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“What is more real than a wish in the heart of man?”
In preparing my article, Individuality and Introversion,1 in which I discuss the problem of individuality from the psychological point of view I was attracted to Professor Child's discussion of the problem of the physiological individual as set forth in a paper published in Science.2 Since the appearance of this paper I have secured Professor Child's other works on this subject, namely his little work Individuality in Organisms3 and his larger work Senescence and Rejuvenescence.4 A careful going over of his work as set forth in these publications has convinced me that I needed to modify my views about the place of the psyche in development and also shown me wherin I have expressed myself in my writings in a way that was at least misleading. The modification of my views as heretofore expressed seems to me so important and fits in so admirably with much that has issued as a result of psychotherapeutic experience and seems also to have such a fundamental importance for that branch of therapy that I am prompted to set them forth here. First, of course, it is necessary to outline briefly Professor Child's views as developed in his works cited. I will take up, for the most part, only those matters which pertain to the subjects indicated in the title to this article, for he discusses, especially in Senescence and Rejuvenescence, many other issues of importance.
He sets out to discover what constitutes a living or organic individual—what is at the basis of its unity and the orderliness of its