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Elsewhere1 I tried to show that an approach to history can be made by studies of the unconscious motivations of rulers, teachers, statesmen, founders of religions and religious orders who created institutions that survived them and influenced nations in succeeding centuries. The spirit of the founders lived in their institutions and molded the attitudes and thinking of the people who came under their influence. We study therefore collective psychology when we understand the psychology of leaders whose personalities had far-reaching impact upon the citizens of their nations.
Another psychoanalytic approach different from the study of individuals is suggested here. We can try to understand history and the nature of nations by turning to their mythology. Our new approach is opened by Freud's pronouncement that myths are the dreams of young nations. The force that creates myths grows increasingly weaker with the progress of civilization; it is a characteristic of the infancy of nations, comparable to the playing and daydreaming of children which are preserved in adult life only in exceptional instances. When Freud discovered the language of the dream, it soon occurred to him that myths, legends and fairy tales were constructed like dreams, and subject to similar laws. Like dreams they are wish fulfilments in which the wish and its fulfilment are disguised but may be discovered through psychoanalytic interpretation, by comparative studies of older variations of the same myth, and by collation with the myths of other nations.
The early psychoanalytic students of myths found in them