November 24, 1923] 



NA TURE 



761 



at the scope of the book, and declared, " the con- 

 ception IS as scientific as the exposition is hicid." 



I mention these, for I recognise that in academic 

 circles here it "is the custom to "drink the label," 

 but I give no value to mere authority ; I attach the 

 utmost importance, however, to the serried march 

 of my own arguments proceeding from the deepest 

 ascertainable base in regular succession to the con- 

 clusions offered. 



Would any one guess from the statements of the 

 reviewer that this presentation of psychology, so far 

 from depending on my personal feelings, is entirely 

 objective in conception, and that I do not ask the 

 reader to take my series of " Fundamental Processes " 

 at my word, but offer the demonstration of their 

 " necessity and sufficiency " in an exposition of which 

 the meticulous and exhaustive character may be 

 excused only by the paramount desire for rigour ? 



The reviewer is wrong even when he attempts to 

 soften a disparaging note: "The choice of the name 

 [Aletheian system] seems to imply a slight on other 

 systems, but probably nothing of the kind is intended." 

 What I intend to imply is that this work stands to 

 other systems in a relation corresponding to that of 

 Pasteur to the writings of the physicians of Louis 

 XIV., or that of Galileo to the Schoolmen who 

 discussed phenomena by talking of " proper " and 

 " improper " motion, and decided questions not by 

 illuminating from the foundation but simply by 

 appealing to academic shibboleths. 



That, too, is the meaning of resting my hope, not 

 on " the young " as your critic cautelously insinuates, 

 but on uncontaminated and capable young minds. 



Arthur Lynch. 



80 Antrim Mansions, Haverstock Hill, N.W., 

 October 30. 



Col. Lynch 's complaint of ill-usage to his book 

 in the review in Nature amounts to a charge that 

 the reviewer has failed to appreciate the originality 

 and the scientific importance of the author's system 

 of psychology. This charge is true. All I can do 

 is to assure your readers that I wrote without con- 

 sciousness of prejudice, and only after a thoughtful 

 reading of the book and sincere attempt to discover 

 the author's meaning. I respect the author and had 

 no intention of giving offence. 



I am surprised and sorry that my reference to the 

 author's former book is resented. May I say that 

 the playful, not spiteful, allusion to the reception 

 of the greatest philosophical book of the greatest 

 British philosopher, Hume's " Treatise of Human 

 Nature," was not meant to bear any reference to 

 financial matters. Col. Lynch says that the whole 

 edition of his former book has, in fact, been sold. 

 I am glad, but I had no thought about it. Possibly 

 Col. Lynch does not know that the whole edition of 

 Hume's book was sold and that he was not smarting 

 under financial loss when he said that it had " fallen 

 still-born from the press." Thk Kkvif.wf.r. 



Psycho-Analysis and Anthropology. 



Dr. Malinowski's illuminating letter in Nature 

 of November 3 contains a reference to what he 

 rightly calls my " harsh judgment " upon Freud's 

 incursion into ethnology. But he has not made it 

 clear that I was criticising the views expressed in 

 " Totem and Taboo " and not Freud'n teaching as a 

 whole. For I am in complete agreement with the 

 latter part of Dr. Malinowski's letter, in which he 

 insists upon the value of Freud's reform in psycho- 

 logical mdliofl for the solution of anthropological 

 problems. 



The examples quoted by Dr. Malinowski himself 

 illustrate the aspect of Freud's work which is not 

 merely fallacious but also in conflict with the essential 

 part of his own teaching. Moreover, Freud entered 

 the ethnological arena without preparing himself for 

 the fray by making himself acquainted with the facts 

 he attempts to explain. No one with any knowledge 

 of the practices of totemism, exogamy, and taboo, 

 can fail to recognise that Freud is unacquainted 

 with the essential facts and associations of these 

 remarkable customs, and that his suggestions as to 

 their origin are irrelevant and nonsensical. 



The essence of Freud's reform in psychological 

 method was his insistence upon the fact that all the 

 vagaries of behaviour and belief, the phantasies of 

 the sleeping and waking life, had definite causes, 

 which could be discovered and traced back to their 

 real source in the individual experience of each of 

 his subjects. But after exploiting this, method of 

 analysis of individual experience up to a certain 

 point, Freud suddenly changes his tactics and quite 

 inconsequently postulates a " universal symbolism," 

 into conformity with which he tries to force the in- 

 cidents of each individual's distinctive experience. 

 This appears to me to be in direct conflict with the 

 essential feature of his theory and practice. More- 

 over, this speculation of " universal symbolism " is 

 responsible for most of the unsavouriness of Freud's 

 methods which have excited such violent antagonism, 

 and I believe not without some measure of justifica- 

 tion. It is the duty of those who appreciate the 

 value of the really fundamental part of Freud's 

 reform to expose the inconsistency of these accretions 

 which imperil the whole doctrine. 



The criticism of his adventure into ethnology is 

 inspired not only by the realisation of his lack of 

 knowledge of the subject, but also by the fact that 

 it is the more than doubtful and inconsistent part of 

 his psychological teaching which he proposes to use 

 as a panacea for the cure of ethnological difficulties. 

 At a time when the ethnological doctrine of " psychic 

 unity " is at its last gasp, Freud comes along with 

 the fantastic nostrum of " typical symbols " and 

 tries to revive it. 



In the Monist of last January, I have analysed the 

 claims made by Freud in " Totem and Taboo," and 

 exposed their futility. But as even the qualified 

 support Dr. Malinowski accords to this aspect of 

 psycho-analytic method involves a very grave danger 

 to anthropology, I have repeated here some of the 

 arguments set forth in greater detail in that criticism. 



G. Elliot Smith. 



The Origin of Petroleum. 



I HAVE read, with much interest, the article on 

 the " Origin of Petroleum " in Nature of October 

 27, p. 627. 



In a discussion of this nature one of the great 

 difficulties, as mentioned by Mr. Cunningham-Craig, 

 is for geologists and chemists to meet on common 

 ground. This applies, for example, to a point raised 

 in the article in Nature as well as during the dis- 

 cussion at the Institution of Petroleum Technologists, 

 in the words to " formulate any one hypothesis to 

 explain the formation of such complex mixtures as 

 mineral oils, and still more difficult to account for 

 the great diversity in chemical composition exhibited 

 by mineral oils from different localities." Consider- 

 ing coals as analogous, are not the chemical and 

 physical variations between lignite and anthracite 

 fully as great as those found throughout the range 

 of petroleums ? Yet no one casts doubt on the 

 vegetable origin of coal on the score of the almost 

 infinite variety of coal. 



NO. 



2821, VOL. I 12] 



