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Unfounded allegation to the contrary, psychoanalysis has been interested, in its own way, in moral and social problems. Since Freud's early paper on the rôle of sexual morality in the etiology of the neuroses, the ethical and social implications of psychoanalytic theories have been constant topics for thought and discussion. No psychoanalyst has concerned himself more deeply with these matters than Professor Flugel, the author of Man, Morals and Society, a very important book published in 1945. In the present collection of eight essays, seven of which are reprints or partial reprints, similar problems in papers first published at different dates are better held together by the unity of the author's interest than is usual in such collections.
The first essay, The Psychology of Birth Control, is an excellent example of Flugel's method: he states the case that has been made out for and against the practice of birth control; he then proceeds to single out unconscious motives in the opponents of birth control. These are 'the blow to man's vanity involved in the recognition of the fact that, in spite of his exceptional capacity to bring about the satisfactions of his desires by the appropriate modification of his environment, he is nevertheless still subject to the law of Nature which ordains that the maximum of any given species shall be rigidly determined not by the reproductive inclinations or capacities, but by the supply of necessaries that is available for its use'—in other words, a narcissistic resistance to Darwinism of which Freud made us aware. Second, there is an unwillingness to abandon the childlike attitude of 'taking no thought for the morrow', with the analytic implications of this position. Third, there is, similarly, an unwillingness to face that Nature is at fault, which is a resistance to being disillusioned in our good Mother who should love all her children, and there is instead a tendency to blame other human beings. Fourth, the doctrine of M