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1003 Seestrasse, Küsnach-Zürich, 20 December 1910
Dear Professor Freud,
A few words in haste! The earliest I can be in Munich is Monday the 26th at 5 in the evening. The family holidays and the family itself won't let me go earlier. They attach a great deal of importance to these things here. I shall be satisfied if I may spend at least one evening with you. After New Year it will be impossible.
I have now read Adler's review of my “Psychic Conflicts in a Child.” Suspicious, very suspicious indeed is the remark that my view is entirely dependent on the Freudian theory of libido, as though that were a fault or a limitation. Were that so, the high point of your researches would be juggled out of existence before ever attaining the incalculable heuristic significance that is destined for it. It is, as I see more and more clearly, the real key to mythology, quite apart from the neurosis problem.
It seems to me that the question, “How does one turn a girl into a man?” stands something directly on its head instead of on its feet. The question should surely be, “How do I become a woman?” The planing off of the genitals is arbitrarily and, above all, falsely interpreted, without regard for the material.
Equally arbitrary is the conjecture that the material is “consistently slanted,” since the mother was just as much involved in its collection and arrangement as the father.
I should prefer to speak of Dr. G—by word of mouth. Looking forward, with kind regards,
Most sincerely yours, JUNG