The immediate occasion for the observations which follow is the new framing of the theory of anxiety which Freud has given in his book, Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety.1 Formerly it was assumed that anxiety originated in the id as a direct result of excessive, unrelieved tension and that during this process the ego was somehow overtaken as a defenseless victim. This Freud now modifies by stating that in a situation of danger, that is, in a threat of oncoming excessive, unrelieved tension, the ego may anticipate the latter in the form of anxiety, and that this anticipation then becomes the immediate signal which tends to induce the organism to adjust itself so as to avoid the danger—for example, flight, or any other appropriate protective measure—and thereby anxiety fulfils a biological function. This conception was naturally not intended to upset or displace the older theory, nor did Freud intend to say that anxiety could be caused first in this and then in that manner. The conception is, rather, that both manifestations—anxiety overpowering the