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As one enters the study of psychiatry, or for that matter, any other branch of medicine, he is at first primarily concerned with individual cases. However, as experience is broadened, individual cases begin to fade and get lost in the legion of many; as general patterns begin to emerge, they force themselves on the attention of the worker. Much stress as I personally lay on individual patients, which any practicing psychiatrist must do if he is to provide the patient with adequate therapeutic care, at the same time even to do this the physician must appreciate the understanding of general features, which in turn help him to approach individual cases with better insight. As a case is completed, it is inevitable that certain conclusions be drawn from it. A number of conclusions brought together, reveal a few generalizations; with more cases at hand, one is able to discern certain patterns, these develop concepts, which in turn reveal definite principles. From some such principles, one is able to develop a philosophy of the work which may tie in with philosophy in general, even though the approach is basically inductive.
I am not unaware that Freud originally denied stoutly and vehemently that psychoanalysis could make any substantial contribution to philosophy in general or to the philosophy of life in particular. Yet it is an inescapable conclusion from his own work that he has given vital expression to a number of basic philosophic principles. He has shown among other things that the principle of determinism dominates our life and bears a close genetic relationship to determinism in nature in general. Copernicus had already shown that the earth was but an infinitesimal fraction of the entire universe, and this makes our planet a small speck moving in space, controlled by forces beyond its control. Darwin similarly showed that man,