ABSTRACT
The young Sigmund Freud must have heard Martin Charcot's views on hysteria and heredity — and, possibly, also on demonic possession and Jews — between October 1885 and March 1886. Freud attributed to hysterics not only an unreasonable moralism, but also 'an excess of efficiency' in intellectual matters — corresponding to their inordinate endeavour to be respectable, civilized and productive. Although Freud never completely denied that heredity or constitution could play a role in the etiology of hysteria, around 1894-1895 he clearly departed from the degeneracy paradigm. He portrayed the epitome of bourgeois respectability, the 'orderly, parsimonious and obstinate' personality, as a character which evolved in a defence against anal eroticism. The spirit of suspicion guiding Freud's approach has accompanied thinkers throughout the ages, and in modern times there have been many who claimed, in the wake of La Rochefoucauld, that our virtues are but vices in disguise.
