Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Carl Jung

not receive it as a grace because he wanted to "win it by struggle," forcing it to come with convulsive efforts.

My uncle and my cousins could calmly discuss the dogmas and doctrines of the Church Fathers and the opinions of modem theologians. They seemed safely ensconced in a self-evident world order, in which the name of Nietzsche did not occur at all and Jakob Burckhardt was paid only a grudging compliment. Burckhardt was "liberal," "rather too much of a freethinker"; I gathered that he stood somewhat askew in the eternal order of things. My uncle, I knew, never suspected how remote I was from theology, and I was deeply sorry to have to disappoint him. I would never have dared to lay my problems before him, since I knew only too well how disastrously this would turn out for me. I had nothing to say in my defense. On the contrary, No. 1 personality was fast taking the lead, and my scientific knowledge, though still meager, was thoroughly saturated with the scientific materialism of the time. It was only painfully held in check by the evidence of history and by Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which apparently nobody in my environment understood.

For although Kant was mentioned by my theologian uncle and cousins in tones of praise, his principles were used only to discredit opposing views but were never applied to their own. About this, too, I said nothing.

Consequently, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable when I sat down to table with my uncle and his family. Given my habitually guilty conscience, these Thursdays became black days for me. In this world of social and spiritual security and ease I felt less and less at home, although I thirsted for the drops of intellectual stimulation which occasionally trickled forth. I felt dishonest and ashamed. I had to admit to myself: "Yes, you are a cheat; you lie and deceive people who mean well by you. It's not their fault that they live in a world of social and intellectual certitudes, that they know nothing of poverty, that their religion is also their paid