July 21, 1923] 



NATURE 



89 



those of Freud. Instead of a wish-fulfilment he 

 regarded the aim of the dream as an attempt at the 

 solution of a pr£)blem, generally associated with a 

 current difficulty, while he ascribes the form of the 

 dream to a regression to modes of activity character- 

 istic of early life instead of to the influence of early 

 desires. These differences are not of vital import ; in 

 fact, on page 98 reference is made to dreams and their 

 analyses recorded by Freud himself, in which Dr. 

 Rivers found a striking similarity with respect to the 

 recency of the conflicts they reveal, and he suggested 

 that the dreams of a patient under analysis may be 

 influenced by the attention of the dreamer being led 

 back to the experience of early life. 



Dr. Rivers doubted the scientific value of free associ- 

 ation as a means of leading back to the source of the 

 dream, though there may be clinical value in the 

 material thus obtained. Pfister, in the book reviewed 

 above, admits this doubt when he writes (p. 38) : " We 

 do not by any means believe that every association . . . 

 shows the paths by which the image under investigation 

 was produced." Freud's conception of the '^ censor" 

 is rejected in favour of the supposition that as sleep 

 becomes deeper the dream takes on a more infantile 

 mode of mental activity and hence is more disguised 

 and more readily forgotten. In regard to the univer- 

 sality of symbolism Dr. Rivers was in more serious 

 discord with psycho-analysts. By " universality " he 

 did not mean the invariability of the symbolic meanings, 

 for the existence of such invariability is not claimed ; 

 it is claimed, however, that certain symbolisms are 

 innate and universal to all mankind, and this claim 

 Dr. Rivers denied on ethnological grounds. 



This book, with that of Dr. MacCurdy, should be 

 welcomed by psycho-analysts. The vigour of the 

 heresy hunt is now abating, but, more than from the 

 intimidatory effect of the hunt, psycho-analysis has 

 suffered from the absence of scientific criticism. The 

 death of Dr. Rivers has meant the loss of one of its few 

 understanding critics. 



(6) Dr. MacCurdy assumes that his readers know and 

 accept the observations of psycho-analysts, which he 

 confirms from his studies of the psychoses, but when 

 he examines Freud's theoretical principles he finds 

 them, to his surprise, not internally consistent. He 

 meets difficulty in Freud's conception of the ego and 

 its relation to the libido and finds untenable the idea of 

 the object libido being transformed into ego libido, 

 while he rejects as arbitrary and unconfirmed Freud's 

 pathology of dementia precox as a withdrawal of the 

 libido from the outer world with a transformation into 

 ego libido. He is content to regard the disease as 

 marked by a central theme, often of a crude CEdipus 

 order, and the problem is how such a theme can gain 



NO. 2803, VOL. I 12] 



this ascendancy. English psychiatrists will perhaps 

 be surprised at the entire neglect of the pathological 

 findings in this disorder, but the physiological and 

 psychological points of view seem to be mutually 

 exclusive. 



It is characteristic of Dr. MacCurdy's position that 

 he criticises Freud's theories from a point of view that 

 demands attention from Freudian orthodoxy, which has 

 been compelled to ignore the criticism of those who 

 without investigation dismiss the findings of analysis as 

 absurd and void of psychic reality. In the case of the 

 war neuroses, to quote a simple example, the use of an 

 easy technique demonstrated the existence of buried 

 memories that expressed themselves in the bizarre 

 symptoms of shell-shock, but discussion was impos- 

 sible with objectors who refused to acquire the technique 

 necessary to confirm or confute the observations. 

 Similarly the significance of the birth-phantasy — a 

 common-place finding of analysis — has not hitherto 

 been subjected to useful criticism. But Dr. MacCurdy 

 rejects as a wild speculation the idea that unpleasant 

 feelings at birth have become the prototype of anxiety 

 and are repeated in states of anxiety (it is curious that 

 the same hypothesis was propounded by Erasmus 

 Darwin in " Zoonomia ") ; he agrees that mythology, 

 delusions, and dreams are replete with examples of 

 birth experience, but points out that the unconscious 

 ideas of painful birth may originate in later life and 

 have psychic reality without being memories at all. 

 He agrees, too, that each analyst finds what he is 

 looking for, but declares this a matter not of suggestion 

 but of selection, and believes that even with this partial 

 selection cure results as soon as sufficient unconscious 

 energy is deflected from symptoms to constructive 

 activities. A chapter is given to an appreciative but 

 critical examination of the theories of Dr. Rivers. 



This important book is constructive as well as critical, 

 and ends with a consideration of the co-operation and 

 conflict of instincts and the statements — in which 

 psycho-analysis takes the offensive — that " Ego and 

 sex instincts, when in the ascendant, lead to the 

 destruction or ineffectiveness of the individual," but 

 " The world of men suffers and has suffered more from 

 . . . insensate devotion to the herd than from all crime, 

 insanity, or nervousness." Millais Culpin. 



Chinese Potters and Porcelain. 



The Wares of the Ming Dynasty. By R. L. Hobson. 

 Pp. xvi -t- 240 -F 59 plates. (London: Benn Bros., 

 Ltd., 1923.) 845. net. 



THIS admirable account of the arts and crafts of 

 the Chinese potters and porcelain-makers during 

 those spacious days of its history when the Celestial 



C I 



