In another group of chapters, various aspects of the general topic "Instinct" are dealt with. Thus, chapter 2 is devoted to a brief consideration of the evolution of parental care; chapter II, to the instinct of feigning death; chapter 12, to the recognition of sex; chapter 13, to the role of sex in the evolution of mind.

Holmes's reflections concerning the beginnings of intelligence, the relation of instinct to intelligence, and the problem of learning, are of importance. In connection with learning, he points out that the usual pleasure-pain hypothesis does not adequately account for the process of habit formation. He proposes the hypothesis that the learning process is conditioned by "congruity of reactions." Agreeableness or disagreeableness is not essential. When, for example, a chick pecks at a caterpillar, either a congruent or a conflicting response may be initiated by the gustatory stimulus. To quote from the author "When one part of the structure concerned is excited, it tends to increase the tonus of the associated parts, and thus reinforce the original response. "This hypothesis is certainly worthy of careful consideration and should suggest varied lines of experimentation by means of which the process of habit formation or learning may be more completely analyzed and its essential factors revealed.

As for the beginnings of intelligence, the author suggests that they are to be found in instinctive reactions. Indeed, he says that the "adaptiveness of intelligence is based upon the adaptiveness of instinct."

In the concluding chapter of the volume, entitled "The mind of a monkey," the author has described in most interesting fashion some observations which he made on a specimen of bonnet monkey. This chapter well indicates his interest in every aspect. of behavior and his ability to popularize.

Although in no sense a contribution to the systematic scientific literature of behavior, Holmes's volume is important, for few specialists in biology have such great ability to present their problems and results in interesting guise as Holmes has exhibited in this series of essays and in his earlier volume entitled "The Evolution of animal intelligence."

ROBERT M. YERKES.

BOOKS RECEIVED

The Significance of Psychoanalysis for the Mental Sciences. Rank & Sachs. Trans. by Chas. R. Payne. Ner. and Men. Dis. Mon. Series 23-Pp. V and 127. $1.50.

The Kingdom of the Mind by James Mortimer Keniston. G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. X and 245. $1.25 net.

The Belief in God and Immortality by Jas. H. Leuba. Sherman, French & Co., Boston. Pp. XVII and 340. $2.50 net.

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

JUNE, 1917

SKETCH FOR A STUDY
A STUDY OF NEW ENGLAND
CHARACTER

D

BY JAMES J. PUTNAM, M. D.

URING portions of the past few years, I have had the opportunity to investigate as freely as I wished into the life-history of a lady who came to me originally as a patient, but became, later, a friendly and eager fellow-worker. I hope, eventually, to publish at some length extracts from the rich store of material which she has written out, at my suggestion, and which possesses the kind of interest and power of conviction such as belongs peculiarly to every genuine account of individual experiences of an intimate sort.

The story as here given seems to me important, not because of dramatic features, which, in fact, it does not possess, but on the following accounts: (1) It illustrates conflicts which present themselves to many persons. (2) It throws light on certain undesirable effects of a strict, "old-fashioned" religious training, and on the symptomatology of the so-called "New England conscience" (which has a very morbid side). (3) Finally, what is of prime importance, it brings into strong relief certain common and typical influences which tend to prevent the relationship between children and their parents from being a source of unadulterated benefit to both, as it should be, but, on the contrary, to make it, in some respects, a source of temptations and conflicts of which the best that can be said is that they are not without their compensations.

This lady came to me for the first time about five years ago, when forty-nine years old, "not as a very sick person, -though in fact she had been a good deal of an invalid since birth,-"but in the hope of learning how to adjust herself to life." And so satisfactory has been her progress along these lines, to such a degree has she exchanged her former sense of inhibition and incompleteness for one of freedom Copyright 1917 by Richard G. Badger. All Rights Reserved.

73

and emancipation, that the spectacle of her improvement has been, for me, a source of satisfaction and encouragement. At her first visit she said that she felt nervous, shy, apprehensive, and lacking in self-confidence, conscious of intelligence but unable to use it to good purpose. When called upon to meet people in a social way she often hesitated in her speech, and then her voice would grow harsh and loud and her hands tremulous, sometimes to a high degree. She suffered much from periodical headaches, not distinctly migrainoid in type, and, in addition, from a dull headpressure which had grown to be habitual. I will anticipate the further history of this symptom by saying that it proved to be distinctly of neurotic origin. It seemed to her, as the analysis proceeded, that the headaches were the expression of a sort of helpless rage with reference to her troubles, and they grew less and eventually ceased as her conflicts became resolved. It might have been thought that they were due to eye-strain, from which she suffered seriously until about thirteen years of age. But in fact, the headaches did not come on until she was twenty-seven years old, that is, long after the correction of her error of refraction had been made by glasses; nor was any further treatment of this sort operative in bringing her relief. It is also of interest that these headaches came, she said, at first at nine days' intervals, then at intervals of six, and finally of three days. I shall take advantage of some future occasion to point out that the number three and its multiples played an important part in her unconscious thoughts, as indicated by her dreams.

