Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/99

Rh In short, the whole picture presented by Hamlet, his deep depression, the hopeless note in his attitude towards the world and towards the value of life, his dread of death, 1 his repeated reference to bad dreams, his self-accusations, his desperate efforts to get away from the thoughts of his duty, and his vain attempts to find an excuse for his recalcitrancy; all this unequivocally points to a tortured conscience, to some hidden ground for shirking his task, a ground which he dare not or cannot avow to himself. We have, therefore, again to take up the argument at this point, and to seek for some evidence that may serve to bring to the light of day the hidden motive.

The extensive experience of the psycho-analytic researches carried out by Freud and his school during the past twenty years has amply demonstrated that certain kinds of mental processes shew a greater tendency to be ' 'repressed" (ver~ drdngt) than others. In other words, it is harder for a person to own to himself the existence in his mind of some mental trends than it is of others. In order to gain a correct perspective it is therefore desirable briefly to enquire into the relative frequency with which various sets of mental processes are "repressed." One might in this connection venture the generalisation that those processes are most likely to be "repressed" by the individual which are most disapproved of by the particular circle of society to whose influence he has chiefly been subjected. Biologically stated, this law would run: "That which is inacceptable to the herd becomes inacceptable to the individual unit," it being understood that the term herd is intended in the sense of the particular circle above defined, which is by no means necessarily the community at large. It is for this reason that moral, social, ethical or religious influences are hardly ever "repressed," for as the individual originally received them from his herd, they can never come into conflict with the dicta of the latter. This merely says that a man cannot be ashamed of that which he respects; the apparent exceptions to this need not here be explained. The contrary is equally true, namely that mental trends "repressed" by the individual are those least acceptable to his herd; they are, therefore, those which are, curiously enough, distinguished as "natural" instincts, as contrasted with secondarily acquired mental trends. Loening seems very discerningly to have grasped this, for, in commenting on a remark of Kohler's to the effect that "Wo uns ein Gefühl zum Handeln oder