Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/138

 130 BOOK REVIEWS

In his preface Mr. Ralph breaks a lance for the lay analyst, in which he has our full sympathy, but "methinks he doth protest too much" when he maintains that those who have succeeded in psycho-analytic work have done so not because of tiicir medical training, i>ut in spite of it (author's italics). There may, especially from Uic psychological point of view, be deficiencies in a medical education, but in the treatment of patients the advantages of it are greater than the disad- vantages. E_ j_

RELIGIo^. AND THE Nkw PSYCHOLOGY. A Psycho-Analytic Study ol Religion. By W. S. Swisher, B. I). (Geo. Routledgc and Sons, London, 1920. Pp. 261. Price lOs. 6d.).

From the publishers' announcement we learn that this is "the first attempt in book form to apply Psycho-Analytic or Freudian Psychology to the entire problem of Religion and the conduct of Human Life", but the reader will be disappointed if he expects from this to find a psycho- analysis of individual religious phenomena. There is in the book neither this nor any fundamental investigation of religious problems, so that the book would have to be pronounced unsuccessful if wc were to accept the author's statement (p. x) that it "aims to be a comprehensive treat- ment of the religious problem in its various phases, the varied pheno- mena of religion, and various normal and abnormal religious types together with certain suggestions for a new and different kind of edu- cation, from the viewpoint of the new psychology".

We suspect, however, that the author's real aim was quite other than this, and that actually he has succeeded much better than might be thought if judged from the less modest standards indicated above. The desire evidently permeating the book is the altruistic wish to help other people who may find it hard to reconcile their religious tendencies with either the new psychology or the facts of life, and the spirit of goodwill and benevolence that breathes through the whole book quite disarms criticism. The author appears to be an American clergyman, presumably from Boston, who has come to realise that the old insistence of religious teachers on dogmatic beliefs and moral precepts as the sole guide to life urgently needs to be supplemented, if not indeed actually replaced, by a more comprehending altitude towards human nature and Its possibilities. This he has found in psycho-analysis, which is of course the new psychology referred to in the title, and he follows his homiletic impulse to place before others the more satisfactory point of view he has himself attained.

The book is a kindly talk on such matters as the problem of evil. religious conversion, human motives, etc., as illuminated by psycho-