The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | ||
REVIEWS
FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS, ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. By H. H. Goddard. The Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1914. 599 pp., illustrated.
Two comprehensive attempts have been made in recent years to study the inheritance of mental abnormality, one in England at the Eugenics Laboratory of the University of London, the other in this country under the leadership, more or less immediate, of the Eugenics Record Office. Both the English and the American school of workers agree that different grades of mental ability, mental defect and insanity are strongly inherited. But the two schools have reached very different conclusions as to the manner of inheritance of mental traits and mental defects. Each school entertains profound disrespect for the scientific methods and conclusions of the other and with the frankness and honesty which devotion to truth demand has freely criticised the other. By this criticism, at the bottom friendly though sometimes caustic, science has undoubtedly profited. The later work of each school begins to show the chastening influence of adverse criticism.
The English school has leaned backward in its devotion to the inductive method of accumulating inheritance data, ostensibly without prejudice for or against any particular theory but in reality with an ill-concealed bias against anything savoring of "Mendelism." The American school recognizing in Mendelism a great advance and an important instrument for the discovery of new truth, has ignored the possibility that other undiscovered laws of heredity may exist and has cast aside as superfluous the valuable biometric tools wrought with much patient toil by Galton and Pearson. It will be the part of wisdom for students of genetics to imitate the hostile attitude of neither school, but to utilize the positive results of both. This is what Dr. Goddard has done in the work under review.
He apparently began studying the inheritance of feeble-mindedness without theoretical prejudice, but with a practical end in view, to discover, if possible, the causes of feeble-mindedness so as to deal intelligently with the inmates of the Vineland (N. J.) institution with which he is connected. Goddard received inspiration
Goddard's findings as regards feeble-mindedness fit in perfectly with this scheme. That Goddard was unaware of it when his conclusions were reached is all the more evidence of their soundness because it shows that they were reached independently. Among albinos every higher grade of pigmentation dominates all the lower grades in inheritance, and so apparently it is with mental development; the higher grades dominate the lower. At every point there appears to be agreement in method of inheritance between albinism and feeble-mindedness. Each is a unit character but showing graded allelomorphic conditions which correspond probably with different stages of arrested development of pigmentation or mentality respectively.
The fact noted by Goddard that the feeble-minded resemble savages, that is backward races of low mentality, has much interest to the student of evolution. It indicates that the evolution of intelligence has occurred by a gradual progressive advancement, stages in which reappear as the higher grades of feeble-mindedness. Of course it is not certain that the ontogenetic stages, at which mental development may be arrested, correspond accurately with earlier phylogenetic stages, but the idea receives considerable support from the observed resemblance between the mentality of morons and that of savage peoples, if the observation may be accepted as accurate. I do not understand however that Goddard makes any claim to first-hand familiarity with the mental life of savages, so that no great emphasis should be laid on the point. But the mere fact that retrogressive variation in mentality is graded favors the view that its progressive evolution has been gradual, rather than the view that it has arisen by mutation or sudden loss of inhibitors. (Bateson, Davenport).
Goddard points out that a high grade moron may be a useful
As regards the causes of feeble-mindedness Goddard's findings are wholly negative, but not less valuable on that account. His case histories statistically studied indicate no causal relation to a number of reputed agencies in the creation of feeble-mindedness, such as alcoholism (which he regards as oftener a symptom than a cause), tuberculosis, sexual immorality, insanity, syphilis, accident and consanguinity. He recognizes heredity as its principal source, i. e. he recognizes feeble-mindedness as a stage of mentality already existing and transmissible by the ordinary mechanism of heredity, but does not attempt further to account for it, either as a survival or as an atavism.
That humanitarian governments by shielding and supporting the moron without putting a limit on his naturally high reproduction will speedily increase this class at the expense of the more intelligent classes of the community is self-evident, if it is admitted that feeble-mindedness is hereditary, as all who have investigated
How is this to be done? Goddard has no cure-all to offer but urges first of all that the mental grade of each individual be accurately determined and education and occupation be provided suited to his capacity. This will tend to make the moron a useful and contented member of the community, not a menace to it. Segregation is recommended so far as practicable, but in view of the large number (estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 in the U. S.) Goddard considers segregation of all impracticable. Nevertheless he urges further and energetic efforts in this direction, that as many as possible may be segregated as a safeguard against their reproduction. In individual cases "sterilization wisely and carefully practiced" must be employed to insure non-reproduction.
