Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud - Chapter 12 - Determinism, Chance, and Superstitious Beliefs, part 1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section twelve of Psychopathology of Everyday Life, translated by A.
A brill Determinism, Chance and superstitious Beliefs, Part one point
of view. As the general result of the preceding separate discussions,
we must put down the following principle, certain inadequacies of

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our psychic capacities whose common character will soon be more
definitely determined, and certain performances which are apparently unintentional, prove
to be well motivated when subjected to the psychoanalytic investigation,
and are determined through the consciousness of unknown motives. In

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order to belong to this class of phenomena thus explained,
a faulty psychic action must satisfy the following conditions. A.
It must not exceed a certain measure which is firmly
established through our estimation and is designated by the expression
within normal limits. B. It must evince the character of

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the momentary and temporary disturbance. The same action must have
been previously performed more correctly, or we must always rely
on ourselves to perform it more correctly. If we are
corrected by others, we must immediately recognize the truth of
the correction and the incorrectness of our psychic action. C

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If we at all perceive a faulty action, we must
not perceive in ourselves any motivation of the same, but
must attempt to explain it through inattention or attribute it
to an accident. Thus there remain in this group the
cases of forgetting and the errors despite better knowledge, the

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lapses in speaking, reading, writing, and erroneously carried out actions,
and the so called chance actions. The explanations of these
so definite psychic processes are connected with a series of
observations which may in part arouse our further interest. By

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abandoning a part of our psychic capacity as unexplainable through
purposive ideas, we ignore the realms of determinism in our
mental life. Here, as in all other spheres, determinism reaches
farther than we suppose. In the year nineteen hundred, I
read an essay published in the Zeit written by the

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literary historian R. M. Meyer, in which he maintains and
illustrates by example that it is impossible to compose nonsense
intentionally and arbitrarily. For some time I have been aware
that it is impossible to think of a number, or
even of a name of one's own free will. If

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one investigates this seeming voluntary formation, let us say, of
a number of many digits uttered in unrestrained mirth, it
always proves to be so strictly determined that the determination
seems impossible. I will now briefly discuss an example of
an arbitrarily chosen first name, and then exhaustively analyze an

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analogous example of a thoughtlessly uttered number. While preparing the
history of one of my patients for publication, I considered
what first name I would give him in the article.
There seemed to be a wide choice. Of course, certain
names were at once excluded by me in the first place,
the real name, then the names of members of my family,

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to which I would have objected, also some female names
having an especially peculiar pronunciation. But excluding these, there should
have been no need of being puzzled about such a name,
it would be thought, and I myself supposed that a
whole multitude of feminine names would be placed at my disposal.

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Instead of this, only one sprang up, no other besides it.
It was the name Dora. I inquired at its determination.
Who else is called Dora? I wished to reject the
next idea as incredulous, it occurred to me that the
nurse of my sister's children was named Dora. But I

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possessed so much self control or practice in analysis, if
you like that, I held firmly to the idea and proceeded.
Then a slight incident of the previous evening soon flashed
through my mind, which brought the looked for determination. On
my sister's dining room table, I noticed a letter bearing
the address Miss Rosa. W Astonished, I asked whose name

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this was, and was informed that the right name of
the supposed Dora was really Rosa, and that, on accepting
the position, she had to lay aside her name because
Rosa would also refer to my sister. I said, pityingly,
poor people, They cannot even retain their own names. I
now recall that on hearing this, I became quiet for

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a moment and began to think of all sorts of
serious matters which merged into the obscure, but which I
could now easily bring into my consciousness. Thus, when I
sought a name for a person who could not retain
her own name, no other except Dora occurred to me.
The exclusiveness here is based moreover on firmer internal associations,

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for in the history of my patient, it was a
stranger in the house, the governess, who exerted a decisive
influence on the course of the treatment. This slight incident
found its unexpected continuation many years later. While discussing in
a lecture they long since published history of the Girl
called Dora, it occurred to me that one of my

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two women pupils had the very name Dora, which I
was obliged to utter so often in the difference associations
of the case. I turned to the young student, whom
I knew personally, with the apology that I had really
not thought that she bore the same name, and that
I was ready to substitute it in my lecture by
another name. I was now confronted with the task of

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rapidly choosing another name, and reflected that I must not
now choose the first name of the other woman student,
and so set a poor example to the class, who
were already quite conversant with psychoanalysis. I was therefore well
pleased when the name Erna occurred to me as a
substitute for Dora, and Erna I used in the discourse.

