Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/100

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BOOK REVIEWS

great importance — sublimatory or neurotic— may be started either by an important real event or else by a trivial or imaginary one, so in mankind a religious conversion may be brought about either by an event which is really quite exceptional in nature, or else (and this is more probable) by one of quite an ordinary kind, but which is wrongly interpreted as strange or miraculous, owing to a mental predisposition. In either case it is, we are inclined to think, this mental predisposition that is important, since, when it exists, vast changes may be brought about by relatively insignificant stimuli, while in its absence the most powerful stimuli will be without effect. In our present case, since the significance for the mental history of mankind of Christ's personality cannot well be doubted, this personality would appear— from the psychological point of view — to be equally important, whether our traditional ideas concerning Christ are true historically or not. In view then of the unsatisfactory nature of the historical evidence, Dr. Berguer would seem to have weighted himself with an unnecessary burden in making so much of his case depend thus upon the real existence of Christ as a being possessing moral qualities of an exceptional kind.

This, or something like it, must, we think, be the judgement that is passed on Dr. Berguer's attitude from the point of view adopted by most psycho-analysts. Criticism of this kind must not however blind us to the fact that Dr. Berguer's view is a genuine attempt do deal with a tremendous problem that is as yet far from being solved— the question why the religion of Christ prospered where its rivals so largely failed, what were the elements that gave it a success immensely greater in extent and duration than that enjoyed by the (in many respects similar) cults of Isis, Osiris, Serapis, Mithra, the Eleusinian mysteries, etc. To this question Dr. Berguer's answer is simple and is given in the quotations we have made above from his book. It is to the effect that Christ by actually living the perfect life, which in other cases had proved possible in imagination only, introduced new values into human existence which were not capable of being introduced by the working of phantasy alone. In view of the importance of this statement for Dr. Berguer's position, it is much to be regretted that he has not considered in greater detail the psychological mechanisms by which this conversion to Christianity was achieved ; such reasons as these given in the second passage cited being obviously far too vague and brief to be of much assistance.

Though the present reviewer cannot help thinking that Dr. Berguer's explanation is insufficient and that a more complete solution will ultimately be found in analysing the psychological appeal of Christian doctrine and teaching,, it remains of course undoubtedly true that the personality of Christ (as it actually existed or as it was imagined to exist) did exercise a very potent influence over the early Christian Church. We turn therefore with all the greater interest to the second