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This book is hard to review elsewhere than in a theological periodical, but it may be said to illustrate vividly the contrast between the subjective approach of philosophy to a subject and the objective one of science. In discussing, for instance, whether the unconscious has—or rather ought to
have—a moral element the author states: 'Dr. Hughes, rightly as we think, refuses to allow any such de-moralization of the unconscious.' Again, when the same writer suggests that the spiritual side of man should be placed in a super-conscious realm of the mind rather than in the unconscious one the author dissents: 'It is this latter course we should prefer to take, interpreting the unconscious in the deeper sense.' In other words, the conclusions to be arrived at are to be dictated by the preferences of these reverend gentlemen without any reference at all to the actual state of affairs. The idea that knowledge, experience or investigation might have any bearing on the problem under discussion seems completely foreign to the author, who throughout the whole book makes no reference whatever to what investigation has disclosed concerning the actual contents of the unconscious mind.
Although no description is given of any of Freud's work on the subject, beyond stigmatizing his conception of the unconscious as 'a kind of devil's cauldron, exhaling evil vapours and pouring forth evil powers', there are many passing references made to him. We are told that the 'Freudian view of the unconscious regards it as so essentially a morbid region of the mind that the religious psychologist has come to suppose yet another, higher level of the mind, to account for correspondingly higher and better thoughts and impulses.' 'The fact is that where the exclusively selfish aspect of mental and psychic quality is a feature of the unconscious we have not really reached the fundamental level of the mind. We are only in the region of the secondary, individual area of repression. We need to