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After the lecture, I asked myself whence the name Erna
could possibly have originated, and had to laugh as I
observed that the feared possibility in the choice of the
substitutive name had come to pass. In part at least.
The other lady's family name was Lucerna, of which Erna
was a part. In a letter to a friend, I

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informed him that I had finished reading the proof sheets
of the Interpretation of Dreams, and that I did not
intend to make any further changes in it, even if
it contained two thousand, four hundred and sixty seven mistakes.
I immediately attempted to explain to myself the number, and
added the little analysis as a PostScript to the letter.

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It will be best to quote it now as I
wrote it when I caught myself in this transaction. Quote
I will add hastily another contribution to the psychopathology of
every day life. You will find in the letter the
number two thousand, four hundred sixty seven as a jocose
and arbitrary estimation of the number of errors that may

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be found in the dream book. I meant to write,
no matter how large the number might be, and this
one presented itself. But there is nothing arbitrary or undetermined
in the psychic life. You will therefore rightly suppose that
the unconscious hastened to determine the number which was liberated

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by consciousness. Just previous to this, I had read in
the paper that General E. M. Had been retired as
Inspector General of Ordinance. You must know that I am
interested in this man. While I was serving as military
medical student, he then a colonel, once came into the
hospital and said to the physician, you must make me

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well in eight days, as I have some work to
do for which the Emperor is waiting. At that time,
I decided to follow this man's career and just think
to day eighteen ninety nine. He is at the end
of it, Inspector General of Ordinance and already retired. I
wished to figure out in what time he had covered

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this road, and assumed that I had seen him in
the hospital in eighteen eighty two. That would make seventeen years.
I related this to my wife, and she remarked, then
you too should be retired, and I protested the Lord forbid.
After this conversation, I seated myself at the table to
write to you. The previous train of thought continued, and

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for good reason the figuring was incorrect. I had a
definite recollection of the circumstances. In my mind, I had
celebrated my coming of age, my twenty fourth birthday in
the military prison for being absent without permission. Therefore I
must have seen him in eighteen eighty, which makes it

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nineteen years ago. You then have the number twenty four
in two thousand, four hundred sixty seven. Now take the
number that represents my age forty three and add twenty
four years to it, and you get sixty seven. That is,
to the question whether I wished to retire, I had
expressed the wish to work twenty four years more. Obviously,

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I am annoyed that in the interval during which I
followed Colonel M I have not accomplished much of myself.
And still there is a sort of triumph in the
fact that he is already finished, while I have all
before me. Thus we may justly say that not even
the unintentionally thrown out number two thousand, four hundred sixty

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seven lacks its determination from the unconscious. Since the first
example of the interpretation of an apparently arbitrary choice of
a number, I have repeated a similar test with the
same result, but most cases are of such intimate content
that they do not lend themselves to report. It is

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for this reason that I shall not hesitate to add
here a very interesting analysis of a chance number, which
doctor Alfred Adler of Vienna received from a perfectly healthy man.
A wrote to me last night. I devoted myself to
the psychopathology of everyday life, and I would have read
it all through had I not been hindered by a

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remarkable coincidence. When I read that every number that we
apparently conjure up quite arbitrarily in our consciousness has a
definite meaning, I decided to test it. The number one thousand,
seven hundred thirty four occurred to my mind. The following
associations then came up one thousand, seven hundred thirty four

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divided by seventeen equals one hundred two one hundred two
divided by seventeen equals six. I then separated the number
into seventeen and thirty four. I am thirty four years old.
I believe that I once told you that I consider
thirty four the last year of youth, and for this

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reason I felt miserable on my last birthday the end
of my seventeenth year was the beginning of a very
nice and interesting period of my development. I divide my
life into periods of seventeen years. What do the division signify?
The number one hundred two recalls the fact that Volume
one O two of the reclam Universal Library is Cotstubieu's

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play Human Hatred and Repentance. My present psychic state is
human hatred and Repentance. Number six of the u L
I know a great many numbers by heart is Mulner's
shoaled fault. I am constantly annoyed at the thought that
it is through my own fault that I have not
become what I could have been with my abilities. I

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then ask myself, what is number seventeen of the u L?
But I could not recall it. But as I positively
knew it before, I assumed that I wished to forget
this number. All reflection was in vain. I wished to
continue with my reading, but I read only mechanically, without
understanding a word. For I was annoyed by the number seventeen.

