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Budapest, February 5, 1910
VII., Erzsébet-körút 54
Dear Professor,
The rich—all too rich—“booty” of my latest trip to Vienna is constantly on my mind. A day like that compensates one for months of renunciation and refreshes one's mind and spirit. It is a comforting prospect that in future generations such free and open discourse (without the danger of arousing infantile sensitivities) will not be counted among the exceptions. When you talk about the prospects for psychoanalysis,1 you should not eliminate this point of view from consideration. Once society has gone beyond the infantile, then hitherto completely unimagined possibilities for social and political life are opened up. Just think what it would mean if one could tell everyone the truth, one's father, teacher, neighbor, and even the king. All fabricated, imposed authority would go to the devil—what is rightful would remain natural. The eradication of lies from private and public life would necessarily have to bring about better conditions; if reason and not dogmas (to which I add the word “morality”) prevail, a more purposeful, less costly, and in every respect more economical reconciliation of individual interests with the common good would ensue. (The opposition between the two will not be removed from the world—nor should it be.) I do not think that the Ψ α worldview leads to democratic egalitarianism; the intellectual elite of humanity should maintain its hegemony; I believe Plato desired something similar.2 Naturally these must be intelligences that are always conscious of their own weaknesses and do not forget or deny the animalistic-instinctual basis of the human spirit. To