He believes himself to be an independent thinker, yet a little while back he undertook a big deal on the Stock Exchange, and when he came to enter the details of the transaction in his books he noticed with considerable misgivings that it fell upon a Friday, the 13th of the month. Therefore, he is also superstitious and not free in his thinking. So here we are not at all surprised to find these compensating vices to be an essential content of the unconscious. Obviously, therefore, the reverse is true--namely, that unconscious virtues compensate for conscious deficiencies. The law which ought to follow as the result of such deductions would appear to be quite simple--to wit, the conscious spendthrift is unconsciously a miser; the philanthropist is unconsciously an egoist and misanthrope. But, unfortunately, it is not quite so easy as that, although there is a basis of truth in this simple rule. For there are essential hereditary dispositions of a latent or manifest nature which upset the simple rule of compensation, and which vary greatly in individual cases. From entirely different motives a man may, for instance, be a philanthropist, but the manner of his philanthropy depends upon his originally inherited disposition, and the way in which the philanthropic attitude is compensated depends upon his motives. It is not sufficient simply to know that a certain person is philanthropic in order to diagnose an unconscious egoism. For we must also bring to such a diagnosis a careful study of the motives involved. In the case of normal people the principal function of the unconscious is to effect a compensation and thus produce a balance. All extreme conscious tendencies are softened and toned down through an effective opposite impulse in the unconscious. This compensating agency, as I have tried to show in the case of the merchant, maintains itself through certain unconscious, inconsequent activities, as it were, which Freud has very well described as symptomatic acts (_Symptom-handlungen_). To Freud we owe thanks also for having called attention to the importance of dreams, for by means of them, also, we are able to learn much about this compensating function. There is a fine historical example of this in the well-known dream of Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar at the height of his power had a dream which foretold his downfall. He dreamed of a tree which had raised its head even up to heaven and now must be hewn down. This is a dream which is obviously a counterpoise to the exaggerated feeling of royal power.