Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/68

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BOOK REVIEWS

assumed postural tensions that are the source of a stream of fearful feelings ... It is the uncomfortable tension of the viscera that forces him to go through the dnidgery of learning to apply his left hand' (p. 185). What is this but an ipe dixit} Against the conclusion may be advanced all the arguments that have led the vast majority of psychologists and clinicians to reject the James-Lange hypothesis, and which need not be repeated here.

Our judgement on this matter is based on purely clinical grounds. It tallies, however, with that reached on other lines by Dr. Thacker in his review of Dr. Kempf's first book on the subject (see this Journal, Vol. n, p. 237). Dr. Thacker, a distinguished pupil of Sherrington's, is fully qualified to speak on the technical aspects of the conceptions relating to autonomic functioning, and his opinion coincides with the present reviewer's to the effect that, by vague and unwarranted ex- tensions of these conceptions, Dr. Kempf simply erects the autonomic apparatus into a deus ex machina, the very mention of which is supposed to explain everything.

We do not wish this criticism, however, to be taken in too sweeping a sense. That some day a correlation will be established between not only tiie various emotions, but between every individual wish-impulse, on the one hand and specific changes in autonomic functioning on the other is the expectation of most clinical psychologists, including psycho- analysts. The similar neurological expectation of a generation ago that a like correlation would be established with changes in the central nervous system, particularly the cerebral cortex, may also yet be fulfilled. But we do not imagine that anyone now thinks that if it were so the correlation would provide us with a knowledge of the source of the impulses in question. Is there any more reason to suppose that this source is to be found in the autonomic apparatus, as Dr. Kempf appears to think? Or will it not prove that both departments of the nervous system, the cerebro-spinal as the autonomic, are merely executive in function, systems for registering and carrying out the response to endocrinic or metabohc intracellular excitation? Our criticism of Dr. Kempf's work is therefore a double one: we cannot accept his view of the causal importance of the autonomic apparatus, and we do not find that he has contributed much of importance to the more humble task of correlating mental and autonomic functioning.

The book contains in the next place the application of the prin- ciples considered above, together with an exposition of Dr. Kenjpf s views as to the mechanism of neurotic and psychotic disorder. These are far from easy to discuss, for Dr. Kempf does not give us the im- pression of being a close thinker, and his presentation is often ex- ceedingly general in nature ; one can therefore only record impressions.