Carl Jung introduced his famous concept of psychological type in his several books about psychological types. Here we present our comprehensive and detailed research into Carl Gustav Jung's views of Psychological Types.

Translator's Introduction to Carl Jung's Psychological Types

In presenting this, Jung's crowning work, to the
English-speaking world, I would like to make a
brief sketch of the curve of the author's thought ;
for, like everything that is rooted in reality, Jung's
standpoint shows a definite line of development,
and the following of this progression may add a
historical sidelight to the understanding of the
present work.

I would have preferred to avoid the troubled
waters of controversy, but it does not seem possible
to relate the history of Jung's standpoint without
at the same time contrasting it with that of Freud.
That this somewhat thankless task was necessary
is proved by the still frequent coupling of the two
schools of thought under a common denomination,
suggesting that the general mind has, as yet, failed
to make a clear distinction between the contrasting
standpoints.

Freud undoubtedly is an analytical genius.
One has only to read his early studies upon the
aetiology of hysteria to be struck by the virtuosity
of his subtle reasoning. It was an intuitive
capacity of no ordinary shrewdness that revealed
the hidden significance of the hysterical syndrome.
For it opened the way to an entirely new conception
of the unconscious, and led to a rediscovery
of the dream as a significant and purposeful product
of that same unconscious activity of which the
hysterical manifestations were a somatic expression.

Freud was like a master-detective tracking
down the incriminating complex in the unconscious,
while Breuer, his colleague, contented
himself with exorcizing the repressed elements
from above by abreaction under hypnosis.
In medical science we can discern two main
human types or attitudes whose behaviour towards
the therapeutic problem presents a characteristic
contrast. The chief interest of the one lies in the
welfare of mankind and the healing of his patient ;
the other's interest is monopolized by the aetiological
problem presented by the patient's condition,
and is concerned in & less degree with its remedy.
The one attempts to discover a remedy before
understanding the problem; the other tends to
become so completely immersed in the problem
that the original objective, e.g. the healing of
mankind, is often lost to view.

We do not find the greatest minds succumbing
to either of these frailties, but it is not out of place
to outline such typical predispositions, since the
vague benevolence and imperfect understanding
of the one are as far below the scientific desideratum,
as are the other's exclusive ardours for
the scientific chase a blemish upon the ideal of
humanity.

While Breuer, therefore, seems to have been
content with the therapeutic efficacy of hypnotic
abreaction, Freud found in this procedure merely
a starting-point for a further investigation of those
avenues which the abreacted material opened out,
and, as he rather naively admits, no one was more
surprised than himself to observe that this further
investigation of the patient's subterranean activities produced valuable therapeutic results. It is, of
course, true that some of the most beneficent
therapeutic measures have been discovered in
precisely this way, as incidental by-products as it
were, of the process of scientific investigation, but
for the purpose of comparison it is important to
stress the fact that Freud's approach was preeminently
that of the empirical investigator,
because it is in this attitude that we find both
his strength and his limitation as a psychologist. We will return again to this point when the
picture has been more fully outlined.

While Freud was enduring the obloquy of
the psychological pioneer in Vienna, Jung was
approaching similar conclusions from a very different
angle in Zurich. By a further elaboration
of the word-association experiments formerly employed
by Galton and Wundt for other ends, he
succeeded in the most delicate task of devising
objective criteria for the recognition of unconscious
complexes. The discovery of prolonged
reaction time, perseveration, etc., associated with
affect-toned presentations led to his invaluable
formulation of the complex, from which he
advanced to the same fundamental concept of
repression which Freud had reached by the clinical
route. This naturally brought the two pioneers
together, and Jung found in Freud's masterly
analytical technique the admitted highroad to the
unconscious processes.

