haustively with the problem of determinism: but one or two remarks may usefully be made. The opponents of the doctrine are in no way concerned to uphold the notion of a "will" in the sense of a separate "faculty" operating independently of the character and circumstances of the person "willing." Their opposition is directed against the contention that never, in human acts or conduct, is there any element of initiative, of creation, of real creative purpose, of freedom in any true sense whatever: that a man's conduct at any stage is determined absolutely by his previous history. Such a contention, it is to be observed, is advanced today, by workers in their branches of science, with far less confidence than it was twenty years ago, even where it has not been altogether abandoned. Doctrines of "vitalism" in some form or another are now the rule rather than the exception among competent biologists, for example. Nor is it the case-as some over-enthusiastic writers suggest that the doctrine of Psychic Determinism is maintained in its extreme Freudian form by all other psychoanalysts. The New Psychology, writes Mr. A. G. Tansley, in his extremely able and well-informed summary of its main principles,

"need not commit itself to the conclusion that the play of instinctive forces exhausts the meaning of the human soul."6

We are left, then, with the arguments adduced by Freud himself. We cannot examine them here, but must repeat our conviction that they are in many cases more ingenious than convincing. Before we can accept the theory of determinism, two things must happen. In the first place, it must be shown to harmonize with the conclusions of other branches of science. This, notoriously, it does not do. Secondly, it must be shown to be the only possible-or at any rate the best possible-explanation of the psychological phenomena on which it is based. This condition it does not satisfy. Over and over again, as one reads Freud's pages, one feels that he is trying to fit facts into a theory too narrow to hold them. One has a curious sense, too, that Freud is himself the victim of an "anti-freewill complex!"-and indeed, speaking in all seriousness, nothing is more likely. He is at no pains to conceal his anti-religious and agnostic

"I may perhaps be allowed to refer to an article in The Pilgrim for July last for a fuller discussion of the problem as affected by psychoanalysis.

'Op. cit., p. 269.

bias in any of his books: what more probable than that his zeal for the extremest form of determinism is the product less of unimpassioned reason than of unconsciously-motivated rationalization? The exaggerations of Freud and some of his disciples, however, must not blind us to the very great importance of the fact which they exaggerate the fact, namely, that the pressure of those layers of the mind outside our immediate and conscious control is much stronger than we are disposed to admit. For not only, be it remembered, is the Unconscious the seat of the instincts, to the operations of which all our actions can in the ultimate analysis be traced, and of repressed complexes; it is the seat also of a variety of physical constellations created by the impact of experience on the instincts, and determining, to a great extent, the character of our reaction to further experience as it arrives. The importance of this can hardly be exaggerated. For we can, to a large extent, choose our experience. The friends we make, the books we read, the recreations and amusements we follow, the profession we adopt these, and much more, are under our conscious control, and they form a large part of our "experience." It is clear, further, that the religious atmosphere in which we choose to live is "experience" too: and if I were writing a strictly theological disquisition I should of course dwell on the fact that the atmosphere of the Church, the companionship of Christ and His saints, is the form of experience certain above all others to make our Unconscious healthy and sweet.

We have learnt recently of another way in which we can consciously affect the character of the Unconscious. It so happens that this year which has seen, in England, the extroardinary development of popular interest in psychoanalysis, has seen also the publication of Charles Baudouin's remarkable account of the work of the French psychologist Coué. Those who have read this book will agree that Coué's methods have produced, and are producing, therapeutic results little short of incredible. What is the secret of those methods? The answer to that question lies in the one word autosuggestion. What Coué does is to tell his patients that they can cure themselves. It is not he who cures them, but their own Unconscious. And this it does by receiving from the patient's conscious mind a "suggestion" to the effect that he is getting better

"Suggestion and Autosuggestion: by Charles Baudouin: English trans. by Eden & Cedar Paul.

and better in all respects day by day (not, be it noted, that he wants, or is determined, to get better, but that he is getting better. The whole process is the work, not of the "will," but of the imagination). Here, then, we are told by one whose whole time is taken up by proving in countless cases the value of his advice, of a method by which we can cure some at least of our mental and physical disabilities through the medium of the Unconscious. (Of course, there is much more to be said about autosuggestion than this-about the conditions under which alone it can be successfully practised, and so on; and the reader must be referred to Baudouin's book: but this is the essential point.) And once more, if this were a sermon, I should insist that the highest form of autosuggestion must be Christian. I should ask, What of suggestions made to our Unconscious by the indwelling Christ Himself while we open our hearts to him in prayer?*-and what of the power of such autosuggestions as "Day by day the love, and the gentleness, and the purity of Christ constrain me more and more?"

