ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud’s vision of the “psychical apparatus” made its first public appearance in The Interpretation of Dreams of 1900. In introducing his theory of the psychical apparatus, Freud declared that he would “remain upon psychological ground” and “entirely disregard the fact that the mental apparatus with which we are concerned is also known to us in the form” of a nervous system. In any case, it is fair to say that Freud’s “psychical apparatus” of 1900 and thereafter was structurally similar to his earlier "neuronic system" in almost every respect. It was in The Interpretation of Dreams that Freud drew the valuable distinction between the manifest content of a dream and its latent content. It is certainly true that Freud’s observations and experiences had some effect on how he worked out the theory’s details. But that does not change the feet that his general theory—his overall vision of things—was in very large measure an extrapolation from a priori assumptions.