In so far as it was purely a question of method,
Freud and Jung found themselves in harmony,
but the study of psychological processes can never
remain a mere question of method ; sooner or later
it must challenge the investigator to produce a
philosophic standpoint. And here a basic psychological
difference began to make itself felt. Freud
the empiricist wanted to limit his psychological
principles to empirically ascertainable matters of
fact On the lines of orthodox scientific determinism
he preferred an exclusively causal and
reductive account of the psyche. Jung, on the
other hand, appreciated the fact that man was
more than a variously disordered object he was
also a self-creating subject. He argued that the
causal explanation cannot be regarded as exclusive
in the psychological realm, since the final or
purposive explanation finds equal justification in
human experience. He began to feel that the inevitable
sexual interpretations, however widely the
term might be stretched, were too poor a rendering
of the passionate and infinitely diverse aims
of the human soul. In harmony, therefore, with
Robert Mayer's conception in the realm of physics,
he developed the energic conception of the libido,
thus lifting the whole subject from a one-sided and
purely empiricistic standpoint to the level of universal
concepts, where science and philosophy are
able to understand one another.

The actual point of divergence between the two
standpoints occurred, significantly enough, over
the question of the mother-imago. As is well
known, Freud's interpretation of the motherimage
in dreams is exclusively referred to the
actual mother or mother-surrogate. Jung contended
that the almost magical influence of the
parent-imago with its supreme dynamic effect
upon the whole course of a man's life, not only
shaping his actions, thoughts, and relations to the
world with secret and invisible determination,
but also creating the figures of the father and
mother deities in his religious and fantasy life,
could find no final explanation in the actual
events of infantile and adolescent experience.

The difficulty was admitted by Freud, but the
acceptance of inherited racial experience as an
integral factor in psychic life opened such menacing
vistas involving frank disaster to the comprehensive
system he had devised and was prepared
to demonstrate to the world, that he resolutely
shut his eyes to the possibility of this boundless
and primeval continuity. He was only prepared
to explain the discrete, individual psyche, and
Jung's conception of the collective unconscious
opened the door to unnamed things from the
jungle and primeval forest : it introduced a world
of unknown elemental forces which must be unconditionally
excluded from a scientific system.

But, apart from the considerations above
alluded to, Jung's argument was incontestable.
The lungs of the new-born infant know how to
breathe, the heart knows how to beat, the whole
co-ordinated organic system knows how to function,
only because the infant's body is the product of
inherited functional experience. The whole story
of man's struggle for adaptation to life, his whole
phylogenetic history, are represented in that ' knowing
how ' of the infant's body. Is it then blindness
or fear that urges us to deny to the infant psyche
that same functional inheritance which is so manifestly present in the other organs ? What is this dark fear of our archaic past which prompts us to reject the possibility of any psychic experience other than that of our individual lives ?

It must challenge the investigator to produce a
philosophic standpoint. And here a basic psychological
difference began to make itself felt. Freud
the empiricist wanted to limit his psychological
principles to empirically ascertainable matters of
fact. On the lines of orthodox scientific determinism
he preferred an exclusively causal and
reductive account of the psyche. Jung, on the
other hand, appreciated the fact that man was
more than a variously disordered object he was
also a self-creating subject. He argued that the
causal explanation cannot be regarded as exclusive
in the psychological realm, since the final or
purposive explanation finds equal justification in
human experience. He began to feel that the inevitable
sexual interpretations, however widely the
term might be stretched, were too poor a rendering
of the passionate and infinitely diverse aims
of the human soul. In harmony, therefore, with
Robert Mayer's conception in the realm of physics,
he developed the energic conception of the libido,
thus lifting the whole subject from a one-sided and
purely empiricistic standpoint to the level of universal
concepts, where science and philosophy are
able to understand one another.

At all events it is clear that, once the existence
of these inherited psychic structures is admitted
as the basis of psychic activity, that conception of
the unconscious and its contents which regards it
as derived exclusively from objective experience
in the single individual life must go by the board.
Here, then, was the alternative which, from the
historical standpoint, we must regard as crucial.
Either Jung's conception of the collective unconscious
must be admitted, and with it the whole
inner world of the subject, wherein the inner
images or archetypes are granted an equal determining
power with the objects of the outer world,
or the one-sided empirical system must be maintained
with its somewhat arbitrary postulates,
and the whole disturbing vision of the collective
unconscious be rejected as a fantastic impossibility.
Jung's great work, Psychology ofthe Unconscious,
was the final statement of his separation from
and advance beyond the Freudian standpoint, and
Freud's reaction to this work made it clear that
he too recognized an insuperable opposition. For
in this work Jung did not confine himself to a
reduction of the Miller fantasies to their instinctive
roots; he also identified the personal
themes with universal religious and mythological
conceptions, thus raising them to a level of general
importance. But, in so doing, he also proved the
necessity of the synthetic standpoint in analytical
psychology a demonstration that bore unavoidable implications unfavourable to the Freudian
position.

