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This volume represents the attempt of an Anglican clergyman to capitalize for church purposes what he has read in psychology. He hopes thus to help pastors to function better in their varied rôles, particularly those of counsellor and healer. Additionally, and especially, he aspires to bridge a gulf which divides church people, namely their attitudes about sacraments, by presenting us with a new and psychological theory of these.
The first service with which Mr. Carter credits psychology is that of having pulled back 'the gorgeous wrapping with which man has been wont to cover up his own unbecoming follies'. The lowest stratum of the creature thus revealed is made up of instincts. Among these the first place must be given to sex—even if this fact is exaggerated by Freud's followers who necessarily find what they seek.
Man's self-ignorance is explained by the hypothesis of the unconscious. Readers of the Journal will be interested to learn that 'F. W. H. Myers was the pioneer into this unconscious realm', and made a map of this territory 'to be filled in in detail by others, among whom Freud and Jung stand out pre-eminently'.
Much in the psychology of Freud is acceptable. But the churchman accuses him of thinking 'that his key will open all locks', and at the same time of having a materialistic outlook which, 'as with materialistic theories in general, does not go far enough'. Moreover, 'finding the origin of all complex states in the sex instinct, his solution … seems to point towards the path of unlicensed expression'. The cloven hoof of the Freudian emphasis was seen recently when a lecturer on marriage problems openly said he thought more people were destroyed by sexual starvation than by promiscuity. Mr. Carter interprets this viewpoint as meaning 'In other words, "Down with the moral fences … satisfy yourself"'. Nobler was the theologian who, to show the undesirability of bringing everything to the surface of the mind, said he had heard every variety of