that was directly opposed to the previous state of mystical participation with the environment. For an act of objective judgment immediately distinguishes subject from object, and the principle of objective causality, as distinguished from the magical causality of primitive beliefs, can consequently be inferred. This separation of the subject as a distinct entity also provides him with the power of interfering with the customary operation of objective causality. He can, in fact, will. He can also begin to think. As long as he was in a state of identification with the mentality of the group we can only say that experience was 'represented' to him in definite and unalterable ways. He was completely at the mercy of the archetypal processes of the collective mind, whose immediate, unquestioned authority over his own mentality was quite untempered by individual criticism. But as soon as he feels this other law of his own being, he possesses the power of criticising from a new standpoint. He has crawled up out of the primeval swamps of the collective psyche, and feels beneath his feet the rock of individual experience and judgment. The first queries he flings at the world from this isolated vantage-point might be regarded not only as the first sprouting of science, but also as the first religious experience.

However fantastic this hypothetical individual may seem (since, manifestly, the differentiation of individual consciousness did not happen overnight) we may none the less condense the evolutionary process, for the sake of convenience, into some such mythological figure. For it is the strangely amphibious nature of our own psychology which, while allowing us a deep instinctive rapport with the primitive, at the same time occludes any reasonable comprehension of his mentality.

Our objective conscious function is a function of individual orientation. Its whole quality is, as it were, terrestrial. It provides us with definite concepts concerning terrestrial reality, but the oceanic processes of the unconscious take place beneath a refracting surface which deflects the direct rays of conscious insight. Our cognition of unconscious processes is, therefore, limited to fitful, indirect and oblique discernments, which have that same ambiguous and questionable quality that Lévy-Bruhl discovers in the white man's conceptions of the primitive.

The author has reconstructed the primitive mentality from varied fragments gathered from the most diverse races, and the picture gains enormously in depth and meaning from the fact that the author, for the most part, allows the material to speak for itself. The further we read into the book the more are we impressed by the sense that here is a picture of our own p sychic background. We cannot fail to perceive that collective representations, homologous with those of the primitives, are continually operating with the same unquestioned authority in our own collective mentality.

The real significance of the collective unconscious as a dynamic psychological background has nowhere received a more vivid and telling representation than in this picture of the ever-present, invisible forces which operate upon the primitive mind with absolute ascendancy. From this point of view we might also regard the collective representations of the primitive mind as homologous with the primordial image in our own psychology.

This book, in my opinion, is a work of very great value, and it has particular importance at the present juncture, when science is struggling to advance from a purely analytical and empirical attitude to a more synthetic conception of human psychology. The author presents his material with an almost austere detachment and permits himself no conclusions that are not abundantly

borne out by trustworthy evidence. If a certain speculative latitude has become noticeable in the foregoing reflexions, this only testifies to the wealth of associations liberated by the book's perusal, and must in no way be attributed to its distinguished author.

H. G. BAYNES.

Problems in Dynamic Psychology. A Critique of Psychoanalysis and Suggested Formulations. By JOHN T. MACCURDY, M.D. Cambridge and New York, 1923. Pp. 383. Price 12s. 6d. net.

It is a task of no small difficulty to write a closely reasoned criticism of the work of a great original mind, and to bring about thereby a clearer understanding on the part of the reader of the profound significance of the work so criticised. That Dr MacCurdy has succeeded in this task is due to the fact that he brings to the undertaking the highest of all qualifications sympathetic insight, in addition to expert knowledge and practical experience of the problems, and a really exhaustive study of Freud's own writings. This book, with its careful, critical reasoning, and its constant reference of theories and interpretations back to observed facts and immediate deductions therefrom, will probably do more than any book hitherto published in English to enable every intelligent person who really desires it to form a just estimate of the contributions made by Freud to Dynamic Psychology.

Dr MacCurdy warns his readers that the first part of his book (which consists almost entirely of minute and exhaustive criticism of Freud's formulations) "is unquestionably hard reading." This is true, and while it was largely inevitable that it should be so, it is a question whether some difficulties might not have been eased if Dr MacCurdy had incorporated at least a hint of his constructive alternatives with his extremely lucid but definitely destructive criticisms. In the one connection (Chap. x, "Dreams") in which he has adopted this method, it is far easier to follow the line of Dr MacCurdy's argument, and to appreciate the significance of his criticism.

The book is divided into four parts, the first of which consists entirely (with the one exception just noted) of criticism of Freud. Part II is entitled "The Relationship of Psychoanalysis and Suggestion." Dr MacCurdy includes Hypnosis under the general heading of Suggestion, which he agrees with Jones in regarding as being "based dynamically on unconscious sexual attraction between the patient and physician" (p. 120). Towards the end of the book, however, he amplifies this account (Pt IV, p. 375). Admitting that "suggestion bulks largely among herd phenomena," he adds, "Perhaps the only safe view to take of the matter is to assume that group suggestion is a utilization and overdetermining of an earlier sex mechanism."

