In the first place, the ascertainment of an accused person's mentality involves his due examination. The primary chapter deals most admirably with this process. It is pointed out that, to be satisfactory, the examination must be thorough, and that there are, consequently, decided advantages in having the accused under remand, in a prison hospital. These advantages supply one strong argument against the oft-made proposals to allow bail more freely in criminal cases. Not only do opportunities for adequate observation occur when the accused is in an institution, but it is pointed out that adequate examination can only be made when the examiner is in the mood to perform it. Only those who have experience in this matter can fully appreciate the truth of this statement. The estimation of intelligence may be of much moment, and for this purpose some 'tests' are necessary. In addition to the well-known 'Terman scale,' various useful performance' tests are mentioned. It is a little surprising to find that Healy's pictorial completion test is not included among these. The very necessary caution is given that these tests measure intelligence only, and do not estimate other more important mental factors. The weight which should be given to a family history of insanity is indicated. The symptom of professed amnesia for the crime is considered, and it is pointed out that emotional tension may occasion a genuine dissociation with true amnesia. Note is made of the fact that sane and insane delusions may coexist in the same case.

The next chapter deals with legal procedure and practice. The inexperienced medical witness could not have any clearer guide. The correct mode of giving evidence is expounded, and some common pitfalls are indicated. The distinction, often unappreciated even by superintendents of mental hospitals, between the two verdicts of 'insane on arraignment' and 'guilty but insane,' is plainly exhibited. A man may be insane at the time of his trial, may rightly be found to be 'guilty but insane,' and yet may be fit to plead. The existing criteria of 'criminal irresponsibility' are described, and a brief history of the development of this conception is provided. Dr East considers that hardship to the accused does not, in practice, arise from the McNaughten dicta, because in suitable cases the law is not strictly applied. He thinks it possible that alteration in the law might result in its less elastic administration. We agree that the time has not yet come for an official revision of the present criteria.

The next two chapters deal with the criminal bearings of mental deficiency. The extreme estimates made by certain American, and other authorities, of the percentage of mental defectives to be found amongst criminals, are rightly rejected. The importance of making psychological investigation before sentence is indicated. With respect to 'mental age,' Dr East says "the upper limit of the delinquent feeble-minded person may be placed at ten to eleven years, as a rule, and the nearer to the ten year limit the less disputable the diagnosis. If twelve years was generally accepted as the upper mental age of the moron, very many persons in this country would be included as defectives for no sociological reason." The difficulty of diagnosis which may occur in cases of exaggerated adolescent instability is pointed out. As regards the controversial topic of 'moral imbecility,' Dr East believes it to be of high importance to distinguish between 'intelligence' and 'wisdom.'

The various types of psychosis, in their connection with crime, are then taken up, in order. Valuable hints are given, and some very interesting observations are made. We learn that in a recent series of sixty-six cases of

Med. Psych. VII

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paranoidal crime no one of the prisoners was charged with a sex offence. This is curious, having regard to the common feature of sexual delusions in these psychotics. The frequent absence of grandiose delusions in dementia paralytica is noted. The frequency of 'alcoholic' crime makes the chapter on alcoholic insanity of special interest. The large amount of petty crime which is due to alcoholic dementia is noted, and comment is made on the unfortunate fact that the majority of those who suffer from this condition cannot be certified as insane. It may be that an alteration in the law is more needed in this direction than in any other. The difficulties which may arise in the differential diagnosis of alcoholic pseudo-paresis and dementia paralytica are indicated. The very important bearings of epilepsy are adequately dealt with. All these chapters are illustrated by well selected cases which have occurred in actual practice.

The subject of psychasthenia is only dealt with briefly, no doubt for the reason that, as Dr East says, it does not convey immunity from responsibility, in the present state of the law. It is probable that a cautious attitude is justified on this, as on certain closely allied topics, in view of the unsettled state of psychological knowledge. Statements made by psychologists are often misunderstood, and are sometimes wilfully misrepresented. There is a real danger that criminology may be retarded rather than advanced. It is our duty to go on working, until such time as we have accumulated a sufficient body of observations.

Finally, we have a short, but most useful chapter on feigned insanity. Very excellent rules are given for the detection of the malingerer. Dr East considers that there is little evidence to support the view that attempt at deception usually results from some mental abnormality.

The worker who is confronted with a problem in forensic criminal psychiatry will, as we have said, find invaluable assistance in this volume. But the book may induce the student to go further. For the question of 'responsibility' is of surpassing interest, and can be fully appreciated only by those who will take the trouble to follow it into the fundamental metaphysical fields.

