ABSTRACT
Freud has, through the principle and method of psychoanalysis, provided us with an instrument and a technique for probing amid the tissues of man's mental life and exposing to view mechanisms and reactions hitherto unsuspected by students of medicine and biology. An interesting phenomenon coming under repeated observation of persons in groups plainly indicates the social character of the autonomy expressed by the individual. There is perhaps nothing as subversive of harmony and growth throughout the entire social scheme as the attitude of parents who, in their own autonomy, imbue their children with an unconscious attitude that is equally autonomous. Accordingly, the analysis of the motives that operate in support of the separate "I" and its autonomy is an analysis of the causes that lead to the construction of both the dream imagery of the individual and of the waking imagery of the collection of individuals composing the social milieu.
