A thesis, which may prove, when the actual evidence is examined, to be wholly wrong:
The thesis: Psychology and its related disciplines do not arise from clinical study or laboratory research, but as a branch of literary criticism.
Evidence (extremely thin): Coleridge was the first to use the phrase “psycho-analytic.” Further evidence (a tad thicker): The Romantics, including of course German Romantics, were probing the soul almost a century before Freud.
Coda: It is wholly appropriate that, in the last decades of the twentieth century, Freud should have found his way back to the English department after discovering to his chagrin that he was wholly unsuited to a major in the hard sciences.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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