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I extinguished the light and continued my search. It finally
came to me that number seventeen must be a play
by Shakespeare, but which one I thought of Hero and Leander,
Apparently a stupid attempt of my will to distract me.
I finally arose and consulted the catalog of the u L.

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Number seventeen was Macbeth. To my surprise, I had to
discover that I knew nothing of the play, despite the
fact that it did not interest me any less than
any other Shakespearean drama. I only thought of Murder Lady Macbeth,
which is nice as ugly, and that I found Schiller's

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version of Macbeth very nice. Undoubtedly I also wished to
forget the play. Then it occurred to me that seventeen
and thirty four may be divided by seventeen and result
in one in two numbers. One in two of the
u L is Goethe's faust. Formerly I found much a

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faust in me. We must regret that the discretion of
the physician did not allow us to see the significance
of ideas. Adler remarked that the man did not succeed
in the synthesis of his analysis. His association would hardly
be worth reporting unless their continuation would bring out something

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that would give us a key to the understanding of
the number one thousand, seven hundred thirty four, and the
whole series of ideas to quote. Further, to be sure,
this morning I had an experience which speaks much for
the correctness of the Freudian conception. My wife, whom I
awakened through my getting up at night, asked me what

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I wanted with the catalog of the UL. I told
her the story. She found it all petifogging, but very
interesting Macbeth, which caused me so much trouble. She simply
passed over. She said that nothing came to her mind
when she thought of a number. I answered, let us
try it. She named the number one hundred seventeen. To this,

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I immediately replied, seventeen refers to what I just told you. Furthermore,
I told you yesterday that if a wife is in
the eighty second year and the husband is in the
thirty fifth year, it must be a gross misunderstanding. For
the last few days I have been teasing my wife
by maintaining that she was a little old mother of

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eighty two years. Eighty two plus thirty five is one
hundred seventeen. The man who did not know how to
determine his own number at once found the solution when
his wife named the number, which was apparently arbitrarily chosen.
As a matter of fact, the woman understood very well

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from which complex the number of her husband originated, and
chose her own number from the same complex, which was
surely common to both, as it dealt, in his case,
with their relative ages. Now we find it easy to
interpret the number that occurred to the man, as doctor
Adler indicates, it expressed a repressed wish of the husband,

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which fully developed would read for a man of thirty
four years, as I am, only a woman of seventeen
would be suitable. Lest one should think too lightly of
such playing, I will add that I was recently informed
by doctor Adler that a year after the publication of
this analysis, the man was divorced from his wife. Adler

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gives a similar explanation for the origin of obsessive numbers. Also,
the choice of so called favorite numbers is not without
relation to the life of the person concerned, and does
not lack a certain psychologic interest. A gentleman who evinced
a particular partiality for the numbers seventeen and nineteen would specify,

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after brief reflection that at the age of seventeen, he
attained the greatly longed for academic freedom by having been
admitted to the university, and at night he made his
first long journey, and shortly thereafter made his first scientific discovery.
But the fixation of this preference followed later after two

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questionable affairs, when the same numbers were invested with importance
in his love life. Indeed, even those numbers which we
use in a particular connection extremely often and with apparent arbitrariness,
can be traced by analysis to an unexpected meaning. Thus,
one day it struck one of my patients that he

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was particularly fond of saying, I have already told you
this from seventeen to thirty six times, and he asked
himself whether there was any motive for it. It soon
occurred to him that he was born on the twenty
seventh day of the month, and that his younger brother
was born on the twenty sixth day of another month.