That the divergence between Freud and Jung
must sooner or later have become acute will, I
think, be clear when we remember that between
the two men there existed not only the difference
of race but also a radical difference of type. An
extravert, by his very nature, is bound to produce
a psychology differing essentially from that of the
introvert. For Freud the aims of empirical
science, with its centripetal bias towards a minute
and detailed analysis of observable facts, were
absolute; whereas for Jung a purely objective
psychology was not enough, in that it entirely
omitted the undeniable reality and power ofthe idea.
This is not the place to enter into a discussion
of the relative values of the extraverted empiricistic
and the introverted abstracting attitudes in human
thought; the struggle of these two elements, as
Jung shows in the present work, is synonymous
with the history of human culture. They are
both essential as mutual correctives, and it is only
when either tendency becomes a one-sided habitual
attitude that commonsense steps in and makes
its inscrutable judgment. In science these two
general tendencies appear as the twin capacities
of empirical observation of facts and of intellectual
abstraction from the facts observed of generally
valid principles, but only in the man of genius do
we find both capacities fully and symmetrically
developed.

In my view, criticism of Freud's achievement
should be based not upon the fact that he failed
to perceive the possibility of a general application of his ideas this he apprehended only too clearly
but upon his inability to frame concepts of general
validity.
He attempted to piake the infinitely complex
phenomena of the psyche harmonize with theories
intuitively derived from clinical material; but he
was unable to enlarge or reconstruct his theoretical
system to embrace the wider aspects of human
experience and culture. The normal was considered
in terms of the pathological.
A gradual, but very definite, movement of
intelligent opinion away from the Freudian standpoint
at the present time is, in my view, a
commonsense reaction to the damaging depreciation
of essential human values involved in this
reductive valuation of the psyche. For the reductive
standpoint fails to see that every complex is
Janus-faced, and that the energy invested in it is
never purely regressive, but is rather a reculer
pour mieux sauter. The extraordinary vitality of
the infantile complex would be quite inexplicable
on the supposition that it was a wholly regressive
tendency. But it demands a synthetic standpoint
to perceive that every dawning possibility in life
is heralded by the image of the child, the symbol
of eternal youth, and that the infantile complex
with its simplicity and trust in life is also the
growing point of the developing personality.
Every child perceives, what the investigator may
fail to see, that a living man in his most eager and
productive moments exhibits certain essential characters
of childhood. Creative activity demands the
power and complexity of the man as well as the
simple attitude of the child. But Jung himself
deals so fully and so much more ably with the
limitations of the purely reductive standpoint, that
I need not elaborate this aspect of the subject here.

It has been argued that psycho-analysis does
not claim to be more than a therapeutic technique
and a method of research, and that it is irrelevant
for the psychologist to concern himself with the
question of human development or with the inevitable
ancillary problems of morality, religion,
and human relationship. In this very argument
the essential limitations of this standpoint stand
self-confessed, since a psychology that excludes
the most vital problems of life from its sphere of
responsibility requires no further criticism. It is
already moribund. Actually, of course, a psychologic
nihilism which broke down every individual
form into its elements and put nothing in its
place could not, conceivably, have anything but
disastrous therapeutic results. But Freud does
put something positive and definite in its place;
for there always remains the transference to the
analyst, which, in the case of a positive transference,
involves a .gradual assimilation by the patient
to the analyst's general attitude to life, and in the
alternative case a very definite rejection of the man
and all his ways.

This unconscious identification with the analyst
is quite outside the sphere of the latter's control.
It is inherent in the analytical relationship. But
for the analyst to wash his hands of this unconscious
effect, with its far-reaching moral influence
upon the patient's subsequent development, is as
irresponsible as though a surgeon were to shut his
eyes to the inevitable dangers of haemorrhage and
sepsis. The question of moral responsibility,
therefore, is inherent in analytical practice, and,
since this is so, we have every right to demand of
a practical psychological system that it shall
attempt to discover the fundamental laws of
human development and, as far as possible, to
formulate them.