Part III contains a careful and critical outline of the "Preconscious Phase," largely based on the work of Ferenczi and Burrow. The most valuable chapters in this section are those on "The Origin of Symbols," and "The Meaning of Auto-Erotism." Symbols, according to Dr MacCurdy, originate in feeling, and any object that reinstates a feeling of the preconscious stage is likely to become a symbol. It seems, on this theory, that symbolization is a characteristic activity of regression. "In the stage of mental development to which return is desired no accurate perceptions of the environment is (are?) possible,

even

feelings cannot be formulated consciously; they can only be felt. Perception, consciousness, verbal thoughts come later and when they come, certain experiences that can be registered are dowered with an attractiveness and a feeling of similarity which they owe to resemblance to the experiences of the preceding stage when consciousness was larval. It is only these later experiences that can be remembered, they stand symbolically for the enjoyment of the past. But a most important point since the valuation of the past is a retrospective falsification, the wish did not develop till the symbols appeared, and hence that wish can be expressed only in symbols" (p. 167). There is obviously a great deal more to be said about the origin, development and function of symbols than is indicated by Dr MacCurdy, but he disarms criticism by admitting that "the discussion of this chapter is from one angle only, that of psychopathology." Auto-erotism is interpreted in biological terms; it is a process of education, both for objective orientation in general, and more specifically for adult sexuality.

Part IV, on “Instincts and their Classification," opens with a detailed and appreciative criticism of the theories of Rivers in Instinct and the Unconscious. We can only regret once again that the untimely death of Dr Rivers prevented his reading this chapter, and presenting his own views of the questions under discussion in fuller detail. Dr MacCurdy's critical brilliance is as much in evidence in this chapter as in Part I; for while he ruthlessly exposes the weaknesses and inconsistencies of many of Dr Rivers's theories, he never lacks in appreciation of the extraordinary fruitfulness of the method of approach and the setting of the problems.

The remaining chapters of the book are of a definitely constructive character, and they shed a backward light upon the critical work which has preceded them. It cannot be said, however, that it is all illumination in these chapters. There are two problems both of them fundamental-which seem to elude even the careful attempts at formulation which Dr MacCurdy aims at. They are the problems of (1) Psychic Energy, and (2) the Relation of Instinct and Instinct-motivations to Intelligence. Dr MacCurdy is very insistent that instinct itself is not energy. "It is often assumed, I think erroneously, that instincts have energy in themselves. But they are simply modes of behaviour in the presence of generic situations. Faced with a certain type of emergency, the organism responds in accordance with its instinct pattern. A pattern has no energy; the latter comes from the organism. An instinct directs energy; it does not create it" (p. 263). To be demonstrable, he argues, energy must work against resistance, and accordingly Dr MacCurdy finds that only unconscious motivations are capable of directing energy, for they work against resistance and "assume the form of some substituted symbolic outlet"; thus, "the allimportant dynamic elements are unconscious ideas charged with instinctive. energy, i.e. unconscious instinct-motivations." But, on Dr MacCurdy's own theory, there is a time in mental development when there is no unconscious ("it is probably incorrect to think of the mentation of the child at this age as either conscious or unconscious. He has only a larval consciousness and imagination," p. 174), and it is the spontaneous repression of the Oedipus trend, together with similar processes, that actually creates the unconscious for the first time (p. 295). Either, then, there must already be mental energy involved in repression and the creation of the unconscious, or else this is a purely nonpsychological process. In the former case it cannot be only "unconscious ideas charged with instinctive energy" which are the dynamic elements, and in the

latter case a surrender is made to a non-psychological method of interpreting all phenomena of repression. It would seem that behind instincts and instinctmotivations there is the "fundamental energy supply" which Jung formulates as "Libido" (p. 46). (Incidentally Jung definitely disavows in Psychological Types the interpretation which Dr MacCurdy puts upon Libido as a “general vital force, an élan vital." In his definition of Libido Jung states: "Neither do I understand libido as a psychic force, a misunderstanding that has led many critics astray. I do not hypostatize the concept of energy, but employ it as a concept denoting intensity or value.") In that case it is incorrect to speak of "unconscious sex energy" (p. 371) and of "any one of the instinct groups as the source of this energy" (p. 372). That which directs energy, but has none in itself, cannot be the source of energy. Dr MacCurdy cannot have instinct as "a pattern" which "has no energy," and at the same time maintain that "unconscious ideas charged with instinctive energy" are the "all-important dynamic elements." Indeed, on Dr MacCurdy's definition of instincts, they clearly belong to structural, and not dynamic, psychology; and the dynamic problem in connection with instincts would be to determine whence and what the energy is that urges libido in greater or less intensity into the channels of the instincts.

