In Praise of Ourselves1

It is in the highest degree appropriate that the readers of—or, to use a more accurate term, subscribers to—the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis should render it an oblation of praise during its Jubilee year of publication. And it would be not unnatural to celebrate, or solemnize (if the matter seems to provide an occasion for solemnity) this journalistic occasion by producing, in the form of a special number, a conspectus of the science for which this Journal has acted for now 50 years as a quarterly mouthpiece.

But that of itself would do less than justice to the occasion. For this is less a Jubilee than a Golden, if somewhat polyandrous, Wedding, serving simultaneously a number of ends. Let us therefore attempt briefly to marshal these in order of priority, and in the first instance pay tribute to that leading figure who de facto founded and continued to edit the Journal; then to those who supported his endeavours in a subordinate but still invaluable capacity; and last but not least to those adventurers in scientific publication who undertook what must have seemed at the time a rather forlorn endeavour, certainly from the commercial point of view.

Many tributes have been paid to the work of Ernest Jones in an astonishing number of fields. But I think that his devoted and meticulous labours as Editor of the Journal have not yet been fully appreciated. To be sure, the reputation of the Psychoanalytical Library, which he also edited, has long been assured. But the Editorship of a Library Series, though infinitely tedious, time-consuming and not always rewarding, is as nothing compared with the scientific hurlyburly incident to running a quarterly journal. Only those who have had the opportunity of watching Jones at work, as for a number of active years I had the privilege of doing, can appreciate fully the strain of constantly exercising judgement, balancing opposing interests and producing what is in effect a new book every quarter. It may of course