526 



NATURE 



[December 22, 1921 



structure of thought-process, interpreted with 

 some originahty in the light of long experience in 

 affairs, on a frankly materialistic foundation. 

 Mind is (and not only is in some way correlated 

 with) physiological process in the brain. The 

 development of the cerebral hemispheres " intro- 

 duces a new and peculiar nervous condition — that 

 of consciousness." "Ideas are material things, 

 and may be figured as clusters of brain-cells." 



(3) Mr. Swisher gives us his solution of " the 

 religious problem" — i.e. "the perfect adjustment 

 of the ego to its environment — the immediate en- 

 vironment and the cosmos." To him the gospel 

 of Freud carries glad conviction. When we grasp 

 adequately the nature of the unconscious through 

 the methods of psycho-analysis we shall realise 

 its influence on the religious life. The conclusions 

 to which the author has been led are set forth 

 with much vigour and freshness, and if he is satis- 

 fied "that religion had a phallic origin" he has 

 full right to say so. The chapter on mysticism 

 and neurotic states invites comparison with Prof. 

 Howley's more "academic" treatment based on 

 convictions derived from an older gospel. 



(4) Dr. Constance E. Long founds her doctrine 

 rather on the fourth gospel of Jung than on the 

 second gospel of Freud, though both must be 

 included in the canonical books of the new faith. 

 A candid friend, who is an academic psychologist, 

 bade her — as she tells us in the preface — alter her 

 title, saying that the book has nothing to do with 

 psychology. She retained it, however, "because 

 the book deals with an aspect of phantasy to 

 which academic psychology is paying considerable 

 attention at present." At the same time she 

 warns her readers that they will find in it nothing 

 about such matters as " the relation of imagina- 

 tion to perception." One would have thought 

 that the discussion throughout turns very largely 

 on the nature of this relation. At all events, 

 whatever label others may see fit to affix to him, 

 no psychologist can afford to disregard new facts 

 in whatever manner they may be reached, and 

 Dr. Constance Long adduces many facts which 

 are worthy of careful consideration. 



Huxley was wont to warn us against passing too 

 lightly from "as if" to "is," pointing the moral 

 in one of his class lectures by reference to 

 Darwin's twenty years' testing of natural selec- 

 tion. He did not disparage the value of hypo- 

 thesis ; his meaning was that we should differ- 

 entiate the several values of our hypothetical "as 

 ifs," and lay bare the evidence which marks the 

 difference in probability between the 095 which 

 approaches the, perhaps unattainable, i of "is," 

 and the 0-05 which is all that sundry flimsy con- 

 jectures can legitimately claim. It looks as if 

 NO. 2721, VOL. 108] 



the integration which obtains in human fantasy 

 and thought were due to an integrating agency 

 other than the natural relatedness of the psychic 

 elements considered in themselves. It is for Prof. 

 Howley to assign the probability-value of this 

 " as if " and to marshal the evidence in its favour. 

 To Sir Bampfylde Fuller it looks as if thought 

 were in ■pari materia with cerebral organisation ; 

 it is for him to state the probability-coefficient of 

 this hypothesis and produce evidence in support 

 of its approximation to i. It looks as if there 

 were imaginal complexes in that which seems as 

 if it were a psyche nowise dependent for its exist- 

 ence on the structure and function of the brain ; 

 it is for Dr. Constance Long and Mr. Swisher to 

 justify their existential "is " in the unconscious. 



An "as if" accepted as "is" becomes a basal 

 assumption or presupposition from which flows 

 the "must be" so obvious to the acceptor that 

 demand for evidence on the part of the critic 

 seems unreasonable. Memory-images as such 

 "must be" retained somewhere; if not in con- 

 sciousness, and if not in the brain, then obvi- 

 ously in the unconscious. Retention otherwise 

 than as such — i.e. retention of the conditions 

 under which fresh blossoms of imagery shall 

 appear under appropriate excitation — is left out 

 of consideration ; but should it not be considered 

 and the ground of rejection laid bare? Retention 

 of memory-images as such in the unconscious 

 seems to be the cardinal "as if " of much psycho- 

 analysis; but is it wholly unreasonable to ask for 

 evidence ? 



To put the matter more concretely, suppose 

 that someone has a dream in which there are 

 certain imaginal factors in fantasy — say, k, m, 0. 

 On a later occasion, by the method of "free 

 association," other factors — say, j, I, n, p — are 

 then rendered supra-liminal. What is the prob- 

 ability-value of the inference that they were sub- 

 liminally present as imaginal factors latent on the 

 prior occasion of the dream ? There is here no 

 question of familiarity with the facts. We may 

 grant that as facts they are given correctly. It is 

 a matter of evidence for or against an "as if" 

 on the basis of which the facts are interpreted. 



C. Ll. M. 



Our Bookshelf. 



Penrose's Annual. Vol. 24 of The Process Year 

 Book and Review of the Graphic Arts, 1922. 

 Edited by W. Gamble. Pp. xii-t- 91 -f plates. 

 (London: Lund, Humphries, and Co., Ltd., 

 1 92 1.) Ss. net. 

 Although the editor has nothing particularly new 

 ' to bring forward this year, he has succeeded in 



