by empiric and not deductive methods. A further argument in favour of a possible hidden, as opposed to the manifest meaning of dreams, is obtained by comparing dream-phantasies with other phantasies (day-dreams and the like) in one and the same individual. It is not difficult to conceive that such day-phantasies have not merely a superficial, concretistical meaning, but also a deeper psychological meaning. It is solely on account of the brevity that I must impose upon myself, that I do not submit materials in proof of this. But I should like to point out that what may be said about the meaning of phantasies, is well illustrated by an old and widely diffused type of imaginative story, of which Æsop’s Fables are typical examples, wherein, for instance, the story is some objectively impossible phantasy about the deeds of a lion and an ass. The concrete superficial meaning of the fable is an impossible phantasm, but the hidden moral meaning is plainly palpable upon reflection. It is characteristic of children that they are pleased and satisfied with the exoteric meaning of the story. But by far the best argument for the existence of a hidden meaning in dreams, is provided by the conscientious application of the technical procedure to solve the manifest dream content.
This brings us to our second main point, viz.—the question of analytic procedure. Here again I desire neither to defend nor to criticise Freud’s views and discoveries, but rather to confine myself to what seem to me to be firmly established facts.
The fact that a dream is a psychic structure, does not give us the slightest ground for assuming that it obeys laws and designs other than those applicable to any other psychic structure. According to the maxim: principia explicandi praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda, we have to treat dreams in analysis just as any other psychic structure, until experience teaches us some better way.
We know that every psychic construction considered from the standpoint of causality, is the resultant of previous psychic contents. Moreover, we know also that every psychic structure, considered from the standpoint of finality has its
