And so my criticism has not proceeded from academic arguments, but from experiences which have forced themselves on me during ten years earnest work in this sphere. I know that my experience in no wise approaches Freud’s quite extraordinary experience and insight, but none the less it seems to me that certain of my formulations do present the observed facts more adequately than is the case in Freud’s method of statement. At any rate I have found, in my teaching, that the conceptions put forward in these lectures have afforded peculiar aid in my endeavors to help my pupils to an understanding of psychoanalysis. With such experience I am naturally inclined to assent to the view of Mr. Dooley, that witty humorist of the _New York Times_, when he says, defining pragmatism: “Truth is truth ‘when it works.’” I am indeed very far from regarding a modest and moderate criticism as a “falling away” or a schism; on the contrary, through it I hope to help on the flowering and fructification of the psychoanalytic movement, and to open a path towards the scientific treasures of psychoanalysis for those who have hitherto been unable to possess themselves of psychoanalytic methods, whether through lack of practical experience or through distaste of the theoretical hypothesis. For the opportunity to deliver these lectures I have to thank my friend Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, of New York, who kindly invited me to take part in the “Extension Course” at Fordham University. These lectures were given in September, 1912, in New York. I must here also express my best thanks to Dr. Gregory, of Bellevue Hospital, for his ready support of my clinical demonstrations. For the troublesome work of translation I am greatly indebted to my assistant, Miss M. Moltzer, and to Mrs. Edith Eder and Dr. Eder of London. Only after the preparation of these lectures did Adler’s book, “Ueber den nervösen Character,” become known to me, in the summer of 1912. I recognize that he and I have reached similar conclusions on various points, but here is not the place to go into a more intimate discussion of the matter; that must take place elsewhere. CHAPTER I Consideration of Early Hypotheses