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And he had grounds for complaint that fate had robbed
him of so many of the benefits of life, only
to bestow them on his younger brother. Thus he represented
this partiality of fate by deducting ten from the date
of his birth and adding it to the date of
his brother's birthday. I am the elder, and yet I
am so cut short. I shall tarry a little longer

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at the analysis of such numbers, for I know of
no other individual observation which would so readily demonstrate the
existence of highly organized thinking processes of which consciousness has
no knowledge. Moreover, there is no better example of analysis
in which the suggestion of the position a frequent accusation

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is so distinctly out of consideration. I shall therefore report
the analysis of a chance number of one of my patients,
with his consent, to which I will only add that
he is the youngest of many children, and that he
lost his beloved father in his young years. While in
a particularly happy mood, he let the number for one

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hundred and twenty six thousand, seven hundred eighteen come to
his mind, and put to himself the question, well, what
does it bring to your mind? First came a joke
he had heard. If your catarrh of the nose is
treated by a doctor, it lasts forty two days. If
it is not treated, it lasts six weeks. This corresponds

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to the first digit of the number forty two equals
six times seven. During the obstruction that followed this first solution,
I called his attention to the fact that the number
of six digits selected by him contains all the first
numbers except three and five. He at once found the
continuation of this solution quote, we are altogether seven children.

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I was the youngest. Number three in the order of
the children corresponds to my sister A, and five to
my brother L. Both of them were my enemies as
a child. I used to pray to the Lord every
night that he you should take out of my life
these two tormenting spirits. It seems to me that I
have fulfilled for myself this wish. Three and five, the

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evil brother and hated sister are omitted. If the number
stands for your sisters and brothers, what significance is there
to eighteen. At the end, you were altogether only seven.
I often thought that if my father had lived longer,
I should not have been the youngest child. If one
more would have come, it should have been eight, and

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there would have been a younger child toward whom I
could have played the role of the older one. With
this the number was explained, But we still wish to
find the connection between the first part of the interpretation
and the part following it. This came very readily from
the condition required for the last digit, if the father

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had lived longer. Forty two equals six times seven signifies
the ridicule directed against the doctors who could not help
his father, and in this way expresses the wish for
the continued existence of the father. The whole number really
corresponds to the fulfillment of his two wishes in reference

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to his family circle, namely that both the evil brother
and sisters should die and that another child should follow him,
or briefly expressed, if only these two had died in
place of my father. Another analysis of numbers I take
from Jones. A gentleman of his acquaintance let the number

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nine hundred eighty six come to his mind and defied
him to connect it to anything of special interest in
his mind. Six years ago, on the hottest day he
could remember, he had seen a joke in an evening
newspaper which stated that the thermometer had stood at ninety eight
point six degrees fahrenheit, evidently an exaggeration of ninety eight

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point six degrees fahrenheit. We were at the time seated
in front of a very hot fire from which he
had just drawn back, and he remarked, probably quite correctly,
that the heat had aroused his dormant memory. However, I
was curious to know why this memory had persisted with
such vividness as to be so readily brought out, For

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with most people it surely would have been forgotten beyond recall,
unless it had become associated with some other mental experience
of more significance. He told me that on reading the
joke he had laughed uproariously, and that on many subsequent
occasions he had recalled it with great relish. As the

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joke was obviously of an exceedingly tenuous nature. This strengthened
my expectation that Moore lay behind. His next thought was
the general reflection that the conception of heat had always
greatly impressed him, that heat was the most important thing
in the universe, the source of all life, and so on.

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This remarkable attitude of a quite prosaic young man certainly
needed some explanation, so I asked him to continue his
free associations. The next thought was of a factory stack,
which he could see from his bedroom window. He often
stood of an evening watching the flame and smoke issuing
out of it, and reflecting on this deplorable waste of

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energy heat flame the source of life, the waste of
vital energy issuing from an upright hollow tube. It was
not hard to divine from such associations that the ideas
of heat and fire were unconsciously linked in his mind
with the idea of love, as is so frequent in
symbolic thinking, and that there was a strong masturbation complex present,

