Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/42

34 of Islam, for the hatred of Amenhotep for his father found its final expression in a consuming love for all created things.

The intensity of the unconscious feeling of both these men can only be measured by the stupendous revolution brought about by them. This tendency to attack the authority of the father in the realm of religion and politics, as exemplified in the lives of Amenhotep and Mohammed, is not confined to individuals who show no other manifestation of mental derangement, but is now recognised to be a notable symptom of certain varieties of psychoneurosis. As Amenhotep cast out Amon, the god of his father, and transferred his reverence to Aton on whom he conferred a might and majesty hitherto unknown to the gods of Egypt, so Mohammed cast out the gods of his father, Al-lat, Al-Uzza and Manah, who were worshipped as angels under femalenames, and preached the worship of the Jevohah of the Hebrews, modified to fit the demands of his phantasy. Thus:

"They do not call besides Him on any thing but inanimate objects, and they do not call on any thing but a devil devoid of all good," (Koran, Chapter IV, v. 117) and again,

"Have you then considered the Lat and the Uzza, And Manat, the third, the last? What! for you the males and for Him the females! This indeed is an unjust division! They are naught but names which you have named, you and your fathers; Allah has not sent for them any authority. They follow naught but conjecture and the low desires which (their) souls incline to; and certainly the guidance has come to them from their Lord.

"Or shall man have what he wishes?" (Koran, Chapter LIII, v. 19-24).

But in spite of the strength of the revolutionary tendencies of Amenhotep and Mohammed, we can observe in both a willingness to compromise on certain points, an attitude of mind that is frequently a feature of the behaviour of psychoneurotics. This willingness to compromise may be taken as an indication that the desire for paternal control is never entirely lost, even when the antagonism to it reaches its highest point of development.

Although Amenhotep broke with the ancient worship of Amon,