Her defective eyesight, if not mainly responsible for her headaches, was of much significance on other grounds. It was not the fashion in that day to spend much time in studying children's eyesight; and the fact that the duty of selfsubjection and of overriding difficulty by effort loomed up as paramount in her parents' eyes, turned aside their attention-devoted though they were, after their own fashionfrom the need of other sorts of treatment. Throughout her childhood, before the corrective glasses were applied, her eyesight was so poor that she often stumbled as she walked, and to read books or music, or problems on the blackboard, or to do fine housework, involved a painful

strain. This condition, combined with her deficiency in endurance, led her almost to abandon active games and to lose the training in power of adjustment that goes with them, and brought her much scolding for carelessness and stupidity, through which a native tendency to self-disparagement became intensified.

It was the study of the direct and indirect effects of special organic weaknesses, such as eye-strain, that induced Alfred Adler of Vienna to regard these local weaknesses as the point of departure for his theory of character-formation.(1) Every organic (and so, functional) defect serves as a direct handicap, on the one hand, and leads, on the other hand, to instinctive compensatory efforts (especially on the part of the nervous system) which may induce a high degree of real compensation, and, indeed, over-compensation, or to complex reactions of substitution. Such influences were undoubtedly present in this case, not only as they relate to the defective eyesight, but also, and probably still more, with reference to ill-health from other causes. For this patient was a seven months' child, and remained for a long time poorly nourished, growing a little stronger after some years, only to fall sick again in adolescence. Furthermore (for special reasons which cannot be referred to here), her very advent was unwelcome, and both her weakness and her sex were sources of regret and mortification to her mother; and these facts increased the necessity for special compromises, adaptations, and compensations on her part, of the true nature of which she has gradually became aware.

The facts given by my patient at the first recital of he troubles might have seemed suggestive of nothing mor than one of the common forms of nervous invalidism, with its bottomless well of minor sufferings, for which the term "neurasthenia" is still, by many persons,looked upon as competent to cover, though in fact it tells nothing of the mechanisms involved. Little by little, however, more light was thrown upon the sources of her troubles.

'The theory of compensation here referred to has long been recognized as a very important one, and Adler's contributions to it are of real value. I do not believe, however, that it has anything like the exclusive, thorough-going significance which he attributes to it. Pain and evil are, fortunately, not our only teachers; nor is adjustment to a given universe our only goal.

Starting life as a weakly child, and with few companions outside of her own family, she became a somewhat selfcentered girl, but an ardent and as the phrase runs-an "over-conscientious" student, and showed evidence of a fine

mind.

At the period of her first visit to me she was living alone, her mother having died some months before, and likewise (several years earlier), the older of her two brothers, to whom she had been passionately devoted.

Further questioning as to her symptoms showed that beneath a non-committa! manner she carried a highly overwrought, emotional sensitiveness, through which her longings for recognition had become converted into pain, in which form she found a certain (poor and incomplete) gratification. As a part of this tendency she had become very unpleasantly acute to sounds and odors, and also to the slightest interruption to whatever occupation she might be engaged upon, even through calls made by good friends. In fact, social intercourse was longed for; yet so little did she understand her own needs and the means of meeting them that the most trifling demand for sacrifices in the practical interest of a wider social life aroused almost a sense of resentment in her mind. Every trivial noise, even the rustling of a newspaper, she says, would bring a frown of annoyance to her forehead. The odors which she disliked often had reference to dishes which her mother liked, and— inspired by a certain hostility to herself, as she half-fanciedinsisted on having cooked.

"To-day," she writes, "I think that my objections were an infantile mode of expressing opposition to my mother. I wanted to be mistress of my own home (i. e., of a home of my own)".

As for visitors, her double feelings made her adopt a manner toward them which said "Goodbye," in spite of the fact that she was inwardly bewailing her loneliness, longing for companionship and love, and desperate to break through the isolation in which she felt herself. She would have been ready enough, at any moment, to call herself "selfish," "morbid," "egoistic," but to do so would have been of no avail and unjust to her best self.