We said at the beginning that Freud was an
empirical investigator, and that this was both his
strength and his limitation. It is his strength,
because it required the empirical attitude to discover
and establish the psycho-analytic technique ; and it
is his limitation, because the general attitude to
life which is governed solely by objective facts
and considerations is quite incapable of judging
man as a subject. If, as Freud points out in
Totem and Taboo, human morality can be traced
back to the first primeval act of parricide, a derivative
of some remote arboreal conflict between
the parent's authority and the son's lust for his
father's wives, then morality can exist only as a
constituent of herd-psychology, and the individual
moral law is as much a delusion as is free will to
a determinist. It is obvious that a purely objective
standpoint must similarly interpret all the realities
of the inner world as mere derivatives or reflects of
objective facts. Man is wholly determined, therefore,
by things outside himself. He is nothing but
a "singe rati", a mere mechanism that gets out of
order, and, by an appropriate use of the correct
method, can be put right again.

This standpoint is well illustrated by the
Freudian interpretation of dreams, which always
explains the dream-figures as carefully disguised
ignoring the possibility that such images may also
be symbols of subjective realities existing in their
own right.

The Freudian standpoint, then, in attempting
to explain all the phenomena of human psychology
in terms of objective facts, remains one-sided, and
the extent of its limitations may conceivably be
measured by the intolerance with which it discusses
or ignores every standpoint that ventures beyond
its circumscribed terrain.

Since there have always been large numbers of
men for whom the objects and experiences of the
psychic life bear a more immediate sense of reality
than the world of objective facts, it is clear that
a purely objective account of the psychological
processes could not win any considerable support
beyond the specialized limit of its own peculiar
faculty. But, however much the historical eye
may regard the wider subjective valuation and
synthetic method of Jung as the inevitable response
of psychology to essential human demands, the
greatest honour must none the less be given to
Jung, for, not only was he the first psychologist
to perceive these demands, but he also voiced them
in principles whose universality could embrace the
heights and the depths of the psyche and comprehend
its manifold diversity.

In establishing the two typical mechanisms of
introversion and extraversion together with the
main categories of human types based upon this
fundamental antithesis, Jung has demonstrated
the impossibility of every attempt to formulate a
generally valid theory of human psychology which
ignores these typical differences. For a theory
whose validity is incontestable for the psyche from
which it originated proves itself worthless and
even misleading for an individual of another type.

From considerations such as these we must confess
our inability to devise any rigid or dogmatic
formula which can be authoritatively promulgated
as a general system of psychological therapy. A
physician once justly complained to Jung that he
had made analysis so difficult. It is certainly true
that the pronouncements of Freud relieve the
analyst of a very considerable onus. He is not
required to ask himself What is the individual
way of this particular subject ? He has merely to
reduce his patient's psychological material to its
elementary constituents according to prescribed
' orthodox 'formulations, and if the patient is not
satisfied he either proves himself psychologically
inadequate to receive the truth, or so immersed in
his morbid state that the analytical light serves
only to reveal its impenetrable obscurities.
In his sub-title to this book Jung has called it
the Psychology of Individuation, and therewith
he affirms the essential principle of his philosophy ;
for to Jung the psyche is a world which contains
all the elements of the greater world, with the
same destructive and constructive forces a pluralistic
universe in which the individual either fulfils
or neglects his essential r61e of creator.
The individuality is the central co-ordinating
principle of this realm, analogous to the principle
of royalty in the nation; and, in so far as this
co-ordinating will achieves an effective command
of the diverse and conflicting elements which
constantly tend to disrupt his kingdom, are we
justified in speaking of a differentiated individual
The individuality is universally present, but as
a rule it exists mainly in the unconscious, often
finding expression in dreams and fantasies in
some royal or princely figure. It is a principle,
therefore, which has to be created out of the
unconscious by accepting individuation as a deliberate
and conscious aim.

It may be asked what has individuation got to
do with the treatment of nervous disorders ? This
question springs from the assumption that there is
no fundamental relation between the realities of
the psychic life and the symptomatic conditions of
the body. And yet the lives of religious founders
one and all bear witness to the fact that the
healing of the body is not unconnected with the
inner life.

