Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/131

 BOOK REVIEWS

The Logic of the Unconscious Mind. By M. K. Bradby. (Oxford Medical Publications. Henry Frowde, Hodder and Stoughton, 1920. XrV+316. Price 16s.)

Is has now for some considerable time been apparent that psycho- analytic research has rendered necessary a psychological amplification of logical theory in at least two respects : first, the manner in which the (intellectual) apprehension of reality is liable to be influenced by conation and affection; secondly, the manner in which the characteristics of un- conscious thought (lack of contact with reality', absence of sense of con- tradiction, disregard of time, liability to condensation, displacement, etc.) contrast and interact with the processes of conscious thought, with which alone the science of logic has been concerned in the past. The problems belonging to this second .class have been to some slight extent touched upon by Freud in his fourth series of collected papers, while the more general psychological problems of the first class have been occasionally treated by writers on social psychology and (from the philosophical point of view) by the pragmatists. But anything in the nature of a systematic or comprehensive treatment of the bearing of modern psycho- logy (including Psycho-Analysis) on logic is still lacking; so that the reader will turn with all the greater interest to a book on the Logic of the Unconscious Mind by an author who has already in previous volumes devoted herself to a general exposition of the scope and signi-. ficance of Psycho-Analysis.

Miss Bradby is herself apparently well aware of the importance and magnitude of the task she has undertaken. "The student of logic to-day", she says in her Introduction, "is called upon to give the subject a fresh start, and this he is enabled to do by the discoveries of Psycho-Analysts concerning the Unconscious Mind. Equipped with a new understanding of human motives, he has to look at people's reasoning, his own and others', and see what connecting principles may be observed, what general laws are actually in operation". She is also fully cognizant, apparently, of the vast significance of the unconscious mental forces in shaping human life and human destiny, as when she says, "to a large extent the conscious aims of mankind would seem to be defeated rather than fulfilled, and we may surmise that his reasoning is at fault. At no time was the contrast between the purpose and achievement of human

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