DISCOVERY 



245 



considerable skill, and has e%'idently read widely. He has 

 the gift of lengthened quotation. Anyone interested in 

 either the theory or the practice of the scientific method 

 will find this fascinating book of great interest and utility. 

 But can a man learn from a textbook anything that 

 w-il) help him to carry out original investigation ? Many 

 people affirm that such a thing cannot be taught, cannot 

 be learned even by his working with a first-class investi- 

 gator, much less from a book written by a man who has 

 probably not done a stroke of experimental work in his 

 life. But this is an old-fashioned view put forward 

 largely by investigators who too optimistically assume 

 that the qualities they themselves possess are native and 

 special, while a truer view of the matter is that they learned 

 them from their teachers much in the same way as they 

 learned other things. Talent, whatever that word 

 involves, an investigator must have, but definite instruc- 

 tion in research is necessary also. If original investiga- 

 tions were carried out exclusively by men of the calibre 

 of Darwin, Kelvin, or Faraday one would argue on these 

 lines with some diffidence, but of course this is no longer 

 true. In olden days research was the hobby — pleasant, 

 interesting, but entirely unremimerative — of a few. It 

 could be pursued only by those who had private means or 

 who earned a livelihood by other work. They were 

 naturally men of great ability', and there was neither 

 scope nor talent for those who possessed but ordinary 

 ability. Nowadays things are vastly different. The field 

 of science has e.xtended enormously. Research is the 

 order of the day. At some universities, indeed, it is 

 compulsory in certain subjects for a bachelor's degree. 

 There is work not only for the genius, but also for the man 

 with five talents and for the man with one talent. For the 

 last this book by Mr. Spiller should be of real service. It 

 is by no means perfect, for such a book should be written 

 by a small committee of experts rather than by one man. 

 But it points the way, and it certainly offers a helping 

 hand. A. S. R. 



The Analysis of Mind. By Bertr.axd Russell, 

 F.R.S. (Allen cS: Unwind i6s. net.) 



To some of us, one of the most hopeful signs of the 

 present age is the steady development of a New Psychology 

 — a new attitude to life, that is to say, and interpretation 

 of Man ; which is not the system of any individual, but 

 a synthesis of the results of many workers in very different 

 fields. It is too soon yet to attempt a systematic de- 

 scription of the structure ; but we can begin to discern 

 the outline of the foundations, and to catch a vision of 

 the happy new world that may be built upon them. 



Very shortly, and in popular language, we may say that 

 the principles emerging are these : that man is, funda- 

 mentally, a creature of instinct and intuition, not a 

 " logical being " ; his reasoning powers are his best tools 

 (but only tools) for achieving his aim of harmonious 

 self-expression ; mind and body are but different aspects 

 of a " neutral stuff " ; his desires (objectively, his rest- 

 lessness until satisfaction) can be turned to worthy ends, 

 or unworthy ends, but cannot be destroyed. The chief 

 contributions to this work have com.e from the study of 



comparative religion and anthropology ; from examina- 

 tion of the problems of education (Professor Stanley Hall 

 in America, and Dr. Montessori in Italy, to take two 

 very different aspects) ; and, above all, from the vast 

 new field of exploration opened up by Professor Freud's 

 epoch-making work on nervous disorders and the inter- 

 pretation of dreams. Mr. H. G. Wells's heroic attempt 

 at a History of the World is a symptom of the same spirit. 

 In The Analysis of Mind, by Mr. Bertrand Russell, we 

 have a welcome contribution from the standpoint of the 

 mathematical philosopher. Here we find an admirably 

 lucid statement of the problems of philosophical psychology 

 (if we may use such a term to designate Mr. Russell's 

 system of psychology ; which is arrived at rather by 

 logical analysis, than by the empirical, scientific methods 

 of, say, Freud), and an attempted reconciliation of the 

 conflicting views now current ; with the further aim of 

 bringing psychology into harmonious relations with the 

 science of physics. Mr. Russell is, of course, much too 

 acute a reasoner to accept all the doctrines advanced by 

 too-enthusiastic investigators of this promised land — 

 many of whom, indeed, have weak heads, and sufier 

 from a sort of spiritual intoxication. It is just for this 

 reason that the douche of his clear, cool logic is of such 

 value. He is particularly good in his criticism of early 

 Freudian doctrines, and the mistake of attempting to 

 reduce all desire to a physical sex-hunger. Of the later 

 developments of psycho-analytic theory, on very much 

 broader lines, he is evidently unaware (indeed, they have 

 not yet found considered and coherent expression in 

 print) of the abandonment, that is, by many exponents, 

 except in special cases, of the " censorship " theory ; of 

 the subdivision of the unconscious — which would better 

 be called the " other-conscious " — into sub-conscious 

 (instinct) and super-conscious (intuition) ; of the discovery 

 that the unconscious often contains motives as much 

 higher than the conscious ones as the Freudians discovered 

 lower; all this he does not discuss. But his judgments 

 on the earlier theories are so acute and unprejudiced 

 that we may expect most illuminating and helpful 

 criticism, when he has had time to study the new develop- 

 ment. As it is, many of his conclusions are in complete 

 agreement with the work done in other fields. This, for 

 instance, which deals with the satisfaction of conscious 

 desires which do not correspond with the more funda- 

 mental desires in the unconscious : "A secondary desire, 

 derived from a false judgment as to a primary desire, 

 has its own power of influencing action, and is therefore 

 a real desire according to our definition. But it has not 

 the same power as a primary desire of bringing thorough 

 satisfaction when it is realised ; so long as the primary 

 desire remains unsatisfied, restlessness continues in spite 

 of the secondary desire's success. Hence arises a belief 

 in the vanity of human wishes : the vain wishes are those 

 that are secondary, but mistaken beliefs prevent us from 

 realising that they are secondary." Again, here is con- 

 firmation for those who say that in order to learn, children 

 must be interested ; and that flogging, or its modified 

 equivalent, is no substitute (a thing which sounds obvious, 

 but is constantly neglected in our schools — teachers being 



