Historical persons, all kinds of

This blog entry about J. Michinson, J. Lloyd: The Book of the Dead is somewhat related to the previous entry. Indeed, many of the people who appear in Michinson and Lloyd's book (Florence Nightingale, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud) have thoroughly changed our views of the world a là "real history". But they got to do so partially by coincidence or strange personal straits. Nightingale was a mystic, and bed-ridden. Freud was probably psychotic, and at some point a morphine addict. He was obsessed about Jung until they fell apart, and after that he though Jung wanted to harm him. It may be interesting to think how much of the theory of psychoanalysis has been some kind of projection of Freud's personal fears and desires.

Marx, of course, might never have been able to carry out his independent research without the financial help and encouragement of Engels. There, too, it is interesting to think what Marxism would have become if Marx carried out his research in a normal university.