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Another work from the pen of the master of psychoanalysis. Perhaps hardly sufficiently ponderous either in size or style to be considered other than as a sort of chat with the author on some of the problems presented by the war. To the psychoanalyst most of what Professor Freud says has been at least vaguely in his consciousness with reference to the great world conflict and he has felt in consequent the naiveity, not to say fatuousness of a great amount of the opinions which are expressed to account for this great catastrophe. By that same token one leaves this little work with perhaps a sense of disappointment that the great master could not have given us a solution which seemed to be more satisfying at least in its augury for the future.
The little book consists of two essays; the first, the Disappointments of War, emphasizes the over-valuation which we attach to our social ideals and the lack of insight which we have into our fundamental instincts and their nearness to the surface. We have felt so frequently bitterly disappointed that mankind could enter upon such a horror. The author brings us back to the first principles which we have all realized time without number in the consultation room, that the primitive man lives within us and unfortunately he is ever near in all our activities, only awaiting for the favorable movement to assume the upper hand.
The second essay discusses Our Attitude Towards Death and emphasizes a fundamental feature of the unconscious, nearly its belief in its own immortality. Mankind rushes into this conflict again with the same certainty that he will come out unharmed as did his primitive ancestors.
The thoughts that are included in this little book might well be read by every propagandist who has some cure-all for the evils of civilization. They make one pause in somber contemplation of the great forces which move us and over which we seem to have so little control.
White