HUMAN MOTIVES. By James Jackson Putnam, M. D. Professor Emeritus, Diseases of the Nervous System, Harvard University. Boston. Little, Brown & Co., 1915; 12mo. Price $1.
According to the publishers' announcement this is a study in the psychology and philosophy of human conduct, based largely on the author's use of the Freudian psychoanalytic method of mental diagnosis. The editorial introduction by Dr. Bruce consists in a brief outline of the subconscious mind. The author's preface, aside from anticipating the main features of the book, makes the announcement that the latter is based very largely on the personal experience of the last two years. The author gives one the impression that this period represents to him one in which he has to his own satisfaction mastered the relationship between psychoanalysis on the one hand and our current conception of moral philosophy, ethics and religion on the other. During this period he has "studied motives at close range."
The work consists of six chapters and of these the first two deal with the philosophic method of viewing man, while the others are devoted to psychoanalysis. In the last chapter the author makes suggestions as to the possibility of synthesizing the two methods.
Human motives are either constructive or adaptive. The former are associated with conscious reasoning and will, the latter with emotional repressions. The former represent aspirations and are much higher than they seem, since every man has an ideal—"getting out the best that is in himself." He is a "lover of the best" and will die for and live for mere ideas and abstractions like patriotism. He is assumed to be free because he voluntarily creates, and is as free as anything in the Universe; and he is free because he can choose. But where there is freedom there must be clashing and compromise and repression. Among repressed subjects are prejudices and superstitions, which, while irrational, unconsciously affect our conscious motives.
Man has feelings of humanity and brotherhood but has also the feeling of separate individuality which comes from the egoism of the young child. The instincts also come into play in the conflict between duty to others and love of self. No one, however good, can escape this conflict.
The old teaching as exemplified in philosophy and religion is based on a study of man at his best, man in the abstract. This is incomplete because it cannot promote such feelings as sympathy and understanding among men. Something has always been needed to supplement it and this is found in psychoanalysis in which conditions are reversed.
Religion the author regards as an existence which is in harmony with that of the "universe-personality." If we have the attributes we give to the Deity as reason, love (disinterested) and will, we should seek this harmony. The "world of sense" is antagonistic to this conception, in that it leads us to reject all other than sense knowledge. Our notions of love, honor, power, justice cannot spring from the sense-world. We must look beyond the latter—a mere illusion—to find the true, immutable. Mind cannot be evolved from life but must pre-exist. God and man must be conceived in the same way—both represent a totality of expressions of world will, both create and persist in their creations. Man must be regarded as creating his thoughts and acts, even his own body. Every portion of the universe is responsible for every other portion. Man, though ever changing, represents a "self consciously unified person" and therefore feels responsible for all he has ever done or ever will do. Freud himself, as the author states, never cared to generalize on the subject of psychoanalysis.
The book proceeds with a general outline of psychoanalysis which need not be reproduced here. The subject of sexual repression, so far from being exaggerated by Freud, is completely borne out by centuries of teaching by the Church that all sexual matters must be repressed, because they proceed solely from the flesh, the material world. As we have seen, however, the author with others—both Freudians and non-Freudians—makes the libido a form of creative energy, which attitude lifts it above the purely material plane. Complete suppression of anything which will not down is regarded as unwise hygiene of the soul, and the results of psychoanalysis, both as to cause and cure of neurotic disturbances, amply sustain this view. A man's unbidden thoughts are part of him and must be acknowledged.
Psychoanalysis cannot be employed upon a number of subjects at once. It lies between physician and patient, teacher and pupil. The unconscious but active motive must be brought under the conscious will. The fantastic world of childhood must be re-created. The teacher, dealing with childhood has an advantage over the physician who applies his analysis to adults.
The child should be encouraged to show all that is in him, and at the same time must learn to regard himself less as an individual and more as a social unit. He should do things which divert him from himself.