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a conclusion that he presently confirmed those who wished to
get a good impression of the way the material of
numbers becomes elaborated in the unco conscious thinking, I refer
to two papers by Young and Jones in personal analysis
of this kind. Two things were especially striking. First the

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absolute somnambulistic certainty with which I attacked the unknown objective point,
merging into mathematical train of thought which later suddenly extended
to the looked for number, and the rapidity with which
the entire subsequent work was performed. Secondly, the fact that
the numbers were always at the disposal of my unconscious mind,

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when as a matter of fact I am a poor
mathematician and find it very difficult to consciously recall years, house, numbers,
and the like. Moreover, in these unconscious mental operations with figures,
I found a tendency to superstition, the origin of which
had long remained unknown to me. It will not surprise

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us to find that not only numbers, but also mental
occurrence of different kinds of words regularly prove on analytic
investigation to be well determined. Brill Relates. While working on
the English edition of this book, I was obsessed one
morning with the strange word cardillac. Busily intent on my work,

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I refused at first to pay attention to it, but
as is usually the case, I simply could not do
anything else. Cardillac was constantly on my mind. Realizing that
my refusal to recognize it was only a resistance, I
decided to analyze it. The following associations occurred to me Cardillac, cardiac,

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car four, Cadillac cardiac, recalled cardialgia heartache. A medical friend
who had recently told me confidentially that he feared that
he had some cardiac affection because he had suffered some
attacks of pain in the region of his heart. Knowing
him so well, I at once rejected his theory and

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told him that his attacks were of a neurotic character,
and that his other apparent physical ailments were also only
the expression of his neurosis. I might add that just
before telling me of his heart trouble, he spoke of
a business matter of vital interest to him which had
suddenly come to naught. Being a man of unbound ambitions,

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he was very depressed because of late, he had suffered
many similar reverses. His neurotic conflicts, however, had become manifest
a few months before this misfortune. Soon after his father's
death had left a big business on his hands. As
the business could be continued only under my friend's management,
he was unable to decide whether to enter into commercial

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life or continue his chosen career. His great ambition was
to become a successful medical practitioner, and although he had
practiced medicine successfully for many years, he was not altogether
satisfied with the financial fluctuations of his professional income. On
the other hand, his father's business promised him an assured,

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though limited return. In brief, he was at a crossing
and did not know which way to turn. I then
recalled the word car four, which is the French for crossing,
and it occurred to me that while working in a
hospital in Paris, I lived near the car four Saint Lazare,
and now I could understand what relation all these associations

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had for me. When I resolved to leave the state hospital,
I made the decision first because I desired to get married,
and secondly because I wished to enter private practice. This
brought up a new problem. Although my state hospital service
was an absolute success, judging by promotions and so on,

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I felt, like a great many others in the same situation,
namely that my training was ill suited for private practice.
To specialize in mental work was a daring undertaking for
one without money and social connections. I also felt that
the best I could do for patients, should they ever
come my way, would be to commit them to one

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of the hospitals, as I had little confidence in the
home treatment in vogue in spite of the enormous advances
made in recent years in mental work, the specialist is
almost helpless when he is confronted with the average case
of insanity. This may be partially attributed to the fact
that such cases are brought to him after they have

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fully developed the psychosis. When hospital treatment is imperative of
the great army of milder mental disturbances, the so called
border line cases, which make up the bulk of clinic
and private work, and which rightfully belonged to the mental specialist.
I knew very little, as those patients rarely or never

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came to the state hospital, and what I did know
concerning the treatment of of norsthenia and psychosthenia was not
conducive to make me more hopeful of success in private practice.
It was in this state of mind that I came
to Paris, where I hoped to learn enough about the
psycho neeuroses to enable me to continue my specialty in

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private practice and yet feel that I could do something
for my patience. What I saw in Paris did not, however,
help to change my state of mind. There too, most
of the work was directed to dead tissues. The mental
aspects as such received but scant attention. I was therefore
seriously thinking of giving up my mental work for some

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other specialty. As can be seen, I was confronted with
a situation similar to the one of my medical friend.
I too was at a crossing and did not know
which way to turn. My suspense was soon ended. One
day I received a letter from my friend Professor Peterson,
who by the way, was responsible for my entering the