M. HAMBLIN SMITH.

Crime and Custom in Savage Society. By BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. 1926. pp. xii + 132. Price 5s. net. Malinowski's book is mainly a vigorous protest against all attempts to represent the 'savage' as a sort of weird animal actuated by motives unknown to, and hardly comprehensible by, civilized man.

"A fuller knowledge of the so-called savages has revealed 'Ye beastly devices of Ye heathen' as the product of firm law and of strict tradition, due to biological, mental and social needs of human nature, rather than as the outcome of unbridled passion and unfettered excess" (p. 2).

On the other hand the author shows that anthropology has been rather overdoing this point. It cannot be said that the mechanism which enforces obedience to law in a primitive society is merely an inner mechanism, a 'mysterious propensity' of the savage to obey law; all we can safely assert is that the mechanisms used for these purposes are not the same as those found in civilized society. In examining the system of Melanesian economics he protests against the use of the word 'communism' (Rivers) in connection with their peculiar system of canoe property. He tells us that "a modern

joint-stock company might just as well be called a communistic enterprise (p. 19), but only to assure us that it cannot be compared to a joint-stock company either. In fact he protests against all sorts of scientific catch-words and would limit the function of the ethnologist to an accurate representation of the concrete facts. Reciprocity is the binding force in economic and all other obligations: in fact the dual organization, the division of the community into two exogamous halves, is also an outcome of this principle of symmetry. The ceremonial aspect of transactions gives them additional force.

"The gifts of food in the system of exchange described above must be offered according to strict formalities in specially made measures of wood, carried and presented in a prescribed manner, in a ceremonial procession and with a blast of conch-shells. Now nothing has a greater sway over the Melanesian's mind than ambition and vanity associated with a display of food and wealth. In the giving of gifts in the distribution of their surplus, they feel a manifestation of power and an enhancement of personality. The Trobriander keeps his food in houses better made and more highly ornamented than his dwelling huts" (p. 29). These are the forces at work to maintain -law and order, but egoism is always trying to get the better of the other man and shirk all kinds of duties and obligations. Mourning partakes of the nature of a legal obligation to the dead and his family. A brother is under the obligation to provide for his sister, even after her marriage; indeed the main heap in each garden plot is always for the sister's household. Every relation within the clan is regulated by law, but not as Dr Rivers and others suppose on the principle of primitive communism, for the rule that pervades the whole social structure is that of "give and take." "The savage is neither an extreme collectivist nor an intransigent individualist he is like man in general a mixture of both" (p. 56). Legal institutions in a savage community are not embodied in an independent system; they are just a specific aspect of the social organization. It is rather surprising to learn that, according to the author, no man, however primitive, will instinctively act against his instincts or unwittingly obey a rule if he feels inclined to defy it. The fundamental function of law is to curb certain natural propensities, hem in and control human instincts and to impose a non-spontaneous, compulsory behaviour" (p. 64). In the second part of the book, "Primitive Crime and its Punishment," the author relates what actually took place in a case where the rules of exogamy were broken. It was a marriage between a man and the daughter of his mother's sister ('ortho-cousin' according to anthropological terminology). According to the native point of view this is incest, since the daughter of the mother's sister belongs to the same moiety of the tribe. But nothing happened until the girl's discarded lover charged his rival of incest, publicly "hurling at him certain expressions intolerable to a native" (p. 78). Then he committed suicide, accusing his rival of having caused his death, and in the fight that broke out between the two clans the other man was wounded. Malinowski stresses the point that obedience of the law was not absolute and that even public opinion did not react till it was confronted with a public statement of the crime by an interested party. Moreover as there are certain beliefs about supernatural visitations that inevitably follow clan incest the author was surprised to find that this alone was not sufficient to keep the culprits from committing the crime. He was then told that the natives possess a wellrecognized system of magic the aim of which is to counteract the pathological results of clan incest. We learn from the author that there is a great difference to the native mind between incest with a real sister and a 'clan' or 'classifi

catory' sister. Love-magic has its mythological precedent in a tale of incest between a brother and sister (p. 84). Suicide seems to be fairly frequent; its two leading motives are the desire to confess a crime publicly and take the consequences and at the same time to rouse public sentiment against those who have driven him to this confession and thus caused his death (p. 97). The last chapters are devoted to the questions of mother-right and fatherright and had better be discussed in connection with the author's views on sex and repression. Although, as observed at the outset, the book has its great merits in giving a vivid and life-like picture of certain aspects of savage life, it is certain that those who have read some of Dr Malinowski's other works will be rather disappointed by the perusal of this book. This is probably connected with the general standpoint of the author in connection with the aim of science. He regards science as something purely empiric, descriptive, and is quite satisfied if we are able to account for certain institutions on the basis of their present functions. All efforts to trace back customs to their historical antecedents are classified under the headline of "antiquarian interest" and rather looked down on from the lofty peaks of pure science. The author never once considers the possibility that institutions may have acquired other functions in the course of time and that when he thinks he has 'accounted' for them on the basis of an accurate description of their rôle in native society he is probably only giving the aspect of the institution that is predominant in the minds of the natives as he finds them. With Dr Rivers and many others we believe that true science must go beyond a mere classification of facts and attempt to answer the question 'why' besides the question 'how.' Now the causes for things as they are, whether in the life of the community or the individual, always lie in things as they were. It is surprising that the author who in other papers shows that he is ready to profit by the results of psycho-analytic experience should not have accepted the genetic view-point of modern psychology.

