is, so to say, reproduced and carried out in all its details. This assumption is extremely unlikely, and becomes still more inconceivable if we also bear in mind that the story of the shying horses may not even be true. Be that as it may, it is and remains almost unthinkable that an affect should remain buried for years and then suddenly explode. In other cases there is exactly the same state of affairs. I know, for instance, of a case in which the shock of an earthquake, long recovered from, suddenly came back as a lively fear of earthquakes, although this reminiscence could not be explained by the external circumstances.
The Traumatic Theory—A False Way
It is a very suspicious circumstance that these patients frequently show a pronounced tendency to account for their illnesses by some long-past event, ingeniously withdrawing the attention of the physician from the present moment towards some false track in the past. This false track was the first one pursued by the psychoanalytic theory. To this false hypothesis we owe an insight into the understanding of the neurotic symptoms never before reached, an insight we should not have gained if the investigation had not chosen this path, really guided thither, however, by the misleading tendencies of the patient.
I think that only a man who regards world-happenings as a chain of more or less fortuitous contingencies, and therefore believes that the guiding hand of the reason-endowed pedagogue is permanently wanted, can ever imagine that this path, upon which the patient leads the physician, has been a wrong one, from which one ought to have warned men off with a sign-board. Besides the deeper insight into psychological determination, we owe to the so-called error the discovery of questions of immeasurable importance regarding the basis of psychic processes. It is for us to rejoice and be thankful that Freud had the courage to let himself be guided along this path. Not thus is the progress of science hindered, but rather through blind adherence to a provisional formulation, through the typical conservatism of authority, the vanity of learned men, their fear of making mistakes. This lack of the martyr's courage is far more injurious to the credit and greatness of scientific knowledge than an honest error.
