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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
July 8, 1915
Dear Friend
Your book Human Motives has arrived at last, long after it was announced. I have not yet finished reading it, but I have read what are for me the most relevant sections on religion and psychoanalysis and yield to the urge to write to you about them.
You will surely not demand praise and recognition from me. It pleases me to think that it will make an impression on your compatriots and break down the deeply rooted resistance of many of them.
On page 20 I found the passage I must consider as most applicable to myself: “To accustom ourselves to the study of immaturity and childhood before …undesirable limitation of our vision,…” etc.
This I recognize as my case. I am certainly incapable of judging the other aspect of the subject. I must have needed this one-sided-ness in order to see what remains hidden from others. That is the justification of my defensive reaction. The one-sidedness did have its own usefulness, after all.
On the other hand, that the arguments for the reality of our ideals failed to make an impression on me is less important. I cannot see the connection between our ideas of perfection having a psychical reality and the belief that they have a material existence. This will not surprise you. You know, after all, how little one can expect from arguments. I should add that I stand in no awe whatever of