TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

IN 1908 when it was agreed between Professor
Freud and myself that I should be his translator,
it was decided to render into English first the
following five works: Selected Papers on Hys-
teria and Psychoneuroses? Three Contributions
to the Theory of Sex, The Interpretation
of Dreams, Psychopathology of Everyday
Life, and the present volume. These works
were selected because they represent the various
stages of development of Professor Freud’s Psy-
choanalysis,” ahd also because it was thought that
they contain the material which one must master
before one is able to Judge correctly the author’s
theories or apply them in practice. This under-

taking, which was fraught with many linguistic

and other difficulties, has finally been accom-

2 Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases
Pub. Со, 2nd Ed, 1912.

* Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases
Pub. Co。 2nd Ed。 1916.

* The Macmillan Co, New York, and Allen & Unwin, London.

*The Macmillan Co, New York, and T. Fisher Unwin, London.

“ This expression is used advisedly in order to distinguish it
from other methods of “analysis,” which Professor Freud fully
disavows. Cf. The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement,
translated by A. A. Brill, The Psychoanalytic Review, June-Sept.,
1916,

vi TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

plished with the edition of the present volume,
and it is therefore with a sense of great satis-
faction that the translator’s preface to this work
is written. But although the original task is
finished the translator’s work is only beginning.
Psychoanalysis has made enormous strides. On
the foundation laid by Professor Freud there
developed a literature rich in ideas and content
which has revolutionized the science of nervous
and mental diseases, and has thrown much light
on the subject of dreams, sex, mythology, the
history of civilization and racial psychology,’
Bas esthetics, child psychology: and
pedagogics;®. philology,’ and mysticism and oc-
cultism. With the Interpretation of Dreams and
Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Professor
Freud has definitely bridged the gulf between
normal and abnormal mental states by demon-
strating that dreams and faulty acts like some
forms of forgetting, slips of the tongue, slips of
reading, writing, etc are closely allied to psycho-

> Cf. the works of Freud, Abraham, Rank, and others.

*Cf. Freud: Totem and Taboo, a translation in preparation,
and the works of Jones, Rank and Sachs, Jung, and Storfer.

* Cf. Freud, Berny, Rank, and Sachs, and Sperber.

+ Cf. Freud: Leonardo da Vinci, a translation in preparation.
and the works of many others.

“Cf. о. Hug-Hellmuth: Aus dem Seelenleben des Kindes, and
the works of Jones, Pfister, and many others.

“Cf. the works of Freud, Putnam, Hitschmann, Winterstein,
and others,

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE vii

pathological states and represent the prototypes
of such abnormal mental conditions as neurotic
symptoms, hallucinations, and deliria. He also
shows that all these productions are senseful
and purposive, and that their strange and pecu-
liar appearance is due to distortions produced by
various psychic processes. These views are con-
firmed in the present volume, where it is demon-
strated that wit, which belongs to æsthetics, is
subject to the same laws, shows the same mecha-
nism, and serves the same tendencies as the
other psychic productions. With his wonted
profundity and ingenuity the author adds the
solution of wit to those of the neuroses, dreams,
and psychopathological acts.

I take great pleasure in tendering my thanks
to Mr. Horatio Winslow, who has read the manu-
script and has given me valuable suggestions in
the choice of expressions and in the selection of
substitutes for those witticisms that could not be
"translated.

A. A. BRILL.