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This book is intended for the general reader, and the mental hygiene movement in America and this country will doubtless produce a crop of similar publications.
If insanity can be prevented by telling people how they are to think and act, Dr. Paton's book will be very useful to America; for we are told that, in the State of Massachusetts for example, one person in every twenty dies in a State institution, and one in ten has been in a State institution for the insane or feeble-minded.
The author is a strong believer in the heredity of mental characteristics, even in such details as the science and art of shipbuilding. There is not even an allusion to the possibility of such skill being transmitted from father to son by word of mouth, imitation, etc. There are the usual platitudes about mens sana in corpore sano; and 'psycho-analysis is an effort to keep alive the old myth concerning the independence of body and mind'. Yet Dr. Paton does not hesitate to make free use of the discoveries of psycho-analysis. For example, he recognizes hallucinations to be the fulfilment of unconscious wishes, states that a belief is a desired emotion and talks of complexes, projection, autistic thinking and so forth.
The book can, however, be of no service to the readers of this JOURNAL.