ABSTRACT

In myths about the birth of heroes to which Otto Rank (1909) has devoted a comparative study, the oldest being that of King Sargon of Agade a predominant part is played by exposure in the water and rescue from the water. In the work of psycho-analysis links are formed with numbers of other mental sciences, the investigation of which promises results of the greatest value: links with mythology and philology, with folklore, with social psychology and the theory of religion. A philologist, Hans Sperber (1912), of Uppsala, who works independently of psycho-analysis, has put forward the argument that sexual needs have played the biggest part in the origin and development of speech. The parallels we have found to dream-symbolism also allow us to form an estimate of the characteristic of psycho-analysis which enables it to attract general interest in a way in which neither psychology nor psychiatry have succeeded in doing.