Eros and Civilization: By Herbert Marcuse. (London: Routledge. Pp. 277. 25 s.)

The theme is the study of the philosophy of Freud's work, a philosophy which is implicit in all Freud's writings, but which becomes explicit from time to time. Civilization is based upon the permanent subjugation of human instincts, and it is questionable whether the suffering thereby inflicted upon individuals has been worth the benefits of culture. The problem is how to render the instincts safe and yet preserve pleasure. All too often there is a tendency to lose the pleasure and yet not effectively curb the instincts. The problem consists of an interplay between the two polarities, Eros and Thanatos. Both instincts, so to speak, are contra-cultural. The change from immediate to delayed gratification, from joy or play to discipline and toil, from receptiveness to productiveness, from internal security and the absence of repression to external security and curtailment by repression, are what happens when animal man becomes a cultured human being. The way in which civilized man became as he is can be traced both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, and this is the way in which the subject is considered by the author, who regards the effect of the civilizing process as one of ever-increasing constraint, with the growth of fantasy as an almost functionless method of internal escapism. Work and productivity are regarded as formidable constraints hardly worth while. Prometheus, the prototype of toil, is considered, together with his polar opposites, Orpheus and Narcissus, bent as they were upon lives of song and dream. Here begins the synthesis of the work. The author regards both these figures as symbols of a non-repressive, erotic attitude towards reality. Orphic