The time has come to interpret the interpretation theory of Edith Stein, as presented in the portion of her doctoral dissertation that was printed in 1917 under the title Zum Problem der Einfühlung. The author tells us that this dissertation was defended on August 3, 1916. She says that the text originally opened with a chapter offering a historical review of the literature, a chapter that subsequently was left out of the 1917 printing.¹ The loss of that introductory material is unfortunate, for its availability is assumed at many points in the remaining three chapters. Our foregoing survey of the work of Stein's predecessors can perhaps stand in for her own missing historical discussion.