Psycho-analysts will certainly protest against the dictum of the author that "you cannot be spontaneously pushed forwards and pulled back at the same time" (p. 81). Indeed, there is nothing established with greater certainty in the realm of science than the fundamental ambivalence underlying all our psychic life; in other words that we are continually being "pushed forwards and backwards" at the same time in the Unconscious.

We feel that a book dealing with the legal aspects of social life would have gained immensely by examining the questions of repression, of the relation of the ego to the ego-ideal, of primitive narcissism and object love as forces moulding social behaviour. Then, for instance, many customs recorded in this book, such as the food-ceremonies, gifts, etc. might have been accounted for by comparing the behaviour of the Trobriand Islanders with what we know about oral character-development among Europeans1. The cases of suicide clearly show the mechanism known to clinical analysis as "turning round upon the subject." The author concludes his book by observing that "it is high time that the student of Man should be able to say, hypotheses non fingo." We should think however that such a time would mean the bankruptcy of the true scientific spirit, for the dictum either means that we know everything, or, as that is impossible, it must mean that we do not desire to penetrate any further into the Unknown.

G. ROHEIM.

1 Cf. the reviewer's "Völkerpsychologie und die Psychologie der Völker,” Imago, XII, 273.

The Problem Child in School. By MARY B. SAYLES and HOWARD W. Nudd. Three Problem Children. MARY B. SAYLES.

The Visiting Teacher Movement. By J. J. OPPENHEIMER.

The Visiting Teacher in Rochester. By MABEL BROWN ELLIS.

A number of pamphlets on the above and allied subjects. All published at New York, by the Joint Committee on Methods of Preventing Delinquency. The subject of crime, or of delinquency, to use a less question-begging term, is of perennial interest. New and old theories as to the causation of delinquency are constantly being advanced. All these theories overlook the fact that there is seldom, if ever, a single causative factor. The roots of delinquency extend into many departments of life. And as regards the correct treatment of delinquency we are offered quite as many panaceas. All these disregard the fact that the offender is the most variable, and not the constant element in the problem.

In connection with physical disease it has long been recognized that success lies in prevention rather than in cure. Modern students of criminology comprehend that this principle holds equally true as regards delinquency. And there are some signs that they are beginning to impress this idea into the minds of the public, and of the authorities directly concerned. In this country, however, we still have a long road to travel.

Two things have become clear. Firstly, the problem of delinquency is a personal one, and is only to be solved by the intensive investigation of the individual offender, whether actual or potential. Secondly, the roots of delinquency can almost always be traced back to early life. It is established that the vast majority of our habitual offenders commence their anti-social career in childhood. This is evident, even as regards their first appearance in court. And it is well known to all workers in this field that such a first appearance by no means implies that it is the occasion of the first offence. As a consequence, it follows that the true path lies in the investigation not merely of the first offender, but of the difficult, the 'problem' child.

When we deal with such a child, we find that the causative factors of his anti-social conduct are of infinite variety. It is likely that every practising psychologist has been consulted by distracted parents, on account of delinquent trends in their offspring, and knows that carefully chosen remedial measures may often be of the greatest avail. These measures may involve the investigation and the adjustment of many factors, and may be of a prolonged and expensive character. This tends to confine such procedure to the comparatively wealthy. The present, and pressing, problem is to place the resources of modern science at the service of the majority of the nation's children. This can be accomplished by the establishment of properly staffed child guidance clinics. The scope of such a clinic extends far beyond merely dealing with matters which may come within the purview of the criminal courts. The education, public health, hospital, lunacy, mental deficiency, probation, and prison authorities are all concerned. At present, all these are working with little, if any, attempt at coordination. Our task, and it is no easy one, is to link them together, and to persuade each authority to sacrifice the idea that it is alone concerned in what is erroneously assumed to be its peculiar sphere.

It is now generally recognized that the child who presents a problem in school, who is constantly in trouble with his teacher and companions, who