August 



1920] 



NATURE 



771 



the help of Mr. Tansley anyone can now make 

 himself acquainted with the main points at issue. 



The work of Freud and Jung deals mainly with 

 the sub-conscious, that mysterious twilight 

 region of the mind whence spring most of our 

 deepest and strongest motives. The key which 

 Freud has used to unlock its secrets is sex. He 

 lays stress upon the immature sex-experience of 

 young children and upon the repressed sexual 

 desires of adult life which show themselves in 

 dreams and in lapses of memory and behaviour. 

 In this way he explains not merely the unusual 

 phenomena of hysteria, but also the mental strains 

 and stresses which trouble the peace of ordinary 

 sane men. Dr. Jung, on the other hand, takes 

 a wider view ; he argues that not only sex, but also 

 every strong natural human interest — the desire for 

 self-preservation, for example — may be the cause 

 of mental conflicts and nervous disorders. His 

 view has been strikingly confirmed by the experi- 

 ence of the physicians who have treated the com- 

 plicated war-neuroses which are familiar to the 

 public under the term of "shell-shock." It is 

 another side of the sub-conscious that has engaged 

 the attention of Mr. McDougall. He has written 

 more upon our instinctive life and shown how 

 much of the experience which seems to us dis- 

 tinctively human is really based upon tendencies 

 that are shared with the animals below us. He has 

 done a great work in analysing our various in- 

 stincts and in showing how they influence our 

 conduct and our emotional life. 



The main reason why the new psychology has 

 so greatly impressed popular imagination is that 

 most excellent results have been produced by it 

 in the treatment of nervous disorders. The early 

 workers in this field were men who were either 

 practising physicians, or closely in touch with 

 medicine. As soon as they formed a theory 

 they proceeded at once to put it to the test of 

 practice. Extraordinary cures have been per- 

 formed by working upon the assumption that the 

 trouble in the patient is of mental origin, and 

 that the bodily symptoms are merely the physical 

 expression of mental strain. In psychotherapy, 

 as in medicine generally, our knowledge of detail 

 and of derivative facts far exceeds our knowledge 

 of fundamental principles. We know, for ex- 

 ample, that if the physician is able to discover the 

 nature of a hidden mental conflict which is 

 troubling the patient, and can talk and reason 

 with him about it, the symptoms are usually re- 

 lieved. This process is technically termed "ab- 

 reaction," and the real efficacy of it is attested 

 by scores of incontestable cures. 



This being so, it is easy to explain why Mr. 

 Tansley 's book is most satisfactory when he is 

 NO. 2651, VOL. 105] 



dealing with such matters as the interpretation of 

 dreams, the " rationalisations " by which men try 

 to justify conduct which is really prompted by non- 

 rational motives, and the great psychic complexes 

 which correspond to the main instincts of man. 

 And we can explain why the book is less satisfac- 

 tory in the general theoretical chapters with which 

 it opens. Mr. Tansley has done his best to combine 

 " new " psychological theories from Freud, Jung, 

 and McDougall into a consistent whole. The result 

 is not very clear or convincing. But perhaps in 

 the present state of our knowledge we could 

 scarcely look for greater success. H. vS. 



Industrial Research. 



The Organisation of Industrial Scientific Re- 

 search. By Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees. 

 Pp. ix4-i75. (New York and London: 

 McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1920.) Price 125. 



THE author of this book is a distinguished 

 worker in the branch of science with which 

 he is associated, and his experience as the director 

 of a large industrial research organisation has 

 been such as to warrant careful consideration of 

 his views. The book is mainly intended for manu- 

 facturers who, while convinced of the need for 

 research in their industries, have had no occasion 

 to consider in detail the planning and administra- 

 tion of a works research department. Many 

 scientific workers will also welcome an opportunity 

 of acquainting themselves further with the broad 

 questions of research policy and organisation in 

 industry, which the individual engaged on a speci- 

 fic task often fails to see in correct perspective. 

 The scope of the book and the sequence of 

 chapters are admirable. Consideration is given 

 to various types of research laboratories, to the 

 development of co-operative research, and particu- 

 larly to the internal organisation and staffing of 

 the works research laboratory, together with its 

 relation to the other parts of the factory. Some 

 general details are also given relating to the 

 design and equipment of the laboratory, and a 

 comprehensive bibliography is attached. 



The classification of research laboratories 

 largely resolves itself into a list of the various 

 agencies by which the laboratories are financially 

 maintained. To avoid the obvious disadvantages 

 of such a grouping, the author distinguishes 

 between "convergent" and "divergent" labora- 

 tories, depending on whether varied problems and 

 phenomena converging on a common object are 

 studied, such, for instance, as at the pottery 

 school at Stoke-on-Trent or at the laboratory for 

 glass technology at Sheffield, or whether a wider 

 field is covered having no particular common 



