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Fearing's quotation from Koehler's criticism of the behaviourists, cited in the review of Fearing's Reflex Action, is the best comment upon this ambitious volume, which sets out to be 'a systematic treatment of the facts and problems of human motivation'. The author says: 'I believe that the present book is the first to incorporate the word "motivation" in its title'. Alas, we fear that although the word 'motivation' occurs in the book as well as in the title, we cannot see that much light is thrown upon the author's question, 'Why do people behave and feel as they do?' The problems of human conduct are approached from the standpoint of a physiological psychology, and particularly from the point of view of a new doctrine of the author's own—the theory of retroflex action. In a glossary, retroflex action is defined as: 'The process whereby stimulation of beneceptive or nociceptive mechanisms facilitates or inhibits concurrent cortically adjusted responses. The physiological mechanism of the pleasure-pain senses'. 'Nociception' is: 'A process in a sense-organ or afferent nerve channel which is indicative of conditions or events which are typically injurious to the individual or species', 'beneception' being a similar process indicative of conditions or events typically beneficial to the individual or species. Using these standpoints, the author essays 'to give a physiological basis to the Freudian complex'. He says: '… we cannot neglect to consider such teachings as those of Freud and other psychiatrists, since their theories, perhaps, have done more to found a scientific discussion of motivation than any other contribution to the subject. It is likely that we shall be able to relieve the psychoanalytic doctrines of some of their vagueness, and tie them up with facts in a manner more satisfactory than has thus far been achieved'. How valuable is this attempt to put the Freudian complex in its place