CORRESPONDENCE.

VIENNA, January 18th, 1922.

[Translation.]

THE EDITOR, The British Journal of Psychology (Medical Section).

DEAR SIR,

I write with reference to a review of A Young Girl's Diary, prefaced with a letter by Siegmund Freud, translated from the German by Eden and Cedar Paul, 1921-a review by Mr Cyril Burt. Since I was the editor of the Tagebuch eines halbwüchsigen Mädchens, Psychoanalyt. Verlag, Quellenschriften zur seelischen Entwicklung, No. 1, I venture to hope that you will be good enough to publish the subjoined reply in your esteemed Journal:

1. As a person whose name is well known in the field of psycho-analytical research, and as one who has the honour of Prof. Freud's acquaintance, I give my direct assurance that the Diary is a genuine record, and that it was printed without alterations. The only reservations this statement requires are that the names of persons and places were changed and a modification was made as to the status of the diarist's father-simply in order to conceal the identity of the writer.

2. The natural developmental changes shown in the record during the three and a half years for which the diary was kept, have left absolutely no doubt in my mind that the entries were actually made at the time of the experiences which are noted and that they were not posted up from memory at some subsequent date.

3. For the rest, I may refer to the Preface to the third German edition of the Tagebuch (now in the press). Here I give concerning the diarist certain details likely to be of value to those who use the book for purposes of serious study. I also discuss certain criticisms. Finally, I assume entire responsibility for the authenticity of the record.

With sincere respect, I remain,

Yours faithfully,

[Dr] HERMINE HUG-HELLMUTH.

COMMENTS BY MR BURT.

Dr Hug-Hellmuth's assurances that she herself was the editor of the Tagebuch, and that, judging from the development shown by the record, she believes the entries to have been actually made at the time of the experiences which they describe, will be very welcome to the readers of the diary, as they certainly are to its reviewer. All who have read its pages will look forward with the greatest interest to the additional details she has now been persuaded to communicate in the forthcoming edition of the book.

After forming his impressions of the diary, the reviewer wrote to Dr HugHellmuth. Owing, however, to her absence in Berlin, she was unable to reply until the review had been set up in type. She was then good enough to write at length; and, in answer to certain specific questions, stated that both the diarist and the diary were now unhappily inaccessible; she explained that the original of the diary had been destroyed, and that the editor's own manuscript

copy alone was in existence; that the editor had not become acquainted with the diarist until the girl was 19 years old, and that she had not received the diary until the girl was 21. Certain details which she disclosed as to the subsequent history of the girl confirmed, at least in the mind of the reviewer, the suspicion that the girl herself was of an emotional disposition and of a somewhat unusual temperament. Since throughout her letter Dr HugHellmuth referred to the editor of the book as a third person who desired (for certain natural reasons) to withhold her name, the standing of the editor still remained unknown; Dr Hug-Hellmuth, however, added that the editor "affirmed, in view of the marked changes in the handwriting, that the diary was not written retrospectively."

These further details, based as it seemed chiefly on indirect information and recollected impressions, seemed to call for no serious modification in the discussion of the volume, particularly as that discussion was already in pageproof; the reviewer, however, recorded them in a later notice of the book in another periodical.

It is hardly necessary to repeat what has been sufficiently emphasised in the review itself, namely, that never for a moment was it the reviewer's intention to cast any doubt either upon the good faith of the editor, or, indeed, upon the value and interest of the general substance of the book.

CYRIL BURT.

THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS1.

BY LEONARD WILLIAMS.

AMONG the large number of those who now interest themselves in psychology there is, or has been, an impression, amounting almost to an article of faith, that the operations of the mind are independent of physical phenomena. Not only is this impression an erroneous one, but it is almost the exact reverse of the truth; for the operations of the mind are dependent both actually and potentially upon causes which are primarily physical. By this I do not mean merely such obvious considerations as that circulating blood is necessary to the process of thinking. I mean that mind itself is primarily physical, and that what we call conscious thought is, in its inception, action, and make up, fundamentally physical and chemical. In order to consider the matter from this point of view we must divest ourselves of the fallacy that the brain is the exclusive seat of the mind. On looking back through the ages it is not difficult to realise that mind must have existed in the scale of evolution not only before man was moulded, but even before the vertebrates emerged. The ganglionic cells which constituted the nervous system of the invertebrates were the ancestors of our sympathetic or autonomous nervous system. These ganglion cells were the organs of a mind—a very rudimentary mind no doubt, but nevertheless quite adequate and effective so far as the needs of its possessor were concerned. Now this primitive nervous system was the anatomical representation of the primitive mind which controlled breathing, circulation, feeding, excretion and reproduction. And the curious and interesting thing is that this association was never disturbed by the intricate processes involved in the elaboration of the genus homo. The ganglion cells of our sympathetic system of nerves are the lineal descendants of the primitive ganglion cells of the invertebrates, and they continue to exercise a sway, now become to some extent, but not entirely, automatic, over the important and complicated viscera which are concealed in the human chest and abdomen. In the scale of evolution the brain and higher centres of the spinal cord are mere mushroom growths compared to our visceral ganglia and their offshoots. Closely connected with these ganglia in 1 Read before the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society. Feb. 22, 1922. J. of Psych. (Med. Sect.) 11 17

