Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/133

 BOOK REVIEWS 125

far as they are aware of the nature of the omission, will most assuredly regret.

To psycho-analysts it will probably be a matter of interest to endea- vour to trace the causes which have led Miss Bradby to throw away her psycho-analytic knowledge in the time of need and to revert so largely to pre-analytic modes of thought; for intellectual backsliding of this sort is unfortunately no uncommon occurrence in the history of Psycho- Analysis, and it is evident that even earnest students must constantly be on their guard against the operation in themselves of the tendencies which lead to this backsliding. Apart from the more obvious shirking of the unpleasant and apparently grotesque issues necessarily involved in a full consideration of unconscious motive forces (a shirking which appears to manifest itself — negatively — in a somewhat impassioned optimism and confidence in human progress), there are perhaps two intellectual confusions which are largely responsible for the result in the present case: (1) the failure to grasp the nature and significance of Freud's distinction between the Preconscious and the Unconscious proper (in the systematic sense), Miss Bradby's treatment of the "Unconscious" being concerned largely with the former and only to a comparatively small extent with the latter, (2) a strong tendency to overemphasise the importance of "functional" symbolism and to neglect the usually more significant "material" aspect of symbols. Following certain of the more extreme exponents of Jung's school, Miss Bradby seems inclined to believe that all symbols express mental states or processes and have but little direct relation to objects of interest or desire in the outer world. This tendency frequently causes her to overlook the ultimate nature of the (unconscious) objects of human endeavour, and sometimes even leads her to almost ludicrously inadequate accounts of motivation ; as when she attributes a mal-observation (reported by Darwin in 1876) on the part of farmers and gardeners to the effect that the field beans of that year were all growing on the wrong side of the pod, to the farmer's "uneasy dread of having his ideas upset"— the particular form of the mal-observation being, it is suggested, due to the fact that "Darwin's own discoveries were threatening the supposed symmetry of unconscious thought" (p. 102).

Although we have been compelled to emphasise the very serious incompleteness of the book from the psycho-analytic point of view, we do not wish in any way to convey the impression that the volume is devoid of merit. Failing a more penetrating and exhaustive treatise on the subject, it virill doubtless be of considerable value both to the student of logic and to the student of psychology, and is more especially likely to be of interest to the economist, the moralist or the politician who is beginning the study of psychology. Psychologists have as yet produced little that is calculated to appeal to workers in these fields, and Miss