In the last lecture I explained to you that clinical psychiatry troubles itself little about the actual form of the individual symptom or the content of it; but that psycho-analysis has made this its starting-point, and has ascertained that the symptom itself has a meaning and is connected with experiences in the life of the patient. The meaning of neurotic symptoms was first discovered by J. Breuer in the study and successful cure of a case of hysteria (1880–82), which has since then become famous. It is true that P. Janet independently reached the same result; in fact, priority in publication must be granted to the French investigator, for Breuer did not publish his observations until more than a decade later (1893–95), during the period of our work together. Incidentally, it is of no great importance to us who made the discovery, for you know that every discovery is made more than once, and none is made all at once, nor is success meted out according to deserts. America is not called after Columbus. Before Breuer and Janet, the great psychiatrist Leuret expressed the opinion that even the delusions of the insane would prove to have some meaning, if only we knew how to translate them. I confess that for a long time I was willing to accord Janet very high recognition for his explanation of neurotic symptoms, because he regarded them as expressions of “_idées inconscientes_” possessing the patient’s mind. Since then, however, Janet has taken up an attitude of undue reserve, as if he meant to imply that the Unconscious had been nothing more to him than a manner of speaking, a makeshift, _une façon de parler_, and that he had nothing “real” in mind. Since then I have not understood Janet’s views, but I believe that he has gratuitously deprived himself of great credit.