If it causes strangeness, and a legitimate strangeness, for an intelligence like Schopenhauer to cling to a philosophy conceived at thirty and spend the rest of his life supporting it, what about Freud, old and white-headed, continuing to limit human psychology to “repressed sexuality” and childhood traumas? That is the end! It seems like a lifetime wasted, a lifetime in which the spirit has not been able to contemplate higher possibilities. Or else it is evidence of an invincible pride, which sabotaged itself by strangling any and all flashes that might jeopardize the conclusions of previous years. How is it possible, or rather, how can one not laugh when imagining Freud, at the end of his life, spouting the same litany over an equally old patient? Two men, with an open coffin already waiting for them, going through childhood episodes in order to claim them as agents of current actions. It is a real pity that Voltaire lived before Freud.
The Slaves of the Past
