Civilisation, War and Death: By Sigmund Freud. Edited by John Rickman. Psycho-Analytical Epitomes No. 4. New and enlarged edition. (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953. 8 s. 6 d. $1.00.)

John Rickman's second choice from the works of Freud comprises edited essays written twenty to forty years ago, among them Freud's letter to Albert Einstein on war and pacifism (1932). There is hardly anything in this collection which should be discarded as untimely or purely historical; Freud's reflections are as threatening and gloomy as if they had been conceived today. Still, in the interval between the two editions of this selection further

translations have made it possible to display another facet of Freud's insight into the nature of man and his societies. In the first edition the reader was struck by Freud's argument about the inevitability of internal aggression and the consequent probability of future wars. In this new and enlarged version John Rickman has added two further essays, of which one at least shows a somewhat different Freud; one who in spite of relentless and pitiless insistence on the dangers stemming from the aggressive drives reminds the reader of Eros and of his belief in it. How otherwise could he conclude his thoughts on Goethe, laid down in the essay 'On Transience' (1915), with the words: 'We shall build up again all that war has destroyed, and perhaps on firmer ground and more lastingly than before'?