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In spite of its misleading title and blurb, which have been added posthumously, this is a delightful book. In a rather loose form, but in a brilliant style, Sachs offers a multitude of fascinating observations on art, creative inspiration, education, love and hate. One chapter is devoted to a biographic study of the Apostle Paul and another one to Hitler's technique in leadership.
Sachs compares the majority of us mortals with a child who is locked up in a room with all the doors open, because he is afraid to pass through them. Those who have the courage to pass through the open doors become the leaders. Reformers too have a disposition towards independence and rebellion, but they are bound by a programme. Leaders in a revolutionary movement are regarded by one group as reformers, by the other one as criminals and malefactors. In Sachs' opinion, criminals are reformers in spite of themselves.
Another door which is open but full of pitfalls, is science. Psycho-analysis, which Sachs calls a scientific art, enables the observer 'to peer over the fence'. But Sachs warns us that many people find only what they want to find. While they speak of intuition, they are really fooled by their narcissism.
Turning to another door, which is unfortunately used very little, Sachs discusses the problem of indifference by so many people towards the arts and the beauty of nature. The unpredictability of what would impress a person and what will leave him indifferent, is most puzzling. 'Let the pacifist father tell his son about his dreadful experiences in the war, about hunger, pain and death, and an hour later he will catch his boy playing soldier.'
In a chapter on the 'mending of shadwos' Sachs demonstrates that due to early fixations, the sex drive is obstinate in its choice of what it wants but, by the aid of fantasy, it is willing to accept surprising substitutes. Again, Sachs feels puzzled by the unpredictability of pleasures.
A second argument against pleasures is derived