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A new book by Freud means much to every analyst; and to the many true lovers of his genius, of his personality and the magic of his words any book from him will be a delight, even if, as he claims, it contains no important additions to our knowledge. Of his rare qualities one is his variety. Three years ago appeared his book on civilization, with its huge scope, its originality, its magnificence; now after that great symphony the present volume is like a suite of simple melodies.
All Freud's work may be said to have been addressed to the lay public as well as to specialists—we know the reason—but the original Lectures were specifically composed for such an audience. He has been led now to seek that audience once again, and we shall see that he has been impelled to round off his earlier presentation of psycho-analysis by a picture of his views as they stand to-day. He resumes with an incomparable clarity and lucidity the immense field of work in the intervening years; but analysts will note a selection of topics, the omission of some important considerations and a new and recurrent emphasis on certain aspects, notably, for instance, on external causative factors. As compared with the earlier Lectures, this book has less of the atmosphere of immediate living contact with the subject discussed. Theories and conclusions were ever in plenty, since they are the essence of Freud's productive mind; but whereas a close and vivid relation to observation—a contact with the laboratory—characterized the former, this book seems to present a deposit of impressions developed in the study—a crystallization on his own personality, as it were. It is as though to this audience he is willing to shew something of himself as well as of his work.
He begins, as we should naturally expect, with a lecture on dreams, that corner-stone of psycho-analysis; it is simply a recapitulation of the theory of dreams, charming in its lucidity and simplicity. Two problems not dealt with in the earl