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Man is a Space-Time bound organism. This conception—an old one—but put into a new and better perspective by the recent semantic school, is suggested in the author's preface and the book itself would trace the relationships of the freudian conceptions to those of Bachofen from which some stem.
Bachofen was born in Basel in 1815 and died in 1887. His chief publications were issued in the years between 1850 and 1886. The author lists his chief theses such as the development of the patriarchate from the earlier matriarchate, and then the germs of the theories and methods of his various contributions. His family was unusually well to do. Thirty million gold francs is the figure given which, translated into present day values, meant ten million pounds—a tidy inheritance—which permitted much freedom for travel, study and contact with all strata of society. Bachofen chose “juristics” and came under the influence of F. C. v. Savigny. He studied at Cambridge, among other of the “higher” centers of learning. Greece and Italy (specially) were also among his favorite culture contacts and the recently deceased Goethe was for him a burning torch. As an archeologist or ‘historical jurist’ (1851) he at thirty-six wrote a ‘History of the Romans.’ His “Mutterrecht and Urreligion” was published in 1861, in which the ‘embryology’ of religion and history claimed a major rôle. History in the academic columnist sense had no attraction for him. He dug deeper and in his ‘Weiberecht’ the Orestes saga of Aeschylus underwent a thorough revision. But his chief interest always centered in his conception of the development of the family and the author has given a revealing account well worth reading of this original thinker and prolific writer.
Dr. P. Federn of New York and Heinrich Meng of Basel are the editors of this ‘Bücher des Werdenden’ series.