ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the cultural setting in which S. Freud put his intellect to work, and, on a deeper level, the way in which this heritage conditioned his attitude toward human phenomena. The Freudian enterprise is not a celebration of the Unconscious. Freud sought to subdue the nocturnal, subterranean powers that so strongly pervade German culture, not to delight in them. The fact is that the place of the father, and thence of Reason, is fundamental to the Freudian venture and to the psychoanalytic method. Freud was, however, far too steeped in Judaism, despite being an atheist, ever to imagine that other religions could be devoid of this absolute precept to separate, divide and isolate, or that it might be less all-pervading in other religions. German Romanticism has brought the Unconscious within his reach, so to speak, but he refuses to let himself be engulfed by it; on the contrary, because of his identification with Judaism.