In this volume there is a pleasing absence of the rant which pervades some eugenic literature. The author has something of importance to contribute to science and he presents his contribution in a sober, dignified manner in keeping with the important character of his contribution.
W. E. CASTLE.
CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM. By J. B. Hannay. (Francis Griffiths, London; pp. 394).
This is an attempt to expound the symbolism of the Christian religion. It is divided into three main parts: ancient cults (phallism and sun worship); ancient cults in the Old Testament; ancient cults in the New Testament. The author's main thesis can be stated in a sentence: the essential constituents of every religion, and the underlying meaning of its symbolism, are phallicism and sun worship. Of these the former is the more important, more primary, and more wide-spread; the latter is a superimposed layer better adapted to more civilized and educated people, but rarely penetrating into the hearts of the common people to the extent that the former has. "The great branches under which all the religious systems of the past have developed may be classed as
Now in spite of the fact that the reviewer fully accepts the main thesis of the book, as stated above, and therefore has no prejudice or hostility on the score of the conclusions encunciated being distasteful, his judgment of the book is entirely unfavourable, for the following reasons: In the first place, any presence of the book to be a scientific, and therefore impartial, contribution to knowledge is invalidated by the author's moral bias evident from beginning to end, against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, which he maintains is the most phallic of all religions. His point of view is that of the older rationalists, to whom religion is nothing but an unfortunate instinct for "delight in the miraculous," expressing itself in phallic and sun worship, and fostered by the exploiting tendencies of priests. His desire seems to be, in writing the book, to "show up" religion and, by discrediting it, hasten its end.
In the second place, there is not a single new idea in all its closely packed pages, and therefore no excuse for writing them, since the material here laboriously brought together is easily accessible in other books. It never seems to dawn on the author that pointing out the sexual basis of religion, which countless other writers have already done, is but the beginning of the problem, the starting-point of all sorts of complex riddles. Having dogmatically divided all religious symbols into male and female, he is self-satisfied enough to think that he has explained religion. There is no inkling of the points of view suggested by such words
Side by side with all this goes a disorderly arrangement and very imperfect powers of criticism. The latter feature is especially marked in the field of etymology, where the author fairly lets himself run wild. The following gem is a typical example (p. 110): "Bacchus became degraded into the God of Wine, and his fêtes became drunken orgies, but he was originally the beneficent sun who ripened the fruits, and hence God of Wine, from which, indeed, is derived the English name of all our gods, angels, prophets, or even parsons,—"divines," "dei vini," "Gods of Wine." Jesus was the "True Vine."
The merits of the book are that it may direct the attention of some people to the connection between sex and religion, if there are any who are still unaware of this, and that it possesses a good index that may be useful to readers with limited facilities for looking up particular symbolisms; it is also well illustrated.
ERNEST JONES.
LAUGHTER: AN ESSAY ON THE MEANING OF THE COMIC. Henri Bergson. Translated by C. Brereton and F. Rothwell. (Macmillan, London, 1913. Pp. 200).
In this stimulating little book Professor Bergson propounds his theory of the comic, which is shortly to the following effect. Noting first that laughter is purely a human phenomenon, and therefore probably has a social significance, he seeks for this by trying to define what are the essential features of the comical. He reduces the various characteristic features in the main to one, namely, automatism on the part of the comical person or thing. This automatism is of a special kind; especially is it an automatism that is out of place, that occurs at the expense of spontaneity, vitality, and freshness. It may thus be defined as "something mechanical in something living," "a kind of absentmindedness on the part of life." "The comic is that side of a person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of human events which through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life." "To imitate anyone is to bring out the element of automatism he has
Up to this point Bergson's theory of the comic fairly well coincides with that of Freud. The latter author, it is true, summarises his conclusions in different language. But the meaning is not very different. For him the feeling of comicality is an "economy of ideational expenditure," and it is evoked by the sight of another person who in a given performance displays either a lack of mental activity or an excess of physical, i.e., who is either stupid or clumsy. Compare this formulation with Bergson's. The latter says that the opposite of the comic is gracefulness, rather than beauty. "It partakes rather of the unsprightly than of the unsightly, of rigidness rather than of ugliness." The replacement of mental by physical activity is insisted on in the following passage: "Any incident is comic that calls our attention to the physical in a person, when it is the moral (i. e. mental) that is concerned." Again, he compares a comical person to "a person embarrassed by his body." His automatism is essentially a lack of mental nimbleness, a formal lack of mental elasticity, a defective capacity for rapid adjustment, in short, a mental laziness. And especially is this defect one of consciousness. The failure is on the part of the higher mental activities, which should be the most alert, and what happens is a relapse into unconscious, automatic modes of functioning, a form of absentmindness. "The comic is that element by which the person unwittingly betrays himself—the involuntary gesture or the unconscious remark. Absentmindedness is always comical. Systematic absentmindedness, like that of Don Quixote, is the most comical thing imaginable . . . . . . . No one can be comical unless there be some aspect of his person of which he is unaware, one side of his nature which he overlooks; on that account alone does he make us laugh."
