Note 182 — Chapter XIII · FAMILY INFLUENCES IN RELIGION

The repression of the mother-regarding feelings has had its influence not only on the attitude towards the mother element in religion and on the attitude towards women in general, but also on everything that is (consciously or unconsciously) associated with women and especially with the mother. There is one curious instance of this influence which has been of very considerable importance in the history of philosophy, science and of man's attitude towards some of the most important problems of life and mind. There exists a very general association, on the one hand between the notion of mind, spirit or soul and the idea of the father or of masculinity; and on the other hand between the notion of the body or of matter (materia = that which belongs to the mother) and the idea of the mother or of the feminine principle. The repression of the emotions and feelings relating to the mother has, in virtue of this association, produced a tendency to adopt an attitude of distrust, contempt, disgust or hostility towards the human body, the Earth, and the whole material Universe, with a corresponding tendency to exalt and over-emphasise the spiritual elements, whether in man or in the general scheme of things. It seems very probable that a good many of the more pronouncedly idealistic tendencies in philosophy may owe much of their attractiveness in many minds to a sublimation of this reaction against the mother, while the more dogmatic and narrow forms of materialism may perhaps in their turn represent a return of the repressed feelings originally connected with the mother. (Cp. Von Winterstein, op. cit.)