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The essential conception of McKerrow's theory of life is that of a relation of equilibrium between the living process and its conditions,
analogous to that existing in chemistry. A painful stimulus causes a disturbance of the viable equilibrium, which tendency is described in the following three 'laws':
1Action tends to be repeated in similar circumstances.
2Unviable activity tends not to be repeated.
3Activity tends to appear at its proper period.
McKerrow's theory of the neuroses is that they are the effects of deviation from the normal standards of viable equilibrium. Hysteria deviates from the normal standard in over-emotionality and neurasthenia in over-fatigability. This is explained in the case of hysteria, by the organism's relation to external (emotional) situations, and in that of neurasthenia, by the individual's relation to its inner environment or body. Obsessions depend on the first of McKerrow's laws; they are psychological idiosyncrasies. Repression depends on the second law. 'The natural man is interested in sexual matters; the conventional man is interested to ignore what interests him as a natural man'. The First Law stands for the Freudian libido and the Second for the censorship. In referring the physiological neuroses to physiological abnormality in the germ-cell, the author thinks he is labouring under no materialistic misconception. Life cannot be described in terms of physics and chemistry only. Viable equilibrium varies with the individual according to the environment.