280 



DISCOVERY 



based on a logical argument from these facts. Roughly 

 it is this : the known facts a and b can be classed together 

 under the name X. Since the class X exists, the hypo- 

 thetical facts c, d, etc., of the class X must also exist. 

 This is not a caricature of Freud's argument ; it is his 

 argument. Since the two facts mentioned above can 

 be observed and may be called repetition-compulsions, 

 therefore other repetition-compulsions must exist ; in 

 fact the impulse to the reinstatement of the inorganic 

 condition must be inherent in the living organism. Now 

 this is not a logical conclusion, it is a simple fallacy, 

 the old fallacy of giving to a name more reality than is 

 contained in the observed facts which the name originally 

 covered. Freud points to no actually observed death- 

 impulses. He makes a tentative suggestion that sadism 

 may be such an impulse, but realises that all his previous 

 work has made of sadism an impulse of the opposite kind, 

 one belonging to libido or tlie life-impulses. 



Your reviewer speaks of " the conclusions to which an 

 unflinching intellectual courage may lead him " (Freud). 

 But these are not conclusions at all, in any ordinary 

 sense. They are not reached by any process of logical 

 reasoning, but are more closely related to " free-associa- 

 tions " — the polar opposite of logical thinking. 



Professor P'reud is, I believe, one of the most talented 

 original observers of our time, but I do not think that 

 his permanent reputation will be advanced by those who 

 would take as serious contributions to science these 

 latest fanciful imaginings. Even in his best work there 

 was a tendency to alogical thinking which went side by 

 side with careful observation and cautious generalisation. 

 It was this tendency which has made it so difficult for 

 his work to be appreciated at its true value by more 

 logical thinkers. In his latest work this alogical tendency 

 seems to have taken the bit between its teeth. 



It seems better to take this book at Freud's own 

 estimate as " the exploitation of an idea to see how far 

 it will lead," and to regret, perhaps, that so brilliant an 

 investigator prefers such diversions to the task of adding 

 to the body of scientific knowledge. 



Yours, etc., 

 Robert H. Thouless. 

 The University, 

 Manchester. 

 August 15, 1923. 



ATLANTIS 

 To the Editor of Discovery 



Sir, 



With reference to the Editorial Notes in the 

 August issue, may I be permitted to criticise your usage 

 of the word " Atlantis " ? You employ it to denote 

 (i) a submerged continent in the Pacific, and (ii) an 

 ideal civilisation ; whereas, as you are doubtless aware, 

 the original Atlantis of Plato's legend was an island 

 continent in the Atlantic, which, subsequent to the decay 

 of the quasi-ideal civilisation upon it, was submerged by 

 a tremendous cataclysm. 



That " Atlantean " civilisation was a mythical ideal, 

 similar to that of the " New Atlantis " of Bacon, is no 



doubt true, though " Utopian " would, I suggest, convey 

 that meaning more precisely ; but the use of the word 

 " Atlantis " in connection with a submerged Pacific land- 

 mass is to be deprecated. 



In Plato's story — as also, in the various deluge legends — 

 we probably have, in spite of the much-vaunted Celestial 

 IVIyth theory, an actual reminiscence of a land sub- 

 mergence coeval with prehistoric man, taking place, as 

 the etymology of the word " Atlantis " suggests, some- 

 where in the Atlantic region. The various attempted 

 identifications of the submerged area — e.g. with the 

 Dolphin Ridge, with the Palaeolithic land-bridge bstween 

 Great Britain and the Eiuropean continent (Dogger 

 Bank), etc. — are, at the present time, largely discoun- 

 tenanced ; but, at any rate until research definitely demon- 

 strates the entire falsity of the legend, it would be a pity 

 for the original significance of " Atlantis " to become 

 obscured by using the name, even allegorically, in con- 

 nection with any submerged land-mass, irrespective of 

 location in time and space. 



In particular, to associate the submergence of a civilised 

 (albeit possibly mythical) Atlantic continent with the 

 breaking up of the Pacific Ocean portion of Gondwana 

 Land, the latter event taking place during tlie Mesozoic 

 era, ages before the earliest traces of Antliropoids had 

 appeared, is surely scarcely justifiable. 



Yours, etc., 

 Stanley A. Mumford. 



RUNNVMEDE, 



II Wellington Road, 

 Enfield. 

 August 8, 1923. 



[It must have been obvious that the notes in question 

 were dealing with two different subjects, connected 

 together to preserve an allegorical continuity. Roughly 

 speaking, in the first six paragraphs we mentioned the 

 geological and other scientific evidence as to the existence 

 of Gondwana Land, which we said " stretched from 

 Brazil to AustraHa, even including a vast portion, if not 

 the whole, of Africa in its extent " (i.e. occupying con- 

 siderable portions of what are now known as the Atlantic 

 and Pacific Oceans), which we were surely entitled to 

 consider as our " lost Atlantis " ; we also commented 

 in those paragraphs on forthcoming investigations of the 

 Pacific portion of this " lost Atlantis." In the remainder 

 of the notes we passed on to a consideration of the 

 purely ideal L'topias formulated in men's minds from 

 Plato's Republic to H. G. Wells's Men Like Gods, and in 

 the last sentence we again linked up the matter of the 

 two sections of the notes by stating that a material lost 

 Atlantis was not likely to rise out of the waves again for 

 the investigation of discoverers, but that an ideal Atlantis 

 was gradually taking material shape in our midst. 



What it all comes down to is that Mr. Mumford would 

 have liked us to use the name Atlantis in its strict associa- 

 tion with what was probably " an actual reminiscence 

 [amongst the ancients) of a land submergence coeval with 

 prehistoric man," whereas we used it in its less academic 

 and more popularly accepted connotation. — Ed.] 



