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Dr. Collins invites the reader to look, over his shoulder, at Dostoievsky, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Barbellion, D. H. Lawrence, and other writers of the day. In so far as he promises nothing, there seems little justification for complaint. But his American publishers unwisely caused to be inscribed on the jacket of the book this tempting advertisement: 'Some
modern minds turned inside out'. The minds are conscientiously pawed over, but any revelations concerning them the astute reader must discover in the quoted extracts.
There is no ordered attack on psycho-analysis in this book, although the author takes every opportunity to disparage Freud and his scientific and literary followers. Fortunately his dicta are of the sort which could influence no reader who is interested in distinguishing between fact and prejudice. He claims that 'Freudian psychology denies the reality of any higher life'; that 'Psycho-analysis—as a therapeutic measure—has not been very useful'; and twice refers to Freud as 'the Austrian Mystic'. He also pays Freud a gratifying, because inadvertent, tribute when he writes:
The discovery in 1866 of the "subliminal consciousness" of the psychologist (i.e. the "unconscious mind" of the psycho-analyst) was called by William James the greatest discovery in modern psychology.
Anyone who knows Carpenter's Principles of Mental Physiology, and who has any sure understanding, however limited, of 'the unconscious mind of the psycho-analyst', will appreciate Dr. Collins's facility of identification.
When one reads an explanatory parenthesis, to the effect that a certain character 'effected a transformation' (i.e. a 'transference': the author's sarcasm thus becoming the reader's irony), and a reference to '"sublimations", such as "taboos"', and similar pieces of misinformation, and then stumbles upon the author's assurance that 'a child can grasp' the principles of Freudian psychology—then the reader's attitude changes. He becomes interested in 'looki