ABSTRACT
In 1926, looking back over a career of forty-one years as a practicing physician, Freud wrote, "I have never been a doctor in the proper sense. I became a doctor through being compelled to deviate from my original purpose; and the triumph of my life lies in my having, after a long and roundabout journey, found my way back to my earliest path" (1926d, p. 253). Clearly, the "original purpose" referred to his intense interest in the humanities and the rich cultural tradition to which he was attached. In his autobiography he stated that from early life he had been "moved ... by a sort of curiosity which was, however, directed more toward human concerns than toward material objects" (1925a, p. 8).