We may conclude, then, that the bearings of what has come to be called The New Psychology upon religion are various and important. It is clearly the duty, not only of the clergy, but of parents and teachers and all who are in any way responsible for the moral and spiritual education of others to familiarize themselves with its general conclusions. I pass now to a brief consideration of a particular application of the findings of psychoanalysis of which increasing use is being made at the present day.

We have already observed that the modern study of dreams tends to show

(1) That the majority of dreams are symbolical.

(2) That a great many dreams are typical; that is to say, that

*I heard Miss Evelyn Underhill read a paper recently in which she suggested that Prayer consists in "the conversion of Grace into an effective autosuggestion," or words to that effect.

"I am told by a competent psychoanalyst that in his latest book Freud admits that he has hitherto over-estimated the symbolic character of dreams, and that many dreams are merely recollective. I have not read the book referred to, and so have not commented on this admission in the text of my article: but it is a highly interesting and significant one.

certain dream-objects and dream-incidents are always the symbolised expression of the same wish, no matter whose the dream is:

and at this point we must refer to another theory, fundamental to Freud and his disciples, viz: that a great many of the commoner dream-symbols are to be referred to the experiences of our earliest years. Thus, Freud suggests that the common dream that one is naked or very scantily clad is an echo of the artless exhibitionism of childhood; and that dreams of flying, falling, hovering, etc., have reference to "the movement games which have such extraordinary attractions for the child. What uncle has never made a child fly by running across the room with it with arms outstretched, or has never played falling with it by rocking it on his knee and then suddenly stretching out his leg, or by lifting it up high and then pretending to withdraw support?" These two examples refer, of course, to the symbols used in dreams: but there is a considerable amount of evidence that the latent content itself of a dream may be a wish which has been buried in the Unconscious since early childhood. One of the most startling of Freud's theories is that to dream of the death of a parent is the echo of a fixation of infantile love upon the other parent, but the evidence is practically conclusive that this is the correct interpretation of such a dream in many neurotic cases. Childhood is the time of phantasy-making, and children display their fondness for the pastime not only in dreams, but in the "let's pretend" of waking life, and in their devotion to anyone who can "tell them a story." So do they escape from any unwelcome experience in everyday life. It is on these bases that a certain school of writers on phychoanalysis build the theory that, in the words of one of them, 'the myth is the fragment of the infantile soul-life of the people."10 It is suggested, that is to say, that the origin of a great many religious beliefs may be accounted for as the expression of racial wishes, just as dreams are the expression of individual wishes. It is well known that almost identical myths are found in widely-separated parts of the world: this, we are told, is because there are typical racial wishes just as there are typical individual wishes. Further, myths, like dreams, are symbolical, so that their real meaning is to be sought for behind their "manifest content": and, to make the parallel complete, the inner meaning of

'Interpretations of Dreams, p. 237.

10

1o Dreams and Myths: Dr. Karl Abraham.

11

myths-their "latent content"-as of dreams, is generally sexual in character. Lastly, the universality of the religious phenomena is to be attributed in great measure to the operation of "herd instinct" —that mighty impulse which compels man, as it compels all social animals, to accept the opinions, beliefs and customs of the society of which he is a member.

"The energy and interest," writes Dr. Carl Jung, "which today we put into science and technique, the man of antiquity gave in great part to his mythology. . . . We (can) draw a parallel between the phantastical, mythological thinking of antiquity, and the similar thinking of children; between the lower human races and dreams. The age which created the myths thought childishly, that is to say phantastically, as in our age is still done, to a very great extent (associatively or analogically) in dreams. Has humanity at all ever broken loose from the myths? Every man has eyes and all his senses to perceive that the world is dead, cold and unending, and he has never yet seen a God, nor brought to light the existence of such from empirical necessity. On the contrary, there was need of a phantastic, indestructible optimism, and one far removed from all sense of reality in order, for example, to discover in the shameful death of Christ really the highest salvation and the redemption of the world."12

The views here alluded to have not as yet been developed in detail by more than two or three writers, and, until they are, it is, perhaps, premature to discuss them in detail. But there can be little doubt, I think, that a formidable attack on the religious view of life is maturing in this quarter, and it may be well, therefore, to suggest some quite general considerations on the other side. It is to be noticed, in the first place, that the writers who claim to explain the origin of religious beliefs on the analogy of the symbolism of typical dreams are precisely those who subscribe most enthusiastically to the Freudian view of the invariably sexual character of dream-symbolism. Their case, that is to say, stands or falls with two things (1) the symbolic nature of dreams, and (2) the sexual

"It is for this reason that it is hardly possible, in an article written for the general reader, to quote the actual arguments and illustrations used by the school of writers referred to.

12Psychology of the Unconscious, pp. 26-30.