General: H. G. Baynes. Primitive Mentality and the Unconscious. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 1924, Vol. IV, p. 32.

The object of this paper is to discover whether knowledge of primitive mentality can justify the formation of synthetic or intuitional conceptions of the unconscious. A prelogical or irrational characteristic is common to both. This point of view is based on the views of the Zürich school, which postulates that the myth can only be fully understood by an intuitional or prelogical attitude, and that mythological formations are invaluable in the shaping of instinctual attitude to experience. The importance attached to the racial unconscious, and the theory of survival of racial inheritance is corroborated by Lévy-Bruhl. In the prelogical psyche the author observes a quite irrational indifference to the real nature of objective facts. The almost mystical relationship existing between the primitive and the objects of his environment is based on a subject-object identification by which he is intuitionally informed of objects, apart from cognition. Primitive man lives in a world determined by his subjective representations. The primitive in a state of mystical participation fails to see himself or others objectively. Examples of myths of transformation and metempsychosis are given in which there is some mystical function occurring between subject and object. Baynes produces Haldane's biological theory of relativity in support of his thesis. Haldane postulates an unanalysable relation between the living organism and its environment which agrees with Lévy-Bruhl's concept, 'Participation mystique'. Fear of the unknown dominates the primitive mentality; this explains why objects that are known acquire a magical significance. The projection of the subject into the environment is a defence against the unfamiliar. The theme of transformation is always accompanied by the symbolism of sacrifice. It is thought that dreams of animals and insects which undergo metamorphosis point to corresponding transformation processes in psychological development. In the author's op