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The desire to emphasize the parity of method in psychoanalysis and in other sciences had both a logical justification and a justification in terms of a contemporary challenge in the first decades of the century. The combination in Freud's genius of a unique insight into the unconscious with an ability to systematize his findings into general laws capable of a considerable degree of verification made his discoveries a potential turning point for mankind. Freud was not merely the Copernicus of the mind, who had the intuition of genius; he was also the Kepler who through forty years formulated the laws of its working.
As Natural Science had arisen from the breakup of the mediaeval order, so psychoanalysis arose in response to the social changes of the nineteenth century—the increased application of scientific method and the diminished tolerance of physical and moral suffering. The inherent conflict between scientific and religious premises encouraged both doctors and patients to seek naturalistic explanations for phenomena which had previously been within the domain of the priest. Acording to Zilboorg, Charcot reclassified as hysteria phenomena well known to the Inquisition, which had regarded many of its signs as dramatic evidence of demoniacal possession. Freud was educated in advanced traditions of naturalism; he described Bruecke's physicalistic teaching as the most important intellectual influence of his life. None the less, psychoanalysis met an immediate rejection from the medical profession, and it was imperative to emphasize the scientific basis for its conclusions and to repudiate the charge that it was "an old wives' psychology". Most of Freud's early adherents possessed little or no status as scientists and the prestige of the subject was impaired by the controversies which broke out. The high aspirations and sense of mission of the early psychoanalysts, combined with the frustration of having their vital knowledge ignored, sometimes led them to clai