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This book is decidedly polemical in character. The author's earlier publications, Das Zweigeschlechterwesen and Die Wahrheit über das Zweigeschlechterwesen durch die Gegner bestätigt, Leipzig, 1928 and 1930, provoked a good deal of opposition in anthropological circles. In particular, Dr. Winthuis was accused of grossly exaggerating the rôle of sexual interests in primitive thought. The present volume is at once a systematic expansion of his original views and a pugnacious refutation of criticism incurred. In the course of twelve years' work as a missionary in the South Seas, Dr. Winthuis acquired a first-hand knowledge of native languages and customs superior to that of most professional anthropologists. The insight thus obtained into the mentality of the tribes with which he came into contact, provided him with what he feels to be the master-key, not only to the mental world of the immediate subjects of his study, but to the mental world of primitive man in general. No excerpts can do justice to the wealth of observation and detailed illustration on which his views are based, but his main conclusions may be briefly summarized. Primitive man is essentially group man. As compared with civilized man his mentality is less differentiated and individualized and more completely subordinated to group-tradition and group-suggestion. For this reason his social manifestations, his tribal rites and customs, offer a more fruitful field for psychological study than any detailed examination of individual subjects. The road to understanding lies through knowledge of language. Primitive mind is not alogical, but it employs a different logic, synthetic rather than analytical. It proceeds mainly by analogy, by identification and personification. Things which resemble each other are readily equated and this equation gives to primitive language its outstanding feature, its figurative ('symbolical') character. In most cases this esoteric significance is sexual. In ritual