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This book presents the proceedings of a conference convened by the Mental Health Research Fund and devoted to the ignorances which hamper the understanding and cure of mental illness and to the ways in which the populations of mental hospitals and institutions for delinquents could be reduced. Leading representatives of psychiatry and the basic sciences took part. The result was a collection of interesting papers and extracts from discussions. In none of the sessions were problems of clinical psychiatry the main topic. It almost seems as if clinical psychiatrists had lost heart and were waiting for things to happen in the basic sciences. Concern about the lack of contact between the clinicians and the workers in the basic fields was expressed by some speakers. Psychopathology was not discussed, except by Bowlby, who reported on his studies into the effects of separation in childhood, and also discussed the importance of the ethological investigations by Lorenz and Tinbergen for human psychology. Eliot Slater spoke on the importance of genetics in psychiatry, and Bowlby pointed out that there was no incompatibility between the genetic and psycho-analytic approach. The interaction between the individual and culture was discussed by Aubrey Lewis, A. T. M. Wilson, Slater, and Simey. All the contributions were of a high standard, though the relevance of many of them to the terms of reference is far from obvious. Brain mythology made an occasional appearance in the course of the proceedings.