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The primary purpose of the volume is to present the basic principles of the affective life in a comprehensive manner which will tend to lead to a better understanding of the relations of pleasure and behavior, and particularly to a truer insight into the control of conduct and desire in the highly complex civilization of the present, thus aiding toward a sympathetic appreciation of the varieties of paths by which a common goal may be reached.
Life is hardly worth living unless it is characterized by at least periods of happiness, and the actual worthwhileness of life is usually measured by the amount of pleasure secured in living, and the author has here offered for general readers a systematic, excellently written specialized account of human behavior in its manner of contribution to human enjoyment.
The opening chapter outlines the structural principles of psychology or the science of behavior in such a manner as to be easily grasped by those who have no knowledge of the subject. Dr. Wells then proceeds to discuss the trends of human nature and their realization, giving special attention to a consideration of the sources of pleasure and pain, self—maintenance, eroticism, social impulses, the major emotions, intellectual processes, frustrated urges, the sources of right and wrong, and factors of success.
The book presents very little of value from the interpretative standpoint of modern individual psychology, and its topics have been presented at the descriptive level with too little emphasis on the basic significance of the erotic trends in all forms of human activity. In fact, few analytic psychologists would agree with the statement, “to penetrate behind the experience and determine the essence of pleasure would involve recourse