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107A
Berlin
9 March 1911
Dear Professor,
Heartfelt thanks for the further information about Fliess, to whom I have not yet spoken again, and also for the Putnam reprints. I hope to get the new publications you write about before long. I have already had part of the Segantini proofs. Deuticke is in touch with the Photographic Union in Munich about the illustrations.
As regards the Ziehen affair, I wrote to Dr Maier at the Burghölzli and received the enclosed letter from him. I cannot say that he is in the wrong. It was fortunate that I wrote to him first, for publication would surely have generated an irritation in Zurich (i.e. the Burghölzli)—after all, the rift has only just been mended. Now we have to pass the story on by word of mouth.
I can hardly regret Adler's resignation. In spite of one's respect for his good qualities, he was certainly not the right man to lead the Vienna Society. His more recent papers are not at all to my liking. It is true that I dare not give a definitive judgement because I cannot detach myself from an antipathy to Adler's style and exposition. There is the danger of rejecting this or that out of indolence, so as not to have to immerse oneself into his work. I do not think, however, that I do him an injustice if I find the “aggressive drive” very one-sided. The giving up of the libido, the neglect of all we have learned about erotogenic zones, autoerotism, etc., appear to me as a retrograde step. The pleasure principle is lost entirely. On top of that, he relapses into surface psychology, such as