FRj-:uD s psvc'ii()-i'A'iii(»i.<)(;kal tiii-"oriius. 599 



He gives another case where a different spirit was shown. 



A man was nrged by his wife to attend a social fnnction. 

 which did not interest him. He yielded to her entreaties, and 

 hegan to take his dress-suit from a trunk, when he suddenly 

 thought of shaving. After shaving, he returned to his trunk, 

 ])ut found it locked, and. in spite of a most diligent search, 

 the key could not be found. As it was Sunday evening no lock- 

 smith was obtainable. The function had, accordingly, to be 

 abandoned. ( )n the trunk being opened next day, the key was 

 found within it. The man had unconsciousl\- dropped the key 

 in the trunk and sprung the lock. 



As this paper may be too long, I shall not give more of 

 Freud's examples. 1 shall state my own view of his theory; 

 but I should also like to hear what others think of it. In 

 order that the problems may be made clear, 1 shall ]iut 

 them in an alliterative form. The first question is then : 

 " According to your exi)erience, are mistakes generally 

 motivated or mechanical.'" If they are motivated, then I think 

 we should make a distinction which Freud, so far as I know, 

 does not make, but which seems to me to be important. We 

 should examine whether the motivated mistakes consist in some- 

 thing being let out or expressed, which one wishes to conceal, 

 as in the case of the man who said " play " instead of " pay," 

 or the woman who wrote " I shall be able " instead of " not be 

 able to keep the appointment " ; or whether they are the result 

 of an unconscious striving to repress something that has un- 

 jileasant associations, as in the case in which the man forgot the 

 name of his rival. In other words, are the motivated mistakes 

 the expression of a repression or the repression of an expression? 



Persons engaged in education have special opportunities of 

 studying mistakes of others, and probably it is easier to trace 

 motives in the comparatively simple minds of the young. I can 

 only speak of my own mistakes. So far as my observation goes, 

 my mistakes in words and forgetting of names are not moti- 

 vated, but mechanical. When I use a wrong word it is simply 

 because it resembles tlie word I intended ; or I repeat a word 

 that I have used before ; or I use the word that is the opposite 

 of the word I meant to use, as when in a law case I say " the 

 defendant "' instead of the *' plaintiff." When I repeat poetry 

 I use a wrong word in one line because I hark back to an earlier 

 line, or anticipate a later line ; or I go wrong by using a word 

 similar in sound to the word that ought to be used. For instance, 

 in repeating Wordsworth's line. " With new-fledged joy still 

 fluttering in his breast." I have said " blest " instead of " breast." 

 In writing my mistakes are similar. In summing up the law on 

 bills of exchange I noticed that where I had to write " or order " 

 I tended to miss out one of the " or's." In fact. I have found, in 

 my own case, no example of a motivated mistake. 



On one occasion it looked like one. I had to play in a golf 

 competition with a man of the name of Warne. and 



