ABSTRACT

Analogous processes can be traced back to the beginnings of human culture. It is extremely probable that the most important cultural advances were introduced neither according to plan nor intentionally but by accidental circumstances. The psycho-analyst may also venture to guess at the motive for a repression from certain indications. Hypersensitiveness to contact with bodily moisture and the phobia against moistness of the hands, according to other analyses, springs ultimately from a defence against certain sexual ideas and memories. People, too, are wont to shy at the intellectual contact with sexual things. The psychogenesis of the mechanistic sense is conceived only as a progressive unfolding of intelligence.