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Aurea prima sata est aetas, quae vindice nullo sponte sua, sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.
1Prehistory may not confirm the belief of mankind in the Golden Age, but psycho-analysts will understand it as representing the happy period of our life when we could enjoy ourselves without anxiety or compulsion. Still, we suspect that in addition to the ontogenetic truth embodied in this explanation there may be something in phylogenesis in the infancy of mankind that corresponds with this myth. Perhaps the anthropologist is also actuated by such hidden motives in searching for the Isles of the Blessed somewhere in the Pacific.
Well, we must ask, what is primitive man like? How can we characterize the living representatives of so-called primitive civilizations? If we reconsider this question we find that it really amounts to the same thing as if we were to ask, what is civilized man like? If psycho-analysis can characterize the normal, the neurotic, the psychotic or the anti-social it must also be able to explain psychologically what is meant by primitive man.
2It is nearly twenty years ago that I was discussing the question of the psychological unity of mankind with Ferenczi and Rank.1 I had begun analysis with Ferenczi a short time before, and my knowledge