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This work, whether considered from the point of view of medical instruction or of research, seems of great importance, for the following reasons:
1. The author places before us the psychological personality in its entirety, a procedure which, without appearing to be significant, constitutes a veritable revolution, not only in the methods of teaching but of research hitherto prevalent in France.
2. He has endeavored, and with success, to give to mystic states an interpretation revealing their pathological relations without depriving them of those characteristics which distinguish them from the psycho—neuroses-provided always, be it understood, that typical cases of the two phenomena are chosen for comparison. It may be said at the outset that the author seems here to have hit upon a solution which has hitherto eluded various contemporary psychologists-even William James. We believe that a brief review of these points, illustrative of the clinical examples presented, will lead to a better understanding of the book than would a dry analysis, chapter by chapter.
1. Through the brilliant teachings of Dupré the vain wranglings of nosologists have been replaced by a descriptive analysis of the constitutions (the well known emotional constitution, for example); but these studies were limited to what was clinically and superficially apparent, always holding fast, however, to the idea of the constitution. Laignel-Lavastine has endeavored to classify in their totality and complexity all the phenomena which go to make up a psychoneurosis, and even to place these phenomena in a hierarchal relation. This is what he calls the concentric method-a method which proceeds from the more apparent to the less apparent. In any given case these are the zones which -vill be met with:(a) the psychic zone, to which those clinicians who follow the descriptive method for the most part limit themselves;(b) the neurological zone, concerned with the variation of tonus, of coordination, and, above all,