Bausteine Zur Psychoanalyse. (The Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis.) Four Volumes: By Sandor Ferenczi. Vols. III and IV published by Verlag Hans Huber, Berne, 1939. Vols. I and II published by Internationale Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927.

These four volumes embody a very conscientious and devoted attempt upon the part of the editors to make the Bausteine zur Psychoanalyse together with the Versuch einer Genitaltheorie a complete collection of Ferenczi's psychoanalytic works. Even notes left behind by Ferenczi as outlines for articles which he never put into form for publication are very carefully collected by the conscientious editors. The two new volumes include a number of Ferenczi's most significant papers, among which we may mention especially his papers on pathoneuroses and on the psychoanalysis of the war neuroses, his psychoanalytic comments on general paralysis, several of the papers developing Ferenczi's ideas concerning 'active' technical measures in psychoanalytic therapy, and all of the later papers dealing with Ferenczi's experiments in more complete abreaction of psychic traumata which absorbed the greater part of Ferenczi's interest in the last years of his life.

If we review the abundant scientific activity of these collected volumes, we cannot help being reminded of the tremendous fertility and versatility of this exceedingly stimulating leader in the development of psychoanalysis, who was continually dropping little hints upon one practical or theoretical topic after another, and whose suggestions covered such diverse themes as practical technical suggestions concerning active therapy, highly stimulating theoretical speculations concerning the evolutionary origin of the genital strivings, the influence of organic illness upon the psyche, an exceedingly suggestive paper upon the development of the sense of reality, and many others.