This little monograph consists of brief but comprehensive essays on the mechanisms of primitive thinking. The first section treats of the psychogenetic anlage of thinking, or the associative processes, wherein the author discusses Wundt's “static association” theory, and develops his own “dynamic association” concepts. It is pointed out that primitives lack the ability to sharply differentiate between material and psychic reality, and that they utilize various manifestations of sexual symbolism in the action of thought. Human masculine and feminine types of thought are compared and contrasted, in which the female (not without exceptions) tends more toward the primitive variety of mechanism.

The effects of civilization upon the primitive or beginnings of culture are outlined in the second essay. Here he deals also with the discomforts which civilization engenders, and in general adds a valuable supplement