3l August 1911  4O7 Brunswick Avenue  Toronto

Dear Professor Freud:

«IP4,0»My best thanks for your very kind letter.  You will be glad to hear that yesterday we decided not to leave this country yet awhile, after all.  It is a complicated story, the main points of which are these: When it became known that I was leaving, various university authorities, particularly the Chancellor, whose daughter I had successfully treated, became surprisingly active in their efforts to retain me; Adolf Meyer and others also wrote strong letters about it.  The result was that they have given me the professorship (in psychiatry) as well as a special department in neurology.«FN1.××Jones was appointed Associate Professor of Psychiatry, a position he held until the end of 1913.  However, the Nervous Ward of the Toronto General Hospital, which had been under the charge of Toronto's principal neurologist, Campbell Meyers, was closed down («MDUL»Annual Report of the Toronto General Hospital«MDNM», 1912, p. 17.)

»  On the strength of that I have, after considerable difficulty, persuaded my wife to stay here a little longer, until next April.  After then we shall settle in London, but I hope to be able to retain the position and cross over every year for four months (to Toronto) for the work of the session.  It will be a decided blow to my local enemies, but I do not see how they can now do anything to prevent it.  I feel that the whole episode must be looked upon as a definite triumph for our cause, since I am mainly known for my psycho‑analytic work, and this was also the cause of the objections to me, which have now been defeated.

«IP4,0»I have finished the nightmare book that has taken me so much work, and am consequently feeling in rather a self‑complacent mood;«FN1.××Jones (1912j).» at present I am busy on the article that Rank asked me to write for the new Journal, and perhaps I may be able to finish it before I leave in ten days' time.«FN1.××Likely Jones (1912h), published in «MDUL»Imago«MDNM».

»

I was very glad to hear your improved opinion of the better conditions in England, but I am afraid that some of them are only the result of my continuous pricks there.  I knew about the applications to you for translation rights; Eder, for example, was a student of mine, and I have managed to interest him in the work.  He got Pfister recently to write an article for his Journal.«FN1.×× Oskar Pfister, "Psycho‑analysis and Child Study; Some Introductory Considerations," «MDUL»School Hygiene«MDNM», 2(1911):366; 432.

»  That Osler had sent you a patient was quite news to me, and very gratifying, for he is highly "respectable".

I fancy I told you that I had enlisted the services of Davidson, the Professor of Romance Philology here, who is a patient of mine.  I am hoping that he will do good work, for he is very able, has private means, and has just resigned his position in order to devote himself to research work.  After reading Graf's book«FN1.××Graf (1911).» he brought to me today a remarkable poem by Thomson,«FN1.××See note 2 to letter 70.» a copy of which I enclose.  I suggested to him that he send a note of it to the «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM».

The news of the «MDUL»Eros‑Psyche«MDNM» Journal filled me with enthusiasm.  I am sure it will be a good move in attracting outside workers in other fields, and in providing an opportunity badly needed for publishing work of the kind; of course I hope to be able to help a little myself, though I must now think seriously of my psychiatry text‑book.«FN1.××This book was not completed.

»

The most exciting news in your letter, however, was that you had determined to devote yourself to religious problems.  Obviously that is the last and firmest stronghold of what may be called the anti‑scientific, anti‑rational, or anti‑objective Weltanschauung, and no doubt it is there we may expect the intense resistance, and the thick of the fight.  Religion has been the subject that has interested me more than any other, probably owing to frightful conflicts in youth, from which I think I am now entirely emancipated.  My reading on the subject has been, I think I may say, really extensive, and has passed through characteristic stages.  At the time when I should have been attending to my medical studies I was mostly reading either philosophy or apologetics.  Later came the agnostic and atheistic literature, and then the work on the psychology of religion (mostly American).  Of late years it has been more the study of comparative religions, and particularly of the savage races.  Some time ago I conceived the idea of collecting material for ten years and writing a grand book on the Biology of Religion, much of which I have actually planned out.  Last year in Holland you inadvertantly discouraged me by making the remark, which perhaps I misunderstood, that the subject was a solved one, and therefore not worth spending time on; evidently I was curiously mistaken.  Nevertheless I decided to go on with my collecting etc., for I felt that to me at least the conflict between science and supernaturalism was one of absorbing interest.  Now it is grand news to hear that the matter will be dealt with properly, and will receive the attention that I felt it deserves.  Possibly I may be able to be of some little service to you in obtaining material otherwise difficult of access.  Strangely enough my experience has been that the most valuable material, especially in anthropology, has been gathered in England, probably on account of their Imperial and travelling opportunities and interests; this even applies to phallic and other sexual material.

«IP4,0»I am also enclosing some extracts from a well‑known writer of over three hundred years ago, on the subject of dreams; they may interest you.

I was delighted to hear of the benefit the holiday had been to your health, and hope to see you in Weimar looking as "fit" as possible.  I need a holiday very badly myself, for I have worked sixteen or eighteen hours a day for the past three months, and am feeling rather played out.  The heat here has been exceptionally intense and trying this summer.

With apologies for such a long letter, which at all events will be the last for some time,  and with my very kindest regards,  yours always cordially  Ernest Jones.