SCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY.
Group Pschology and the Analysis of the Ego. By Sigmund Freud. (Allen and Univin. 7s. 63. net.) Possibly all psychology which is based for the most part on hypothesis rather than on fact becomes a little artificial. An application of psycho-analytic method to problems concerned with the social or herd instincts has been long anticipated— Here we have it from the pen. of the- master and founder of the method. And we are somewhat dis- appointed. Why ? Perhaps because the artificiality appears exaggerated beyond its wont in this work or Freud's. Too much stress is laid, we think, on interpretations of human behaviour, derived from the habits of wild horses, monkeys, &c. Such as occur, for instance, in the analysis of instincts of the primitive horde towards the tyrant father, already discussed in Freud's earlier work Totem and Taboo. Never- theless, in the present work there is Much observation and suggestion of great value on the ways in which an individual personality becomes submerged in a particular group. In the first chapters- Freud devotes himself to exposing the weaknesses inherent in the theories of Le Bon, MacDougal and Trotter. His criticism seems pertinent ; his own analysis and construction though masterly at times is less convincing. The three factors essential- to group formation seem to be : identification, or, explicitly, the identification with one another of individuals having the same emotional relationship to the same object ; a libidinal, emotional tie between the members of the group and sthrie object or leader ; and lastly, the levelling power of envy. The reasons for the libidinal nature of the second factor lead us into a maze of complexities connected with the relation of suggestibility to hypnosis, and the state of "being in love." And a chapter follows wherein the Church and the Army are cited as examples of this tie. In nearly all this development we sense that peculiar artificiality. Mr. James Strachey's translation is good, but, failing a fixed terminology, Would it not be simpler to adopt the language of -origin in the use of newly coined words rather than to labour Greek adaptations ?
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