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Upon completing the reading of this extraordinarily detailed and exhaustive treatise on emotions, this reviewer was reminded of the story of the man whose time on earth was devoted to the search for the true meaning of life. He went from one great thinker to another and toward the end of his life encountered the greatest philosopher of them all who responded to the tormenting question with the blasé shrug that indicated “who knows?” On the final page of his book, Dr. Hillman writes: “We can never know ultimately what emotion is, what it achieves or what sets it going.” He later adds, “It can never be altogether understood because the psyche as a whole is not grasped by consciousness alone,” and finally concludes. “To be known it must be lived. Perhaps this is why no matter how thoroughly amplified, the problem of emotion, theory and therapy, remains perennial and its solution ineffable.”
One may rightly argue that these conclusions could have been reached without the great effort put forth by the author and this reader experienced some disappointment as the book approached its completion. Its honest conclusions account for only part of the let-down which centers mainly on what the reviewer felt to be a relative de-emphasis of the therapeutic implications.
In the main, the volume is excellent. The author has written extensively and intensively on the subject of emotions; he has compiled and discussed almost every relevant theory or statement made on the subject in the last sixty years and made frequent excursions into older scientific science and philosophic viewpoints of the past. Not intended for causal reading, the work will serve as a reference source for the serious student of emotions. It is not easy to read, not only because of the author's style which leans toward intricate wording and reasoning in a vocabulary that does not typically employ the language of American psychology. This reader was amused by the author's comment that David Rapaport “does not seem bl