out of reach in the Unconscious. Let us now piece together the results of this short, obstructed psycho-analytic attempt to understand this case. It is assumed of course that the information acquired was correct, a point which I cannot submit to your judgement here. First of all, the delusion is no longer senseless and incomprehensible; it is sensible, logically motivated, and has its place in connection with an affective experience of the patient’s. Secondly, it has arisen as a necessary reaction to another mental process which has itself been revealed by other indications; and it owes its delusional character, its quality of resisting real and logical objections, to this relation with this other mental process. It is something desired in itself, a kind of consolation. Thirdly, the fact that the delusion is one of jealousy and no other is unmistakably determined by the experience underlying the disease. You will also recognize the two important analogies with the symptomatic act we analysed; namely, the discovery of the sense or intention behind the symptom and the relation of it to something in the given situation which is unconscious. This does not, of course, answer all the questions arising out of this case. On the contrary, it bristles with further problems, some of which have not yet proved soluble at all, while others cannot be solved owing to the unfavourable circumstances met with in this case. For instance, why does this happily-married lady fall in love with her son-in-law, and why does relief come to her in the form of this kind of reflection, this projection of her own state of mind on to her husband, when other forms of relief were also possible? Do not think that it is idle and uncalled-for to propound these questions. We have already a good deal of material at hand to provide possible answers. The patient had come to that critical time of life which brings a sudden and unwelcome increase of sexual desire to a woman; that may have been sufficient in itself. Or there may have been an additional reason, in that the sexual capacity of her excellent and faithful husband may have been for some years insufficient for the still vigorous woman’s needs. Observation has taught us that it is just such men, whose fidelity is thus a matter of course, who treat their wives with particular tenderness and are unusually considerate of their nervous ailments. Neither is it unimportant, moreover, that the object of this abnormal infatuation should be her daughter’s young husband. A strong erotic attachment to the daughter, with its roots in the individual sexual constitution of the mother, often manages to maintain itself in such a transformation. I may perhaps remind you in this connection that the relation between mother-in-law and son-in-law has from time immemorial been regarded by mankind as a particularly sensitive one, which among primitive races has given rise to very powerful taboos and precautions.[44] On the positive