The Beloved Ego : Foundations of the New Study of
the Psyche. By Wilhelm Stekel, M.D. Authorized translation by Rosalie Gabler. (Began Paul. 6s. 6d. net.)—Dr. Stekel is a Viennese, and more or less a disciple of the Viennese school of psychology. He sees the problems of the personality chiefly from the point of view of the " self-regarding " passion, and he makes most of his facts fit his theory very neatly. Here, of course, we have one of the great difficulties of human knowledge. All the subjects of human knowledge are compound. The simplest apprehension of a piece of matter is compound, for we are never able to see directly the round white pebble before us, but only to apprehend a " sense-datum " made up of the white pebble and the peculiarities of our own senses. When we come to more difficult regions of knowledge, we exchange the compound for the complex. It is therefore perfectly true that, as Dr. Stekel says, egotism and the self-regarding instinct affect our actions at every turn. Dr. Stekel has spoken the truth and perhaps nothing but the truth, but has fallen lamentably short of speaking the whole truth. Some of the aphorisms at the end of the book are rather amusing, though they seem applic- able to a state of society rather more primitive than our own. This feature the reader will, however, notice throughout the book.
Previous page
