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The inclusion in biographies of traditional and mythical stories may for one versed in their unconscious significance throw considerable light on the family setting in question. Dr. Hermann quotes two such tales of Blaise Pascal's childhood included by Reuchlin in his life of Pascal, and deduces from them the state of the Oedipus situation in both father and son in the latter's early years, and connects with it various facts of his later life (Pascal's Jansenism—struggle against certain authorities, scruples with regard to infant baptism and the family, change of attitude after death of father).
According to the first tale, Pascal's father attributed to the revenge of a witch the year-old child's water phobia and anxiety attacks when the parents approached one another, imminent death being averted by the sacrifice of a cat in place of the child and of the horse first proffered by the father. This, says Dr. Hermann, is an Oedipus phantasy on the part of both father and son; the son wishes to interfere with the parents' marital relations (water = urine = semen), the father desires the son's death.
The second tale describes the father's refusal to allow the gifted son to share his own beloved study of mathematics, and the twelve-year-old boy's independent discovery of the forbidden knowledge. Dr. Hermann suggests that we have here a wish-fulfilment and a displacement: the independent discovery of forbidden knowledge in the realm of sex.