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state hospital service. In this letter, he advised me not
to give up my work and suggested the psychiatric clinic
of Zurich, where he thought I could find what I desired.
But what does Cadillac mean. Cadillac is the name of
a hotel and of an automobile. A few days before,
in a country place, my medical friend and I had

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been trying to hire an automobile, but there was none
to be had. We both expressed the wish to own
an automobile, again, an unrealized ambition. I also recalled that
the carfour de Saint Lazare always impressed me as being
one of the busiest thoroughfares in Paris. It was always

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congested with automobiles Cadillac. Also recalled that, only a few
days ago, on the way to my clinic, I noticed
a large sign over a building which announced that on
a certain day, this building was to be occupied by
the Cadillac et cetera. This at first made me think
of the Cadillac hotel, but on second side I noticed

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that it referred to the Cadillac motor car. There was
a sudden obstruction. Here, for a few moments the word
cadillac reappeared, and by sound association, the word catalog occurred
to me. This word brought back a very mortifying occurrence
of recent origin, the motive of which is again blighted ambition.

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When one wishes to report any autoanalysis, he must be
prepared to lay bare many intimate affairs of his own life.
Any One reading carefully Professor Freud's works cannot fail to
become intimately acquainted with him and his family. I have
often been asked by persons who claim to have read

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and studied Freud's works, such questions as how old is Freud,
is Freud married, how many children has he? Et cetera.
Whenever I hear these or similar questions, I know that
the question has either lied when he made these assertions, or,
to be more charitable, that he is a very careless
and superficial reader. All these questions, and many more, are

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answered in Freud's works. Autoanalyzes are autobiographies par excellence. But
whereas the autobiographer may, for definite reasons, consciously and unconsciously
hide many facts of his life, the autoanalyst not only
tells the truth consciously but perforce brings to light his

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whole intimate personality. It is for these reasons that one
finds it very unpleasant to report his own autoanalyzes. However,
as we often report our patient's unconscious productions, it is
but fair that we should sacrifice ourselves on the altar
of publicity when occasion demands. This is my apology for

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having thrust some of my personal affairs on the reader,
and for being obliged to continue a little longer in
the scene Dame Strain. Before digressing with the last remark,
I mentioned that the word Cadillac brought the sound association catalog.
This association brought back another important epoch in my life
with which Professor Peterson is connected. Last May, I was

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informed by the Secretary of the Faculty that I was
appointed Chief of Clinic of the Department of Psychiatry. I
need hardly say that I was exceedingly pleased to be
so honored in the first place, because it was the
realization of an ambition which I dared entertain only under
special euphoric states. And secondly, it was a compensation for

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the many unmerited criticisms from those who are blindly and
unreasonably opposing some of my work. Soon thereafter I called
on the stenographer of the faculty and spoke to her
about a correction to be made in my name as
it was printed in the catalog. For some unknown reason,
perhaps racial prejudice, this stenographer, a maiden lady, must have

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taken and dislike to me. For about three years, I
repeatedly requested her to have this correction made, but she
had paid no attention to me to be sure. She
always promised to attend to it, but the mistake remained uncorrected.
When I saw her last May, I again reminded her
of this correction, and also called her attention to the

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fact that, as I had been appointed chief of Clinic,
I was especially anxious to have my name correctly printed
in the catalog. She apologized for her remissness and assured
me that everything should be as I requested. Imagine my
surprise and chagrin when, on receiving the new catalog I
found that, while the correction had been made in my name,

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I was not listed as chief of clinic. When I
asked her about this, she was quite puzzled. She said
she had no idea that I had been appointed chief
of clinic. She had to consult the minutes of the
faculty written by her before she was convinced of it.
It should be noted that, as recorded to the the faculty,
it was her duty to know all these things as

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soon as they transpired. When she finally ascertained that I
was right, she was very apologetic and informed me that
she would at once write to the superintendent of the
clinic to inform him of my appointment, something which she
should have done months before. Of course, I gained nothing
by her regrets and apologies. The catalog was published, and

