APPENDIX A 



NOTE ON FREUD'S CONCEPTION OF THE 

 CENSOR 



THE psychology of Freud and his school, although so 

 far-reaching and possessed already of so large a litera- 

 ture, periodical and other, is yet so new that it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to frame a satisfactory critique of any 

 part of it. This is especially the case for those who ap- 

 proach it with prepossessions in favour of any idealist 

 or even libertarian philosophy, for Freud himself, like 

 most, I believe, of his followers, is an uncompromising 

 materialist and determinist. 



Perhaps the most obvious flaw in his determinist 

 philosophy is that to which attention has already been 

 drawn. Whatever its nature, whatever the factors that 

 determine its activities, the censor undoubtedly urges 

 us forward to some end. This, as we have seen, Freud 

 himself admits (see p. 161). When we ask to what end, 

 the answer can only be "progress," and we are brought 

 up once more against the familiar question "What is 

 progress?" to which question we found a clear answer, 

 from biological considerations, in the earlier chapters of 

 Evolution and the Need of Atonement. And this new psy- 

 chology does not seem to me to introduce any fresh 

 factor that would make us revise our conclusions; it 

 merely teaches us more of the mechanism. 



The matter cannot be dismissed thus lightly, however, 

 for in the idea of progress itself there is no necessary 

 accompaniment of freedom. Only if we can show that 

 progress is, and connotes of necessity, progress in free- 

 dom, can we free ourselves from the incubus of deter- 

 minism. And all the evidence of psycho-analysis points 



16 a 



