C. G. Jung letters (volume II: 1951-1961). Selected and edited by G. Alder in collaboration with A. Jaffe. Translations from the German by R. F. C. Hull. London,  Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976. Pp.  xlii + 716.

While the first volume of C. G. Jung's letters contains those written over a period of forty-four years, from the 32nd to the 76th year of his life (1906-1950), this second volume shows him as he was in his last ten years. The relatively short but momentous struggle with Freud has been kept mainly separate, in The letters of Sigmund Freud &

C. G. Jung. The three volumes of letters show forth, for those who never met him in the flesh, the personality of their formidable author. And they may even be in a better position to evaluate Jung in the round than were those who knew him personally and who each made contact with a limited number of facets. Certainly those of us who came after the early generations of analytical psychologists have a great wealth of material at our disposal with which gradually to get to know Jung, his way of life, of responding to life, of commenting on life and, as I think he hoped, making life more liveable. There will be great benefit in reading the Letters in conjunction with the Collected works, even if such an undertaking sounds very strenuous, because they constitute a running commentary. But they also contain new material.

I cannot resist beginning the substantial part of this review by letting my pen run in what is, I hope, a circling way rather than in a straight line of free association. Jung the thinker is clearly speaking in many of the letters in the volume under review; he is speaking and writing in a directed, selective and discriminatory way; he is answering his correspondent's letters. For example, a professor of English at a State College of Washington sends him a questionnaire about his religious beliefs, and Jung answers point by point, very lucidly. They ask his opinion about their articles or books, and he gives it to them straight—or refuses to give it: ‘The trouble is that I have read so many manuscripts or offprints of my pupils that I simply can't keep up any more’ .

Jung the positive and feeling responder is also the