(1957). The International Psycho-Analytical Library, 52:95-104 Sigmund Freud 1856-1939: An Appreciation (1941) Freud's death marks the close of an epoch, and his life's work was the foundation of a new one. He was the last of the great nineteenth-century scientists, he inherited their tradition and their methods, and on their foundation he built a new edifice. Born in anno Darwinii, he gave a new dimension to biological thought; The Origin of Species showed man's physical relation to the brute creation; within fifty years Freud's corresponding work on The Interpretation of Dreams showed the way in which impulses of instinctual origin (in the mental sphere the part of us nearest to the animals) find representation in our imagination and are transformed into the bonds which unite us in our cultural life. To every thinking man and woman now living the death of Freud was a personal event. The ideas which he formulated have become a part of our everyday thought, and though the number who read his works is comparatively small, the recognition that they touched the inner life of man gave him a [This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.] |
