v] Some Implications of the Incarnation 155 



haunted with a fear almost certainly unfounded she 

 does not speak of, that the boy will suffer as she does. 

 Someone was commenting on his skill in the gymnasium, 

 and his mother said, "Yes, he has wonderfully strong 

 eyes," she meant to say arms, but the repressed, and at 

 the time unconscious, wish that his eyes were as strong 

 as his arms, expressed itself, uncalled. 



Again, if you agree with a man that he shall answer a 

 string of words, spoken one by one, each with the first 

 word that enters his mind, you will find that the exist- 

 ence of a repression-complex is indicated by a longer 

 interval, a peculiar, unexpected, word, or no word at 

 all. This pause is the work of the repression-complex, 

 or rather of the unconsciously-acting censor; and by 

 choosing your words, and by careful questioning ; by the 

 method known as free association, or by automatic 

 writing; best of all, in many cases, by the use of hyp- 

 nosis, you can often discover the nature of the complex, 

 even if it is entirely unknown to the person. Do you 

 cunningly object, "How do you know you are right?" 

 there is a convincing answer, " By the good pragmatic 

 test, that if a disease afflicts the man in question, having 

 discovered the hidden cause, you can cure the disease 1 . 

 It works, and that is the pragmatist's test of truth. In 

 such matters we are all pragmatists." Besides, even in 

 the case of normal minds, you can call up forgotten 

 incidents of early life with which some repression-com- 

 plex is associated, as any one who has any practical 

 knowledge of the methods of psychoanalysis knows. 



But chiefest of all, dreams reveal to us the thing 

 which was repressed. The superficial content, the 

 apparent content, of a dream is determined by pre- 



1 I would by no means say that you will be curing the disease 

 by the best or most expeditious way in a great many instances. 

 Even where the case is susceptible of psychoanalytic cure, treat- 

 ment by suggestion is often preferable, for many reasons. 



