Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/78

 70 BOOK REVIEWS

customs, which represent the filtered experience and wisdom of the race, are of unmense value. But the ends which they mainly seek and the methods which they follow are not chosen with reference to the needs of the neurotic child'.

Professor Putnam's most original contribution to Psycho-Analysis is of course his contention that certain important aspects of human conative processes have been overlooked by the majority of psycho-analysts, and it is to this contention that a considerable number of tlie essays here collected are devoted. Professor Putnam rightly regards this as ' the one important difference ' between Freud's position and his own, a difference which, he says (p. 156) consists in the fact that 'in estimating mental conflicts I attach great importance to an intuitive recognition, which I believe to be bound up with the very nature of every mental act, of the contrast between the capacity of the mind for infinitely varied self- expression and the somewhat painfully felt inadequacy of each partial attempt at self-expression'. This doctrine, which, as stated thus in its simplest form, appears to apply only to the sphere of psychology, ac- quires a metaphysical aspect in virtue of Professor Putnam's views as to the nature of the whole to which partial expression is given in every mental act; this whole consisting, in the last resort, not merely of the individual mind or individual organism but of humanity itself or (by a fiirther extension) of the total universe. The individual is therefore, according to Professor Putnam, constantly endeavouring with the in- adequate means at his disposal to express the whole universe of which he is a part, a process which, it would appear, is ultimately connected with the fact that all phenomena are capable of reduction 'to a single principle, to one single form of activity'. 'Without "comprehending" this fundamental fact, i. e. without feeling or recognising its identity with the deepest in us, we cannot really comprehend anything at all — or, otherwise expressed, without recognising this background for our speech and our concepts, we can only go on speaking in metaphors and symbols, without being conscious that we are only using metaphors and symbols'. But when, on the other hand, wc come to comprehend this most fundamental truth and become ever more and more aware of the reality underlying the symbolism of our life, we gain the power of understanding everything from the deepest and purest essence of our nature. We then discover that, whereas the form of every mental process is the same (namely, a striving to manifest itself), its result varies endlessly, according to its completeness or incompleteness. 'The manifold phenomena of our life express symbolically the varieties and graduations of this process. Our feeling of power, our joy in success or disappointment at failure, indicate that we are continually measuring ourselves by a fairly definite, though not always definable norm of perfection' (p. 192).

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