Lecture XVI

There is also the opposite phenomenon. It consists in this: we also tend to accumulate and conserve what should only be unfolded as an activity of the organs in youth. Throughout life there are, to be sure, calls on the organs which are destined to function mainly in childhood and youth; but this continued activity must become less vigorous, or harm may ensue. Here is the domain in which owing to different causes such theories as that of psychoanalysis have been able to confuse the whole of human thinking. Indeed it is true that the most harm in life is not done by the greatest mistakes, for such great errors can soon be refuted, but by conceptions containing a grain of truth, for this grain of truth is accepted, exaggerated and abused.