In substantial agreement on this general conclusion as to mental rigidity and bodily clumsiness, the two views diverge from here. According to Bergson, the comic presupposes "something like a momentary anaesthesia of the heart;" "laughter is incompatible with emotion." For Freud this absence of emotion is much more characteristic of humour than of the comic, two matters that
We may briefly refer to some other matters dealt with more incidentally; wit, and the relation of the comic to art and to dreams. The discussion of wit is perhaps the weakest part of the book.
As may be expected, the whole book is written in Professor Bergson's pleasing style, and is full of suggestive hints and fresh points of view. The most significant contribution, one which pervades the book throughout, is the view of laughter as a social censor. Even if this hypothesis is substantiated by detailed investigation, however, it cannot rank as a complete theory of laughter, or of the comic, until it is supplemented by some explanation, not given by the author, of the most striking feature of laughter, its capacity for yielding pleasure.
It only remains to say that the translation is literally excellent.
ERNEST JONES.
ADDRESSES AND PAPERS AT THE OPENING OF THE PHIPPS PSYCHIATRIC CLINIC, JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL. The American Journal of Insanity, Special Number, Vol. LXIX, No. 5. The Johns Hopkins Press, 1915.
This special number of the American Journal of Insanity contains the exercises and papers delivered at the opening at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md. The contents of the entire volume should prove to be of the greatest interest to all students and lovers of psychiatry. The volume opens with a brief but fitting Introduction by Dr. Adolf Meyer, Director of the Clinic, a man to whom American psychiatry owes so much for the stimulus and inspiration which he has injected into others. This is followed by A Word of Appreciation by Henry D. Harland, President Trustees, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, some brief remarks on The Psychiatric Clinic and the Community by Stewart Paton, the heart-to-heart talk on Specialism in the General Hospital by Sir William Osler, and a short talk on The Purpose of the Psychiatric Clinic by Prof. Adolf Meyer. There then follow a series of fascinating and inspiring papers, as follows: The Sources and Direction of Psychophysical Energy, by William McDougall; Autistic Thinking by E. Bleuler; Personality and Psychosis by August Hoch; The Personal Factor in Association Reactions by Frederic Lyman Wells; A Study of the Neuropathic Inheritance by F. W. Mott; On the Etiology of Pellagra and its Relation to Psychiatry by O. Rossi; Psychic Disturbances Associated with Disorders of the Ductless Glands, by Harvey Cushing; Primitive Mechanisms of Individual Adjustment by Stewart Paton; Demenzprobleme by K. Heilbronner; The Inter-relation of the Biogenetic Psychoses by Ernest Jones; Prognostic Principles in the Biogenetic Psychoses, with Special Reference to the Katatonic Syndrome by George H. Kirby; Anatomical Borderline between the So-called Syphilitic and Metasyphilitic Disorders in the Brain and Spinal Cord by Charles B. Dunlap; and Mental Disorders and Cerebral Lesions Associated with Pernicious Anemia by Albert Moore Barrett. The number is concluded by the penetrating Closing Remarks of Prof. Adolf Meyer.
The papers by Mott, Rossi, Cushing and Heilbronner are of the greatest interest. The discussions by McDougall and Bleuler
The reviewer regrets that the papers do not very well lend themselves for brief reviews. Furthermore, he would not attempt to briefly present the views which have been so lucidly and succinctly expressed by the individual writers.
Prof. Meyer is to be commended for the very splendid program presented at the opening exercises of the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic.
May it be a lasting inspiration for those who drink at the fountain of psychiatry and psychopathology.
MEYER SOLOMON.
The Journal of Abnormal Psychology | ||