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Birnbaum gives a clear account of the fundamental ideas of psycho-analysis. He selects from the psycho-analytical body of doctrine such points as are in his view scientifically valuable and useful and of importance for clinical psychiatry. But we are glad to realize that he ultimately accepts all the essential findings of psycho-analysis. Such reservations as he makes have reference to the exclusive emphasis laid upon the sexual factor. Here, however, he fails to observe that the concept of the sexual in the psycho-analytical sense is by no means identical with what we mean by the term 'sexual' in everyday life. Moreover, psycho-analysis has never represented the sexual as the sole effective instinctual force in mental life, while it constantly emphasizes the importance of the ego-instincts. Indeed, in his most recent works Freud's aim has been to give a more profound account of these instincts. The validity of the mechanisms upon which Adler throws the main stress—over-compensation, the masculine protest, the guiding line—has never been contested by psycho-analysis; it has instead merely demonstrated the part played by the libido and, by its thorough investigation of the ego-ideal, has deepened our psychological insight into these phenomena, while the part of the ego-instincts has not been neglected. Most of the rest of Birnbaum's criticisms are not directed against the correctness of the findings of psycho-analysis but simply reiterate that their applicability is limited to a larger or smaller number of individual cases. True, Birnbaum has not indicated any definite mental provinces and phenomena which are fundamentally incapable of explanation from the psycho-analytical standpoint. I do not think that he will be able to do so even in an essay of greater scope than this paper, which is written for instructional purposes Birnbaum recommends caution in the assumption and interpretation of symbols. Here we are in full agreement with him, but at the same ti