Page:Freud - Reflections on war and death.djvu/50

Rh present made the remark that this might perhaps be true of Austrians, but she ventured to assert for herself and her friends that even in dreams they always felt altruistically. My friend, although himself a member of the English race, was obliged to contradict the lady energetically on the basis of his experience in dream analysis. The noble Americans are just as egotistic in their dreams as the Austrians.

The transformation of impulses upon which our cultural adaptibility rests can therefore also be permanently or temporarily made regressive. Without doubt the influences of war belong to those forces which can create such regressions; we therefore need not deny cultural adaptivity to all those who at present are acting in such an uncivilized manner, and may expect that the refinement of their