance with the subject may be indicated by his reference to 'Adler and Freud, the two great founders of psycho-analysis', and by the following misstatements. According to him, Freud regards the libido as equivalent to psychic energy in general and identifies it with Bergson's élan vital, Freud being here obviously confounded with Jung. He describes Freud's psychology as being the effort of the libido to express itself in despite of external obstacles, there being no hint of the inner conflict between the sexual and non-sexual aspects of the personality, on which Freud lays so much stress. Freud is supposed to hold that the libido 'comprehends hunger and sex as primarily identical'. Component instincts (Partialtriebe) are defined as impulses dissociated from the original sexual one, the author perhaps thinking of the process of sublimation; he is under the illusion that the following are examples of component instincts: love of the beautiful, fondness for music and dancing, religious love, morality, and timidity.
Armed with this profound knowledge of Freud's views, the author embarks light-heartedly on what he calls a psycho-analysis of Freud and Adler, mainly the former, and attempts to shew that both their theories are of purely subjective origin, being projections of their individual 'neurotic fiction'.
His essential thesis is that Freud's theory is nothing but the proje