just as today they still believe us very little; under such circumstances there had to be some failures. To form an estimate of the increase in our therapeutic chances if we gained general confidence, think of the position of the gynecologist in the Orient and in the Occident. All that the gynecologist is allowed to do in the Orient is done on the arm which is extended to him through a hole in the wall; he can only feel the pulse. But such an inaccessibility of the object is proportionate to the medical accomplishment. Our opponents in the Occident wish to allow us an almost similar disposition of the psyche of our patients. But since suggestion urged society to send the sick woman to the gynecologist the latter became the helper and saviour of the woman. Now do not say that if the authority of society came to our aid and considerably increased our successes, that this would still not prove the correctness of our assumptions. For suggestion can manifestly do everything, and our successes would then be considered successes of suggestion and not of psychoanalysis. Against this I can say that suggestion of society now favors hydro-, dietetic, and electro-therapy, and still these measures have not succeeded in combating the neuroses. It remains to be seen whether psychoanalytic treatment will be able to achieve more.
However, I must put a damper on your expectations. Society will not hasten to furnish us authority. Society must remain in a state of resistance towards us because we assume a critical attitude towards her. We inform her that she herself plays a great part in the causation of the neuroses. Just as we make an enemy of the individual by uncovering his repressions, so society cannot meet us with a sympathetic reply when we regardlessly lay bare her infirmities and inadequacies. Because we destroy illusions we are reproached for endangering ideals. It therefore seems that the condition through which I expect such great advance in our therapeutic chances will never come about. And still the situation is not as despairing as one would now think. As forcible as the interests and effects of humanity may be, there is still another force—the intellect. It does not gain authority in the beginning but is the more sure of it in the end. In the end the most cutting truths are heard and recognized especially after the injured interests and affects aroused by them have exhausted themselves. It was always so until now and the undesired truths
