Editorial

We propose to say here something about the history and aims of the new Journal. In the past two years it has been repeatedly suggested, by workers in both America and England, that the time was ripe for the establishment of a special Journal in English devoted to Psycho-Analysis and this was also independently recognised by the editors of the Internationale Zeitschrift für ärztliche Psychoanalyse. The question was discussed, indeed, but postponed, at the last International Congress, at Munich in 1913. The main consideration, though not the only one, that has made this increasingly imperative is the unexpectedly great progress in recent years of the interest taken in our Science by readers not familiar with the German language, and the desirability of making accessible to them the latest researches in the subject. It has long been evident that a periodical published mainly in German could not indefinitely subserve the function of an official international organ, and, since interest in Psycho-Analysis has extended from German-speaking countries to English-speaking countries far more than to any other, it was only a question of time when such a Journal as the present one would have to be founded: with the cessation of the war, the resumption of scientific activities, and the reestablishment of contact between different countries, that time may be judged to have now arrived.

Of the suggestions referred to above, more than one were to the effect that a Psycho-Analytical Journal be founded as a private venture. The present Editor and others have advanced against this idea the following considerations. The multiplying of independent journals in the same subject, wasteful in its duplication of reviews and other editorial work, correspondingly restricted in circulation, and productive of much unnecessary trouble to readers who wish to search the literature, is in general one of the banes of scientific work; a strongly supported central organ, systematically and compreh