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Berggasse 19,
Vienna IX,
26.11.1927
Dear Dr Pfister,
You were quite right, there was no room for any surprises; you were prepared for what I had to say, and I for your disagreement. I might have been tempted to point out that the argument you are using is: This must be wrong because accepting it as the truth it would be too unpleasant, and that the difficulties of my position do nothing to strengthen yours. But that would not forward the argument, and would be only a repetition, because it is already in the little book, so I prefer to go on to your two questions, both of which are of practical importance.
To the best of my belief, we have already made up our minds on one of them. I attach importance to your publishing your criticism—in Imago, if you like—and I hope that in it you will specifically draw attention to our undisturbed friendship and your unshaken loyalty to analysis. Your second question involves issues which perhaps had better be separated out. Let us be quite clear on the point that the views expressed in my book form no part of analytic theory. They are my personal views, which coincide with those of many non-analysts and pre-analysts, but there are certainly many excellent analysts who do not share them. If I drew on analysis for certain arguments—in reality only one argument—that need deter no-one from using the non-partisan method of analysis for arguing the opposite view. That too is mentioned in the little book. If it were argued that that was not so easy, for the practice of analysis necessarily led to the abandonment of religion,