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The prospective reader can form an accurate estimate of his ultimate opinion of this book by noting his reaction to the title. If it suggests to him a modest essay on a difficult subject, he will find no reason to alter this opinion: but if he regards the title as ambitious, his ultimate impression will be one of disappointment. To quote the author's own view of the chief purpose of the book, it is '… to provide a vocabulary in which the phenomena of living matter can be discussed, enabling us to disregard the barriers erected between the different branches of biological study': in particular 'to penetrate and if possible to destroy the bulkhead which has appeared between psychology and physiology …' He has been impressed with the fact that if we ask psychologists for a basic psychological theory analogous to the biological theory of evolution 'we are offered conditioned reflexes, Gestalten, unconscious sexuality, "purpose", glands of internal secretion, or faculties'. When, however, general application is given to these theories, 'irreconcilable differences of opinion arise'.
It is only fair to say here that if the two last quotations were representative of the author's habits of thinking, or reading, one would follow his further argument in a state of uneasy depression. No psycho-analyst to my knowledge has ever 'offered' unconscious sexuality as a basic psychological theory, and in the second place irreconcilable differences exist long before, not simply after, attempts are made to elaborate generalizations from the data accessible to various schools of psychological opinion.
For the convenience of psycho-analytical readers, it may be said outright that the book contains little to interest the clinician. On the other hand, for analysts who have sufficient leisure to be interested in 'frontier' activities, i.e. the comparison and correlation of various scientific methods, Dr. MacCurdy's painstaking attack on the bulwark is bound to arouse interest and some d