Nov. 12. 1923

Dear Friends:

It is a constant happiness to hear the news, now from Professor himself as well
as from Otto and Hanns, of the steady recuperation of Professor, with the promise
of an earlier return than was at first thought to complete activity.

To hear that any act or omission of mine, however unwitting, has caused pain to
my old friend Sándor has greatly grieved me, but I can assure him absolutely that
he is mistaken in his idea that the facts he quotes proceed from any evil intent on
my part, either to deprive him of his just credit or, as he suggests, to appropriate
this myself.

I have rarely been so astonished as on reading such an accusation for the first
time in my life; first that it should be brought against me, who have earned a reputa-
tion for being punctilious in such matters, perhaps above the average; and secondly
that it should come just from Sándor, where there was so much reason to the contrary.
As he has brought the matter up I have the right to remind him of the following facts.
If his theory of suggestion is familiar to the majority of psychiatrists, psycholo-
gists and, of course, psycho-analysts throughout England and America I can claim
to have contributed a little to this desirable state of affairs: not only by having
translated and got published the work in question, but also by writing a long essay
in exposition and support of it, in which he naturally received the fullest credit.
My paper of which he now complains appears in the third edition of my Papers next
after this essay, which would be an idiotic act if I had the motives he ascribes to
 

me. In this book there are many more references to his name than to that of any other
author except of course Freud, more even than to Abraham and Rank. I quote these
facts because I think they give an a priori probability that some other explanation 
is more likely than that I should have committed a misdemeanor so at variance with
my whole life.

It is regrettable that even the shadow of a “priority” dispute should fall across
the Committee, which hitherto has happily been spared these disagreeable accompani-
ments of scientific work. I think it is a pity that Sándor did not first ask me for
an explanation of the facts instead of immediately coming to the conclusions he has
and denouncing me before an audience. One more general consideration before I deal
with his specific complaints. Anyone who has done much writing must know that the
question of when one quotes a given author is by no means always obvious. Particular-
ly is this so in our subject where, in referring to conclusions that have become
the “Gemeingut” of Psa, we constantly write such phrases as “psa teaches”, “the find-
ings of psa show”, etc, etc. I am sure that Professor, for instance, must long have
got over the disappointment of not finding a reference to himself every time such
matters as repression, infantile sexuality, etc, etc, are mentioned. The whole thing
is a matter of individual judgement, provided the ordinary rules of honesty are
followed. At the same time any writer can be sure that the other authors will be
more sensitive than he is about the question of how often they are mentioned. It has
probably happened to all of us to be surprised at not finding one of our works
quoted where it would have seemed to us appropriate, but one has to remember that
there may be a great many reasons for this besides evil intent.

Coming now to Sándor’s complaints in detail. (1). The first is that I did not
quote him as the originator of the libido theory of suggestion. The only place
where this might have been appropriate was in the following passage: “It is gener-
ally agreed that this rapport consists of an emotional bond; as is well known,
 

psycho-analysts consider the bond to be sexual in nature and due to the re-animation
of an infantile attachment to a parent.“ This was familiar knowledge to my audience,
which I took absolutely for granted, as the words here underlined show. I nowhere
referred to any author, least of all to myself (as Sándor wrongly suggests), in
support of this familiar theory. (2). Sándor objects to a sentence of mine, written
thirteen years ago, which he says is taken “fast wörtlich” from his own book. Anyone
who takes the trouble to compare both sentences will see that there are not two
words the same, but it is true that the idea is the same. The idea, however, (that
the processes in the person hypnotised are more important than those in the hypno-
tist) is a truism for which neither Sándor nor myself can claim the slightest origi-
nality. Dozens of authors could be quoted to the same effect, which has been widely
accepted by hypnotists since they gave up the notion of mesmeric fluid. (3). I am
supposed to cite four authors on the relation of auto- to hetero-suggestion, but
not the only psycho-analyst who has dealt extensively with the topic. I nowhere
quote four authors to this effect. The only group of four authors (Bernheim, Janet,
McDougall, and Lipps) are quoted on the definition of hetero-suggestion, these being
the standard definitions known, i.e. on the question of what exactly should be in-
cluded under the term suggestion. Further, that Sándor has ever dealt “ausführlich”
with the relation of auto- to hetero-suggestion is unknown to me. In all his writ-
ings I can only recall two or three sentences in which auto-suggestion is mentioned,
and there in a sense (in the production of neurotic symptoms) in which I ex-
pressly said I do not think is a proper use of the term. (4). I did not quote three papers
 

he mentions on the role of inhibition. Here I must make the admission that it has
been for some time physically impossible for me to be freshly oriented in psa
literature as I should like to be. One of those papers, for instance, was a critic-
ism of Alexander’s metapsychologische Betrachtungen, and I postponed reading it until
I could find time to read this, which has not yet happened. The other two, of a
very abstract nature, appeared at times (1915 and 1919) when there were external
reasons for their not making a deep impression. I cannot see, however, that any in-
justice to Sándor has resulted therefrom. In the first place the word “auto-sugg-
estion” is not mentioned in any of them, and even had I had the papers fresh in my
mind I doubt if I would have quoted them, for the theme of inhibition, valuable as
are Sándor’s contributions to it, was quite foreign to what interested me when
writing my paper and is only incidentally mentioned in it. When reflecting on what
psa literature there was to look up from the point of view of my theme (relation
of auto-suggestion to ego psychology) I could only think of two matters, the work
done by Abraham and Freud on the connection between masturbation and autistic dream states, 
and of course Freud’s late work on the ego.

It would not be irrelevant of me to add that it happened that, being uncertain
on one or two theoretical points, I submitted my paper in question to Professor
before publishing it. It is true that he did not answer the specific points I raised,
but he was good enough to give me a general criticism of the paper and to suggest
one or two minor alterations which of course I made. No one could be quicker to
feel an injustice to Ferenczi than Professor would, and had such a thought occurred
to him I am sure he would not have hesitated to express it at once. I also gave
the paper to Abraham to read when he was in England in July, but as I doubt if he
had time to read it very carefully I cannot quote him in this respect.

It remains to consider what reparation Sándor would wish for, if he still
thinks one necessary. He can himself write a letter of protest, or make any remarks

he likes in abstracting my paper or reviewing the book that also contains it. My
own opinion is that he would enhance his reputation by claiming something that
no one has denied him, such as his originality in regard to the libido theory of
suggestion, but that is of course for him to judge. Or I am willing to write a
letter to the Zeitschrift or Journal, provided I am not asked to retract what I have never
done. Will Sándor please indicate exactly his wishes in the matter.

As for McCurdy, I really cannot be held responsible for his vagaries. I had
already noticed the passage Sándor refers to, and had noted it to contradict in a 
review I am writing of his book. It seems to be a habit of his, for there are
several instances of it. This particular one is probably concerned with a complex about myself
rather than with Sándor. In one place he invents the idea that I had received
false credit for using the word rationalisation, asserting (without any reason)
that I had derived it from Trotter. Having taken from me this unimportant posses-
sion, he compensates by presenting me with Ferenczi’s valuable theory!

Sándor quotes as proof that he is not moved by vanity the fact that he supp-
ressed his reaction to Schilder, but I suspect that I am being made the victim
for both Schilder and MacCurdy.

I must apologise for the length of this letter, but it has meant a great deal
to me to clear myself from one of the gravest accusations that can be brought against
any scientific worker, which I trust I have done. I hope equally that I have ass-
uaged Sándor’s pain at the thought that he could have been so ill-treated by a
friend.

With greetings to all,  
Ernest Jones