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Küsnach bei Zürich, 25 December 19091
Dear Professor Freud,
My attempt at criticism, though it looked like an attack, was actually a defence, which is why I apparently had to tilt at the “omnipotence of thoughts.” Of course the term is dead right as well as elegantly concise and trenchant, for that's how it is, especially in D. pr. where new fundamentals are constantly being uncovered by it. All this has shaken me very much, in particular my faith in my own capacities. But most of all I was struck by your remark that you longed for archaeologists, philologists, etc. By this, I told myself, you probably meant that I was unfit for such work. However, it is in precisely these fields that I now have a passionate interest, as before only in Dem. pr. And I have the most marvellous visions, glimpses of farranging interconnections which I am at present incapable of grasping, for the subject really is too big and I hate impotent bungling. Who then is to do this work? Surely it must be someone who knows the psyche and has the passion for it. D. pr. will not be the loser. Honegger, who has already introduced himself to you, is now working with me with great understanding, and I shall entrust to him everything I know so that something good may come of it. It has become quite clear to me that we shall not solve the ultimate secrets of neurosis and psychosis without mythology and the history of civilization, for embryology goes hand in hand with comparative anatomy, and without the latter the former is but a freak of nature whose depths remain uncomprehended. It is a hard lot to have to work alongside the father creator. Hence my attacks on “clinical terminology.”
31 Dec. The Christmas holidays have eaten up all my time, so I am only now in a position to continue my letter. I am turning over and over in my mind the problem of antiquity. It's a hard nut! Without doubt there's a lot of infantile sexuality in it, but that is not all. Rather it seems to me that antiquity was ravage