258) “that the beginnings of religion, ethics, society, and art meet in the Oedipus complex.” He commences with the inference of Darwin, developed farther by Atkinson, that at a very early period man lived in small communities consisting of an adult male and a number of females and immature individuals, the males among the latter being driven off by the head of the group as they became old enough to evoke his jealousy. There is the more reason for this because, little as this particular work of Freud has been noticed by anthropologists, the vogue of the psychoanalytic movement founded by him is now so strong that the book is certain to make an impression in many intelligent circles.įreud’s principal thesis emerges formally only toward the end of his book, but evidently has controlled his reasoning from the beginning, although perhaps unconsciously. THE recent translation into English of Freud’s interpretation of a number of ethnic phenomena offers an occasion to review the startling series of essays which first appeared in Imago a number of years ago.
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