46
PARTrSAN REVIEW
claim that they are free from neurosis. How often, indeed, is it ap–
parent that the devotion to science can be called a neurotic mani–
festation, or at least can be understood as going very cosily with a
neurotic temperament. Of scientists as a group we might say that they
are less deeply concerned with the manifestations of personality–
their own or others'-than are writers as a group. But this relative in–
difference is scarcely a sign of normality-perhaps of the contrary.
It is the basic assumption of psychoanalysis that the acts of
every
person are influenced by the forces of the unconscious. The
competent psychoanalyst is supposed to find every expression of his
patient meaningful-bearing, tone and pitch of voice, manner of
dress, eagerne...<>s or reluctance in the payment of fees, and so on. A
scientist, a banker, a lawyer, a surgeon, if precisely observed in his
habits over a sufficiently long time would be giving evidence of the
state of his unconscious not less suggestive than the evidence a writer
commonly provides by his works and his letters.
It
would take longer
to accumulate the necessary facts, for the professional standing of
such men requires concealment and conformity. However, if they
were actually being psychoanalyzed, we can suppose that the time the
analyst would require to draw the conclusions would be no greater
than he would need to draw conclusions about the writer similarly
in
analysis.
The result of sufficient observation would, I think, show that the
neurotic elements of the scientist, banker, lawyer or surgeon are of
the same frequency and the same kind as the writer's. Possibly the
writer's fantasies would show as richer and more various, but their
essential content would be the same as those of the others. I of course
do not mean that everybody has the same troubles and fantasies, but
only that there is no special classification for writers.
If
that is so and
if
we still want to relate the writer's power< to
his neurosis, we must be willing to relate all intellectual achievement
to neurosis. We must find the roots of Darwin's power in his sorely
neurotic temperament, the roots of Pascal's mathematical genius in
the impulses which drove him to extreme religious masochism-!
choose but the classic example. Perhaps the political leader is the only
person who is interpreted in so free
a1
way as the writer: we all know
that this demagogue became powerful because he was weak and
snubbed. But if we make the neurosis-power equivalence at all, we
must make it in every field of endeavor; logician, economist, botanist,
physicist, engineer-no profession may be so respectable or so remote
as to be exempt from the psychological interpretation. And since neu–
rosis can account not only for intellectual success but
also
for failure