their influence upon the primitive physiological organs of respiration and the like, and practically co-eval with them, are the glands of internal secretion, the ductless glands, or endocrine glands, as they are called. These glands must thus be considered as an integral portion of the primal thinking apparatus, the apparatus that is, which originally developed the plan of receiving an impression and responding thereto by an act, which, by constant repetition, became customary or automatic. If, for instance, you inadvertently touch an object which is very hot, you remove your hand with great rapidity, long before the sense of undue heat has reached your consciousness. You are then performing what used to be called an "acquired reflex." The reflex was originated millions of years ago by the rudimentary mind of our invertebrate ancestors, and the working of this mind in this particular instance dictated the same withdrawing act with such constancy as to stereotype it, and cause it to become purely automatic or unconscious. Now, the whole of our animal physiological life is dominated by this so-called vegetative system. It is a scheme of things which has been built up bit by bit from very small beginnings, and we represent the ultimate or residuary legatees thereof. This system is to us axiomatic. Without it we could have no existence, and every variation in it, is full of vital significance. That we have, on this foundation, succeeded in erecting a superstructure called a brain which enables us to think, and to reason consciously, and on a higher scale, must not blind us to the existence and essential character of the foundation, must not lure us into the flattering fallacy that there is something transcendental about the operations of the mind. A large part of this superstructure of brain and spinal cord-the central nervous system as it is called-is concerned with motion and common sensation, and a small part only with what is called thought, reason, intellect, and their consequences, conduct and character. And even these last, empyrean as they may seem, are almost entirely dependent upon causes which are purely animal and chemical. Talleyrand said "L'homme est une intelligence contrariée par des organes" (Man is an intelligence worried by viscera). The old reprobate probably spoke truer than he knew, for man is not intelligent unless his viscera are working in harmony. Viscera, whose workings are unconscious, are his essentials; conscious mind and intellect, his decorations. Discord among the viscera immediately suspends in him any intellect which he may previously have possessed. A fright, a fever in his blood, a pain in his abdomen, at once reduces him to a primitive automatic, cosmic thing, bereft of reason, and with no language but a cry. This merely means that in such cases

his conscious mind is in abeyance, in order that the automatic or unconscious mind, which is the older, the more experienced and the more reliable partner, may take undisturbed control. Nor is it merely in acute disturbances that we can watch the automatic mind at work. Arbuthnot Lane has shown us how, in order to counteract undue mechanical strains in the adult skeleton, supporting bands of considerable complexity in design and structure are developed. These reinforcements are conceived, and their construction superintended, by the unconscious mind working through the autonomous nervous system, which thus proves itself to be not only the elder and more experienced partner, but by far the more efficient and effective. It gets things done. Whereas we know that the brain and central nervous system, with all their thought, are incapable of adding a cubit to the stature.

And, although the workings of the unconscious mind in matters purely material and mechanical, such as the examples furnished by Arbuthnot Lane, are sufficiently convincing-there are others such as the hypertrophy of organs in response to a special demand-it must not be supposed that evidence is wanting in the region of the purely psychical. How else are we to understand and explain the phenomena of intuition, the process by which people, chiefly women, arrive at a correct conclusion by a jump as it were? Such people tell you they know. They cannot tell how they know, but they know. And the devil of it is, they do know. The reason is of course that the primitive, the visceral, the unconscious mind gives information to the conscious, and like the experienced judge, it announces its conclusions but withholds its reasons.

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Now this unconscious mind which initiates and directs purposeful acts of great complexity, and arrives at conclusions with extraordinary accuracy, resides in what is called the vegetative system. The vegetative system consists of the viscera, the ganglion nerve cells and the ductless glands. The members of this system are not present to our consciousness, but when necessary they can obtrude themselves into our consciousness vigorously and with insistence. Hunger, and the desire to void urine or faeces, afford examples of this intrusion. Now, long before we become conscious, let us say of hunger, our unconscious mind has been aware that the stomach is empty and the stock of energy is running low; it is only when the necessity for food is getting urgent that it transfers this knowledge to the conscious, in order that the latter may take the necessary steps to secure food. The more delicately poised central nervous system, which is intended for higher things, is not troubled with mere animal needs until the devil begins to drive. And what is true of hunger