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This book is a preliminary exposition—to be followed by a more detailed work—of Dr. Suttie's divergence from Freud. The essential features of this divergence may be summed up very shortly: While Freud presents his discoveries in terms of a dualism of Eros and Ananke (tenderness being described as aim-inhibited libido), Dr. Suttie prefers a dualism of Eros and Tenderness (hate being regarded as a reaction to frustration). Three questions at once arise: How far are these differences verbal, or better, how far are they differences of classification which may vary in convenience but not in truth? How far are they real? And how far are they due to differences in emotional bias?
In practice the question of whether hate is an independent impulse or a reaction to frustration is unimportant— provided we agree, on the one hand, that frustration is inevitable, and, on the other, that hate is increased by the vicious circle of projection and introjection, and reduced when these mechanisms are fully understood. If the theoretical question is worth pursuing further, a clear definition of what we mean by an independent as opposed to a dependent impulse will be required. In the meantime temperament, whether optimistic or pessimistic, will help decide the point. Dr. Suttie likes to feel that the hate in him and about him is merely a perverted form of love, and I must confess to some sympathy with his view. At least this much may be conceded—that 'a pure culture of death impulse' is a psycho-analytical abstraction never found in practice.
Dr. Suttie's views on love seem less defensible. There is no reason, I think, why we should not distinguish as many impulses as there are primary bodily needs— provided we remember that psychological molecules, not elements, are found in life, and that every molecule seems to contain an element of sex. But when Dr. Suttie distinguishes tenderness from sexual appetite, he denies the sexual nature of the infant's relation to his mother. How