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July 27, 1904
IX., Berggasse 191
Dear Wilhelm:
I see that I have to concede to you more right than I originally was prepared to; I am taken aback by my having forgotten how much I had complained about my pupil Swoboda and by my glossing over Weininger's visit to me (which, however, I had not forgotten). The latter is precisely as Rie related it to you; the manuscript shown to me, though, had an entirely different wording than the printed book; I was also quite alarmed by the chapter on hysteria, which was written ad captandam benevolentiam meam [to capture my favor], but the underlying theme of bisexuality was of course recognizable, and I must have regretted at the time that via Swoboda, as I already knew, I had handed over your idea to him. In conjunction with my own attempt to rob you of your originality, I better understand my behavior toward Weininger and my subsequent forgetting.
I do not believe, on the other hand, that I should have shouted “Stop, thief” at that time. Above all, it would have been no use because the thief can just as well claim it was his own idea; nor can ideas be patented. One can withhold them — and does so advisedly if one sets great store by one's right of ownership. Once they have been let loose, they go their own way. Furthermore, at that time I was already familiar with the references in the literature in which the idea of bisexuality is used to explain inversion. You must admit that a resourceful mind can on its own easily take the step from the bisexual disposition of some individuals to extending it to all of them, though this step is your novum. For me personally you have