(35:25):
those who read it did not find my name in
the desired place. I am chief of clinic in fact,
but not in name. Moreover, as the appointments are made
only for one year, it is quite likely that my
great ambition will never be actually realized. Thus the obsessive
neologism Cardillac, which is a condensation of Cardiac, Cadillac and Catalog,

(35:48):
contains some of the most important efforts of my medical experience.
When I was almost at the end of this analysis,
I suddenly recalled a dream containing this neologism Cardillac, in
which my wish was realized. My name appeared in its
rightful place in the catalog. The person who showed it
to me in the dream was Professor Peterson. It was

(36:11):
when I was at the first crossing, after I had
graduated from the medical college, that Professor Peterson urged me
to enter the hospital service. About five years later, while
I was in the state of indecision which I have described,
it was Professor Peterson who advised me to go to
the Clinic of Psychiatry at Zurich, where, through Bleuller and

(36:32):
Young I first became acquainted with Professor Freud and his works.
And it was also through the kind recommendation of doctor
Peterson that I was elevated to my present position. I
am indebted to doctor Hitchman for the solution of another
case in which a line of poetry repeatedly obtruded itself

(36:52):
on the mind in a certain place, without showing any
trace of its origin and relation related by doctors. Six
years ago, I traveled from Via Ritz to San Sebastian.
The railroad crosses over the bidacio A River, which here
forms the boundary between France and Spain. On the bridge,

(37:14):
one has a splendid view on the one side of
the broad valley and the Pyrenees, and on the other
of the sea, it was a beautiful, bright summer day.
Everything was filled with sun and light. I was on
a vacation and pleased with my trip to Spain. Suddenly
the following words came to me. But the soul is

(37:34):
already free floating on a sea of light. At that time,
I was trying to remember where these lines came from,
but I could not remember. Judging by the rhythm, the
words must be part of some poem, which, however, entirely
escaped my memory. Later, when the verse repeatedly came to
my mind, I asked many people about it, without receiving

(37:56):
any information. Last year, I crossed the same bridge on
my return journey from Spain. It was a very dark
night and it rained. I looked through the window to
ascertain whether we had already reached the frontier station, and
noticed that we were on the Bedacio Bridge. Immediately, the
above cited verse returned to my memory, and again I

(38:18):
could not recall its origin. At home, many months later,
I found Uhlan's poem. I opened the volume and my
glance fell upon the verse, But the soul is already
free floating on a sea of light, which were the
concluding lines of the poem entitled The Pilgrim. I read
the poem and dimly recalled that I had known it

(38:39):
many years ago. The scene of action is in Spain,
and this seemed to me to be the only relation
between the quoted verse and the place on the railroad
journey described by me. I was only half satisfied with
my discovery, and mechanically continued to turn the pages of
the book. On turning the next page, I found a home,

(39:00):
the title of which was Bedossio Bridge. I may add
that the contents of this poem seemed even stranger to
me than that of the first, and that its first
verse read, on the Bedossio Bridge stands a saint gray
with age. He blesses to the right the Spanish mountain.
To the left, he blesses the French Land. Two. This

(39:27):
understanding of the determination of apparently arbitrarily selected names, numbers,
and words may perhaps contribute to the solution of another problem.
As is known, many persons argue against the assumption of
an absolute psychic determinism by referring to an intense feeling
of conviction that there is a free will. This feeling

(39:50):
of conviction exists but is not incompatible with the belief
and determinism. Like any normal feelings, it must be justified
by some but so far as I can observe, it
does not manifest itself in weighty and important decisions. On
these occasions one has much more the feeling of a
psychic compulsion and gladly falls back upon it. Compare Luther's

(40:15):
here I stand, I cannot do anything else. On the
other hand, it is in trivial and indifferent decisions that
one feels sure that he could just as easily have
acted differently, that he acted of his own free will
and without any motives. From our analyzes, we therefore need
not contest the right of the feeling of conviction that

(40:37):
there is a free will. If we distinguish conscious from
unconscious motivation, we are then informed by the feeling of
conviction that the conscious motivation does not extend over all
our motor resolutions. Many mon non curate praytur What is
thus left free from the one side receives its motive

(40:59):
from the other side, from the unconscious, and the determinism
in the psychic realm is thus carried out uninterruptedly. End
of Section twelve