88 



NA TURE 



[July 21, 1923 



useful in the book ; it gives accounts of actual cases 

 which show that the analytic method of approach is 

 the most hopeful one for the understanding and treat- 

 ment of the " neurotic " child. 



There is a want of correlation between the different 

 essays, and it is doubtful whether a reader new to the 

 subject would find it made sufficiently clear : yet the 

 book is useful to place in the hands of people who see 

 only evil in psycho-analysis. 



(3) It is not realised that Freud and Jung, starting 

 with a general agreement upon observed material, have 

 so far diverged that Dr. MacCurdy expresses the usual 

 Freudian view when he writes " No attempt has been 

 made to consider the theories of Jung because, quite 

 frankly, I cannot understand them " (p. xiii of " Pro- 

 blems in Dynamic Psychology "). Yet, although Jung 

 admits that his earlier book (" Psychology of the 

 Unconscious ") so aggravated the difficulty that " many 

 otherwise able minds became utterly confounded " 

 (p. 626), this book concerns practical psychology in a 

 sphere where Freud offers little help. Psychological 

 types have always been recognised : William James 

 defined the tough-minded and the tender-minded, or 

 the rationalist and the empiricist, and found the 

 history of philosophy to be mainly that of a clash of 

 temperament. Furneaux Jordan (whose work with 

 Herbert Page on " Railway Spine " is a neglected but 

 important chapter in psychological medicine) is credited 

 by Jung as being the first to give a relatively appro- 

 priate characterisation of emotional types. Jung him- 

 self has already developed the ideas of introversion and 

 extraversion as character types, and in actual life the 

 want of rapport between these types is a matter of 

 daily observation. He notes " the normal bias of the 

 extraverted attitude against the nature of the intro- 

 vert " (p. 472). A recent novel attained success with 

 its picture of the dis-harmony between the introverted 

 Mark Sabre and his extraverted wife, and whoever 

 ventured to criticise the hero inevitably revealed, by 

 the nature of his criticism, the nature of his own type. 



Jung now carries his analyses of types to a finer 

 degree of differentiation, according as they are marked 

 by excess of feeling, thinking, sensation, or intuition. 

 His description is often practical and understandable ; 

 the extraverted intuitive type, for example, to which 

 commonly belong merchants, contractors, specula- 

 tors, agents, politicians, etc., is to be recognised in 

 actual life, and, though he makes no mention of the 

 application, a knowledge of the different types in 

 children should be a useful part of the pedagogic art. 

 But his discussion of the type problem contains a good 

 deal of what will appear to many readers as mysticism. 

 His conclusion is that each type views psychic pro- 

 cesses in a manner peculiar to that type ; that every 



NO. 2803, VOL. 1 12] 



theory of the psychic processes is in i psychic 



process ; hence every individual supposes iimt there is 

 only one interpretation of the psychic process, namely 

 that which agrees with his type. " The scientific 

 theorist is confronted with the disagreeable dilemma of 

 either allowing mutually contradictory theories of the 

 same process to exist side by side, or of making an 

 attempt that is doomed from the onset to found a sect 

 which claims for itself the only correct method and the 

 only true theory " (p. 627). Whether one rests content 

 with this conclusion is a matter of one's own psycho- 

 logical type. 



(4) Dr. Rivers's mode of thought was so remote from 

 the rationalisations of politics that it was not easy to 

 imagine him in the political world ; his candidature 

 was only possible in the comparative calm of a uni- 

 versity constituency, and these essays, as Prof. Elliot 

 Smith says in his prefatory note, were a most remark- 

 able form of appeal to parliamentary electors. It 

 seems likely that as electoral propaganda they would 

 have met with only moderate success ; a serious study 

 of " red-tape " as " an attitude which must be under- 

 stood if we are to correct the evils now associated with 

 govenmient control," for example, lacks the emotional 

 appeal of vituperation, and even in an educated con- 

 stituency the belief in the intellectual power of pohtical 

 ideas is so strong that few voters would be attracted 

 by the view that " no great movement is likely to 

 succeed except under the leadership of one who is able 

 to inspire a degree of confidence comparable with that 

 which actuates the instinctive attitude of the animal 

 herd towards its leader." In fact. Dr. Rivers's demon- 

 stration of the strength of the instinctive and unwitting 

 motives in political and social life indicates the tactical 

 weakness of his own unemotional and logical present- 

 ations. Nevertheless, those who turn away from the 

 catch-words and pseudo-intellectualism of politics will 

 find pleasure in these essays while regretting that the 

 voice was that of one crying in the wilderne^. Dr. 

 C. S. Myers writes an appreciation of the work of the 

 late Dr. Rivers, which expresses the feelings of all who 

 knew him. 



(5) In the opening lines of his preface Prof. Elliot 

 Smith tells us that " The aim of this book is to give a 

 sane interpretation of the significance, of dreams . . ." 

 and the implied criticism of other interpretations does 

 not prepare us for the absence of emotion or prejudice 

 that marks this posthumous work of Dr. Rivers. 

 Accepting the truth of the main lines of the Freudian 

 position. Dr. Rivers examined his own dreams by 

 encouraging a half-sleeping state in which the thoughts 

 came which furnished the explanation of the dream. 

 Working also with the dreams of patients, he tenta- 

 tively propounded certain views as alternatives to 