The second problem must be only briefly referred to. An 'instinct-motivation'-which is Dr MacCurdy's alternative to the Freudian wish'-arises when man makes use of abstract thought, ideas, as tools with which his instincts can work (p. 259). But how comes it about that the instincts find "abstract thought and ideas" lying ready to hand, much as the simians find sticks or stones? They differ from tools or instruments in being the fabrication of the same mind that is the operator through instinct; they are not provided ab extra to facilitate the development of instincts into instinct-motivations. We are forced to the conclusion that Dr MacCurdy's formulation of instinct as a 'pattern,' devoid of energy, and apparently also of cognitive elements, is treacherously simple. Unless instinct is both tendency and, at least potentially, apprehension, it seems to be a term which might be usefully omitted from psychology. Indeed, the fruitfulness of Dr MacCurdy's discussion in this last section is largely due to the fact that he disregards his own self-denying ordinance, and treats instincts as dynamic psychic units.

J. CYRIL FLOWER.

Psychology and Morals: An Analysis of Character. By J. A. HADFIELD. Methuen & Co., Ltd. Pp. vii + 186. Price 6s. net.

No one could be better fitted than Dr Hadfield to carry out the task he has attempted. The object of this book, as stated in the preface, is "to set out facts and principles revealed by modern psychology, especially in its application to nervous disease, some knowledge of which is of vital importance to all who, like parents, teachers, clergy, and general practitioners, are called upon to give practical direction and advice to individuals in regard to actual problems of life and conduct." Dr Hadfield has done this with directness, with lucidity, with that indefinable attractiveness which differentiates the readable book from the dull book, and with, at times, the redeeming savour of a very pretty wit. He has written a book which will be frankly unacceptable to the con

ventional. The conventional moralist will wish that he had made it less acceptable to the psychoanalyst; and the conventional psychoanalyst will regret that it is not more unacceptable to the moralist. This latter consideration is perhaps irrelevant, as no psychoanalyst considers himself conventional. Dr Hadfield classifies failures of conduct as 'nervous' disease, moral disease and sin. He discusses the influence of 'self-phantasy' on behaviour, the action of the Ideal as Stimulus of the Will,' self-realisation, sublimation, and other kindred topics. As those who are familiar with his lectures and writings would expect, the author's point of view corresponds mainly with the advanced wing of academic psychologists, as represented by McDougall. Dr Hadfield repudiates rigid ethical conceptions of good and evil-"the 'flapper' of fifty is an evil woman," is one of the jester's touches- -he describes evil as "misdirected impulse" but throughout the book, despite these pronouncements, there is the undercurrent of a certain moral absolutism. The following extract from the chapter on "The Ideal as Stimulus of the Will" gives the keynote of the whole volume:

The will, we have observed, can be aroused by an ideal to fulfil that ideal. There are thousands of ideals presented to the mind every day, and it is out of these that the self "chooses" those which it thinks potent for its purpose. What we call "choice" is the judgment, after deliberation, as to whether this ideal or that will be most conducive to our completeness. Our choice is always determined by this end, but the deliberation and judgment as to the best means to that end gives us the sense of freedom. Choice is thus concerned with means to an end, which is an activity of the intellect. Choice is then primarily an activity of intellect, reason, and judgment, not of the will. It is our judgment that decides which of the multitudinous ideals, true and false, will provide us with the means to satisfy that craving for fulfilment which impels us, like every organism, to seek its completeness our ultimate end. The self having deliberated and chosen, we are under ordinary conditions free to pursue our ideal. Indeed, this is the only thing we are free to pursue; it is the only thing that can stimulate us, for it is the only thing that ultimately appears likely to produce happiness.

But it is obvious that these facts can be stated as well in terms of determinism as of freedom. The will is free to seek its completeness, it is free and usually able to move towards the ideal by which it may achieve it. At the same time, it is determined by the ideal and by the craving for fulfilment and self-realisation, which nothing but that ideal can satisfy. If the will is not aroused by such an ideal, it falls victim to the dominance of the impulse of the moment (p. 80).

In a book so full of value and interest, there is only room for criticism of a secondary nature: or perhaps we should say that serious criticism will come from extremists in either camp. We may, however, take up a few minor points.

Dr Hadfield is a little vague in his application of moral criteria. For instance he talks (p. 44) of "sin in a more strictly psychological sense." It is obvious of course that conflict may and frequently does involve the individual's ethical standard: but it is difficult to see how the term can be used in any but an ethical sense. Or again we are told that "Primary impulses are good"; surely the psychologist should resist the attempt to apply ethical values to the instinctive life? It is not enough to infer that primary impulses cannot be bad. It is necessary to state categorically that they are a-moral, or at any rate outside the range of ethical values.

In his discussion of phantasy the author seems to have introduced a good deal of ambiguity by a somewhat arbitrary limitation of the term. To most of us "The Ideal" should be classed as a phantasy-progressive and inspiratory, no doubt, but none the less a phantasy. To Jung, as we all know, phantasy