On The Eightieth Birthday of C. G. Jung

On the 8th of July, 1955, the Society of Analytical Psychology held a reception in honour of Professor Jung's eightieth birthday. Professor C. A. Mace and Professor Arnold Toynbee paid a gracious compliment to the Society in delivering addresses which the Editor has much pleasure in including in the present issue of the Journal.

I do not know why this honour should have come my way, why I should be invited to join in tribute to C. G. Jung on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. It was thought, maybe, that I could represent, in some degree, the academic, the scientific, or the “pure” psychologists. But I must confess that I cannot claim to be quite as academic, quite as scientific, or for that matter quite as “pure” as I may on this occasion be expected to be.

Many, perhaps a majority, of my academic colleagues in British Universities would claim that Psychology is a Natural Science—and I should agree. If I am unorthodox it is in thinking that it need not be, and is all the better for not being, a natural science, pure and simple. It is a science and can be something more. As many precious stones derive their charm and their value from what, scientifically speaking, are “impurities” in their composition, so it is, I believe, with the many jewels of psychology which we owe to Jung.

In the University of London, psychology is one of the subjects common to the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Arts. It has, of course, a place of increasing prominence in the Faculty of Medicine. It spills over into the Faculty of Economics and even the lawyers take some account of it. But I doubt if all the Faculties of all the Universities in the world are sufficient to comprehend the total range of studies opened up or enlarged in the works ofJung.

It is not for me to attempt an adequate appraisal of Jung's contributions to these many and diverse fields of exploration. I am expected, I believe,

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