ABSTRACT
There are the psychoanalysts proper, that is, those who have attempted to enter understandingly into the intimate processes of individual life, and there are the psychoanalysts who have been too proper for any such intimate undertaking. In the latter class may be counted the great majority of psychiatrists. Man's private preconceptions were dispelled in regard to the physical universe through the introduction of laboratory methods in the observation of physical phenomena. From this moment, our esoteric philosophies were snuffed out. Elective interpretations were no more. Within the mental sphere, however, in which there should prevail no less the scientific processes of the laboratory, the personal equation constitutes a distinct barrier to observation. This element has been slowly building from year to year through gradual accretions of the materials that embody the privileges of private sentiment and interpretation, so that the personal equation can only preclude within the individual the scientific recognition of these subjective materials.
