SOME BOOKS ON THINKING
Mental Life. By Beatrice Edgell. (Methuen. .7s. 6d.)
The Discovery of Intelligence. By Joseph K. Hart. (George
The Riddle of Personality. By E. W. MacBride. (Heine- mann. 6s.) Tim flood of books on psychology and psycho-analysis shows as yet no signs of abating in America. Of eight books recently published on psychology which are before me for review, four are from America. I cannot pretend to have read them throughout, but the impression_ left by ,what I have read is one of wildness alternating with dullness. The authors either indulge in speculations of the most exciting kind about the unconscious, the Oedipus complex, or the thought processes of savages, speculations whose only defect is a lack of evidential basis, or confine themselves to a mere record of the results of intelligent tests .whose import is as trivial as the tests are irrelevant. The general run of American writers do not a's, yet seem to have mastered the art of combining fact with theory ; their theorieS go- to their heads and blind them to the need for reference to fact ; their fads so weigh upon their spirits that they seen to lose all interest in their significance. Only fór Profesaor Hart's The Discovery of Intelligence can I claim a breidth and originality of outlook, which nevertheless does not disdain to phy some regard to the actual facts of history and experience. He has written a readable and reasonably accurate study of the growth of intelligence from the days of primitive Man to the preient times, when the aerial torpedo and mustard gas show us to be nearing the summit of humin wisdom and understanding. NeVertheless, like most Americans, Professor Hart manages to retain his
belief in progress. "
Of the books mentioned at the head of this review two are immeasurably more important than the rest. The _first is Graham Wallas's The Art' of Thought' Professor Wallas has written a practical study of the procesi known as thinking, supplemented by a list of hints and dodges to help us think more efficiently. In these litter days when psychology, subSorbed in the study of the more primitive elements of our nature causes us at times to forget that we think, or that the business of thinking may be interesting, it is a good and a pleasant thing to read hovi great men have actually thought, as a change from hearing about how savages and guinea- pigs feel. After all, minds are more interesting than reflex actions, and the process by which Shelley wrote a lyric is
' to all properly constituted persons at once more mysterious ir.‹..1 -more exciting than the way the savage reacts to the stimulus of his harem. The undue emphasis _which modern psychology has placed upon -the affective' as opposed to the cognitive elements in our personality is due, in Professor Wallas's view, to a false theory of the ;riature:riUhie- motive forces which impel men to action. Most modern psychologists locate these forces exclusively in the instincts, denying to the cognitive faculty, the- reaSon, any power of initiating action on its own account. The reason is, on this view, merely a tool of the instincts, the engine of the ego which requires the steam of desire to set it going. Thus it invents excuses for what we instinctively wish to do and arguments for what 'we instinctively wish to believe: McDougall himself supports this view. " The instincts," he says, " are the prime movers of all human activity ; by the conative or impulsive force of some instinct, every train of thought, however cold and passionless it may seem, is borne along towards its end."
Professor Wallas argues for the contrary conception of the human being as a unity of comparatively independent elements ; in successful activity these elennenta are integrated into _acoherent whole,- but the integration is often imperfect and gives rise to the age-long opposition between reason and passion. The importance of this view lies" in the fact that it attributes to reason the power of spontaneouslY 'generating thoughts and wishes without the preceding stimuli:11a instinct or bodily sensation ; in thus liberating reason it establishes at least the possibility of free-will. I-raving' vindiCated the threatened independence of thought, Profeasor Wallis Pro- ceeds to consider its mechanism. In the solution of a problem, the making of a decision or the birth of a creative idea he distinguishes four stages, those of Preparation,- Incubation, Illumination and -Verification. It is in the stage of Incubation that our thoughts are really hatched. Learn to incubate properly is the burden of Professoi Wallas's teaching; and you will fmd most of your important work done for you by the unconscious. There is good psychological ground, it seems, for going to sleep before making a difficult decision, and we were right to take that fortnight's holiday before Greats.
Unlike most psychologists Professor Wallas knows how to write. He has known, moreover, most of the distinguished and interesting men of his day, who seem to have asked nothing better than to favour him with private information about their intellectual methods with exact particulars of how and when they wrote and thought. As a consequence his book is unusually full of anecdote and illustration. We are made to realize the paychological acumen of the little girl who, being told not to speak without thinking, retorted, " How can I know what I think till I see what I say ?" and the psychological thriftlessness of the man who, having conceived an idea so brilliant that he felt that he must go into the garden and thank God for it, found on rising from his knees that he had forgotten it. We learn, too, the importance of habit-forming by all those who would do good work is the world. To sit habitually in the same chair at 9.80 a.m. every morning is the best recipe for warming up the mind at 9.30. Habitually but not always. For a man should ride his habits, not be ridden by them ; indeed, if I read Professor Wallas aright, it is even more important to learn to break our habits on occasion than to learn to make them. • Professor McDougall's book contains all the qualities which we have come to expect from this sound and authorita- tiVe writer. His book is pre-eminently the standard work It is reasoned in statement, moderate in conclusion arid steers an even course between the extreme positions with which modern psychology is so formidably beset. Professor McDougall's treatment of the Oedipus complex, and indeed of the whole Freudian doctrine of the separate component units of the sexual instinct, while it will cause devotees of the-Freudian cult to gnash their teeth, must from its very lack of sensationalism appeal to all reasonable men. The object of this important work is to pool the conclusions of orthodox psychologists who have no experience in therapeutic practice, and the results arrived at by those engaged in the treatment and cure of nervous diseases, who are " often mere empiricists devoid of any general theory of the structure of mind.- This is a difficult work and it is doe to Professor McDougall to say that no man could have done
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