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Dear Friends,
Morton Prince has just finished giving a round of lectures at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Edinburgh. He made a very weak impression. Jung is coming to London in May to lecture.
Karl agrees that the best Rapporteurs for the Symposium would be Hanns, Alexander and Radó, but he begs me also to join so that somewhere else can be represented besides Berlin. I have consented to do this on condition that my report will consist only of a short introduction to the theme.
Van Ophuijsen has sent in a long list of resolutions which involve the complete re-writing of the Statutes of the Association. It seems to me that this will make an excellent topic for discussion at the Sunday meeting of the various Presidents and Secretaries.
No news from here, so I will mention a matter of scientific interest. The Rivers and Elliot Smith2 theory of the main motives in the development of culture is based on recognition of the sexual symbolism familiar to us, which it then proceeds to re-interpret by declaring that the wish for the elixir of life and the rites symbolising union with the mother and rebirth indicate a wish for immorality. Incidentally, they consider that the driving force emanated from Egypt and spread from there all over the world. Elliot Smith's book – »The Evolution of the Dragon«3 should be of special interest to you (l. Otto); if you have not already seen it, I could send you a copy. My Paper, which the President of the Royal Anthropological Institute invited me to give, largely consists of a criticism of this theory, and thinking that it may be of general interest, I am sending three copies of it with this Rundbrief.4 For the sake of economy, all the foot-notes including bibliographical references to analytical and other literature have been omitted from the copies.