Page:Freud - Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.djvu/127

Rh observed) to find his way back to it in reality. For he goes and relates to the group his hero's deeds which he has invented. At bottom this hero is no one but himself. Thus he lowers himself to the level of reality, and raises his hearers to the level of imagination. But his hearers understand the poet, and, in virtue of their having the same relation of longing towards the primal father, they can identify themselves with the hero.

The lie of the heroic myth culminates in the deification of the hero. Perhaps the deified hero may have been earlier than the Father God and may have been a precursor to the return of the primal father as a deity. The series of gods, then, would, run chronologically: Mother Goddess—Hero—Father God. But it is only with the elevation of the never forgotten primal father that the deity acquires the features that we still recognise in him to-day.

C. A great deal has been said in this paper about directly sexual instincts and those that are inhibited