Our patient here portrayed but a pale copy of the scene in the first attack of psychosis, when he, the victor, stood before his mistress. In the course of a few weeks after this conversation the scientific interests of the patient again began to predominate. He spoke with obvious unwillingness about his intimate life, he repressed it more and more, and finally turned away from it as if it did not belong to himself. Thus gradually the gate of the under-world became closed. There remained nothing but a certain tense expression, and a look which, though fixed on the outer world, was turned inwards at the same time; and this alone hinted at the silent activity of the unconscious, preparing new solutions for his insoluble problem. This is the so-called cure in dementia præcox. Hitherto we psychiatrists used not to be able to suppress a laugh when we read an artist's attempts to portray a psychosis. These attempts have been generally regarded as quite useless, for the writer introduces into his conception of the psychosis psychological relationships quite foreign to the clinical picture of the disease. But the artist has not simply proceeded to copy a case out of a psychiatric text-book; he knows as a rule better than the psychiatrist. The case which I have sketched is not unique, it is typical of a whole class for which the artist Spitteler has created a model of universal validity; the model is _Imago_. I may take for granted that you know his book of that name. The psychological gulf, however, between the creation of the artist and the insane person is great. The world of the artist is one of solved problems; the world of reality, that of unsolved problems. The mental patient is a faithful image of this reality. His solutions are unsatisfying illusions, his cure a temporary giving up of the problem, which yet goes on working in the depths of the unconscious, and at the appointed time again rises to the surface and creates new illusions with new scenery; part of the history of mankind is here seen abridged.