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This short but difficult and pregnant work seems destined to mark an epoch in the history of psycho-analysis. On the one hand it throws for the first time some real illumination upon certain most important aspects of the mind which were hitherto wrapped in obscurity, while on the other hand it opens up many intricate new problems, the investigation of which will probably afford material for speculation and research for many years to come. The German original appeared in 1923 under the title of Das Ich und das Es, and it is to be regretted that the English translation should thus have been delayed for over three years—years during which the ideas and concepts elaborated in the book have already deeply influenced the outlook, the modes of thought, the terminology and even the therapeutic aims of psycho-analysis. It may indeed be taken that the main principles which Freud here lays down are familiar to readers of this JOURNAL, in which a number of papers have already appeared dealing with these principles—by way of application, extension, modification or criticism; a fact which in itself at once indicates the interest and utility of these principles both for the more helpful classification and deeper interpretation of existing knowledge and as a means of guiding observation and provoking thought.
In spite of much complexity of detail the main purpose of the book is fairly simple. It consists in an endeavour to establish a division of the mind into three main entities—the id, the ego, and the super-ego. Briefly and dogmatically (and therefore to some extent inadequately) it may be said that the id is the great reservoir of instinctual energy, that the ego is the percipient aspect of the mind, that portion which produces adaptation to reality, while the super-ego corresponds to the moral factors which control in a social sense the adaptations of the ego.
The distinctions between these three entities is, however, by no means always easy and clear-cut. The id appears t