It would be impossible to state the value of confession more beautifully and more clearly. It will not be long ere this view which knocks commandingly at the door of science and which has already been productive of good will be generally accepted. It will not be long ere it will furnish us a deep insight into the genesis of the “endogenetic mental diseases,” excepting, of course, those “exogenetic” maladies that follow some of the infectious diseases. We shall look upon the “endogenetic” diseases, even delusions, as a disturbance of the psychic circulation, and it will be our task to ascertain the causes that bring these maladies about. There are numbers of substitutes which are equivalent to a kind of confessing to oneself. These are art, reading of newspapers, music, literature, and, least but not last, the theatre. The ultimate effect of a dramatic presentation depends, in reality, upon the liberation in us of affects that have been a long time pent up within us. It is not without good reason that humanity throngs to witness tragic plays during the performance of which it can cry to its heart’s content. When the spectators are apparently shedding tears over the unhappy fate of a character on the stage they are really crying over their own pain. And the woman who laughs so heartily at the awkward clumsiness of a clown, that the tears run down her cheeks, is perhaps laughing at her husband, who, though she will not acknowledge it, appears to her just as stupid and clumsy; she is thereby excusing to herself her own sins which she has possibly committed only in fantasy. The theatre serves as a kind of confessional; it liberates inhibitions; awakens many memories, consoles, and perhaps renews in us hopes of secret possibilities as to whose fulfillment we have long since despaired. We have become accustomed of late to suspect sex-motives behind friendship. Even if we accept the theory that these motives are present, but hidden in the unconscious, it is a far from adequate explanation for the longing for friendship. The unconscious sex-motive unquestionably co-operates in a significant measure in the choice of a friend. It may be the determining factor in what we call sympathy and antipathy, although it would have to be proved with regard to the latter, and the theme is deserving of separate consideration, for it is quite possible that our antipathies are only reactions to an excessive attraction and therefore are evidence of repression. Looked at from this point of view, sympathy and antipathy are one feeling, one affect, having in the former case a positive sign and in the latter a negative sign. This secret tendency may be the deciding factor in the choice of a friend. But the need for a friend surely is in direct relation to the need for confession.