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The history of science is the history of changes in our fundamental views of the universe and its nature. No matter what outcry, physics and mathematics have moved us steadily forward into the relativistic world which prejudice and fear would have denied to us. Progress is inevitable always, despite whatever entrenched interests want to re-enact the historically clownish role of King Canute. Ever since Man stood erect and looked at his hand with its uniquely opposable thumb, no one has been able to bar him for long from the triumph of using whatever new tool might advance his personal comfort and his transcending voyage of discovery. Repressive institutions of all kinds would do well to contemplate this simple fact.
So too with the discovery of the tools of psychoanalysis. New tools have a way of digging up new facts. Those who manufacture the old tools also have a consistent history. Out of very material interest—not the least of which are their old defensive delusions—they tend to regard as sacred all organizational forms which seemed to promise the eternity of the old tools. Those who wish to make advances in psychoanalysis itself must take this historic conflict into account.
Today, for example, it is becoming increasingly clear that the science of psycho-analysis—together with other medical sciences such as that of nutrition—is becoming one of the foremost sciences of longevity, as well as a science of human relationships with all its attendant successes in self-expression and self-assertion. The moment that psychoanalysis became “psychosomatic” it made a very practical juncture with problems not only of general health but also of survival. Analysis gave insight to the “accident prone” person; it called attention to and tried to check and transform the myriad guises of masochism inherent in the pain-pleasure principle.
Survival is more basic than “adjustment.” To survive is to win time. To survive in a state of physical health and psychic liberation is