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In the last few years Mr. Money-Kyrle has revealed himself as a writer of importance on the more theoretical aspects of psycho-analysis, and his second volume, which has come into the hands of the reviewer rather late, is perhaps the most ambitious of the three books that he has so far produced. While admirably clear, it is written in a somewhat condensed style which demands the reader's full and unrelaxing attention—a circumstance which has perhaps brought it about that the book would seem to have received, so far, rather less recognition than it deserves. Within a relatively small compass (the print is far from close) there is contained a great wealth of careful thought and observation. If there is much that is speculative in the book, the speculations are those of a thinker who is at once intimately in touch with basic facts and constantly alert as to their implications.
The aim and general nature of the book are best indicated in the opening words of the Preface, from which we may be permitted to quote: 'My original motive for writing this book was an intellectual discomfort, a desire to clear my mind and to bring some order and consistency into my ideas about psycho-analysis and the relations of this science to philosophy, physiology, biology, anthropology, sociology and ethics. I hope it may possibly satisfy a similar desire in some of those who read it. If it contains anything original, this is to be found more in its form than in its content. The subjects with which it deals are usually presented in isolation, so that their intimate relations with each other are not easily perceived. The aim of this work is to present them in one system and thereby to give a general and consistent impression of the wood which an exclusive attention to the individual trees has often made so obscure'.
In pursuance of this aim the author opens with a philosophically oriented chapter in which he endeavours to show that the behaviourist and introspectionist methods in psych