One of the most eminent of Swedish psychotherapists is Dr.
Paul Bjerre. In Death and Renewal (Williams and Norgate, 10s. 6d.) he has written a book which is neither psychology, philosophy, nor religion ; it is a tentative and imaginative exercise in transferring a general intuition of life. Dr. Bjerre has seen how very profoundly life and death are intercon- nected. In the death of desire he has seen the rebirth of hope ; in sacrifice, when it is free, he has seen the possibility of new beginnings. Death and Renewal is a book of apo- phthegms and fables all of which seek to present and refine this revelation of the interdependence of life and death and its thousandfold repercussions on the individual human life. " I am ready to sacrifice everything to gain peace,' I heard somebody say, ' but I do not know what to sacrifice.' I replied ' First of all you must sacrifice that to gain. For to believe that anyone can enforce the obedience of infinitude by a deliberate action of his will—that is truly presumption. The tone of Dr. Bjerre's fables is rather pessimistic, or even consciously tragic ; they contain, however, a lifetime's experience.
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