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Rh stands for that complex." It is, I think, clear that this does not always hold good even with the purely individual symbol. The question is a difficult one, and I should desire to avoid all appearance of dogmatism. I am perfectly willing to agree that, both in the dream and in waking life, I may use symbols a part of the significance of which, in a properly psychological sense, escapes my attention at the time. But what the significance is, and whether there is a symbol or not, must, I think, be determined in each case by analysis ad hoc. The principle "once a symbol, always a symbol," seems to me as doubtful as the further principle, "what has once been indicated by this sign always remains a part of the signification of this sign."

When we come to the universal symbol beloved of the Freudian writers the case is clearer than ever. In my childhood I learned, from my mother, and from other people, many popular stories. Some of them contained material of precisely the kind discussed by Ricklin. Never till I read his book was I in any sense whatever aware of that possible symbolic meaning with which he is preoccupied. The fact is that B, receiving a symbol from A, may very well retain it, and even retain it as a symbol, and yet attach to it a perfectly different signification. In fact any explanation which turns upon symbolic representation can be accepted as valid only in so far as it keeps clearly to the principle that the symbol x must be