If differentiation and co-ordination of function
are admitted as the vital principles of organic life,
it is difficult to see how one can regard psychic or
functional disorders as anything else than a statement
of the relative suppression of these principles
in the individual in question. The psyche, therefore,
has to be considered as a totality, and not as
an ill-assorted collection of instincts and faculties.
For, if man is not a mere passive mechanism to
be shaped to the pattern of a chosen formula, he
stands before us as a self-creating subject whose
individual way may be directly opposed to the
analyst's most cherished theories.

It has often been levelled against Jung that his
is a pedagogic system, that he tries to teach people
how they should live, how they should settle their
problems, instead of merely indicating the unconscious
state of affairs and leaving them to find
their way out. We are told that the physician
should confine himself to the purely medical aspect
of the case, and that to voice any criticism which
might suggest a definite moral or religious standpoint
is to encroach upon other domains for which
he has no qualifications. This point of view is
very common and has a certain justification,
supported as it is by the whole traditional constitution
of society. But, in spite of an argument
apparently so overwhelming, the individual psyche
persistently over-rides the social categories, and,
notwithstanding every rational attempt to regard
it in terms of "mechanisms" and functions, its
claim to be considered as a whole has never once
abated.

Since this claim appears to have a socially
subversive tendency and occasions very real fear
in a great many minds, it might be well to examine
its character. If we assume and without this
assumption no system of psycho-therapy has any
reasonable basis that a neurosis is an act of
adaptation that has failed, we are faced, in an
individual case, with the question: What is the
nature of the reality to which this individual has
failed to adapt ? The materialist would fain have
us believe that the only reality demanding psychic
adaptation is represented by the sheer concrete
facts of the physical environment. But, if concrete
facts were the only reality, there would be no
spiritual problem, and consequently no neurotics.
The minimal adjustment to objective conditions
demanded by social life could present no insuperable
difficulty to anyone but an imbecile unless
there were another reality of a very different nature
always competing with the concrete world for
prior claim upon our energy.

This other psychic or spiritual reality, which
comprises the whole inner life of the subject, is as
constantly demanding new forms and expressions
of its energy as is the world of external objects,
even though it does not make the same compelling
demand upon our attention. The fantastic
hallucinations of the delirium tremens patient or
the paranoic are equally strong evidence for the
reality of these inner claims as are the ecstaticexperiences
of the religious mystic; only in the
former case they are seen from the reverse side.
For this reality the evidence is necessarily subjective.
The snakes and frogs seen by the patient
in his delirium, however delusional to an objective
valuation, possess an indisputable reality to the man
himself. Clearly, therefore, there are two quite
different kinds of reality, both of which, while
pressing their respective claims upon our capacity
for adaptation, are nevertheless mutually dependent
in the sense that neglect or disregard of either
eventually destroys the validity of both.
Again, thousands of lives are fruitlessly spent
in a neurotic attempt to escape an overpowering
parental influence, just as there are innumerable
lives seeking a release from the unconscious
tyranny of collective authority. The need of the
growing child to differentiate himself as an individual
from the magical parental influence is
essentially the same as the individuating impulse
to distinguish oneself as a "
single, separate person
"from the collective "en masse". But the developing
child who seeks to adventure beyond the
magic circle of the family encounters not only the
authority and conservatism of the older generation,
but also the far more dangerous inertia and infantilism
of his own psychology.

In either case it is essentially the same conflict
between the individual and the collective elements,
whether within or without, and what could prevail
against the authority without or the inertia within,
but an inner necessity or law whose incontestable
superiority can stand firm against every attack.
The genuine rebel in his resistance against the
law can win our sympathy in spite of ourselves.
Notwithstanding every rational resistance, the
inner superiority enforces our recognition of its
power. The genuine neurotic (as opposed to the
social deserter) is typically a man who cannot
reconcile the claims of traditional forms and values
with those of the obscure, but unbending, law
within. For him, the inner and outer claims are
contradictory and mutually exclusive. In answer
to the persistent demands of the social tax-collector
he can only guarantee the overdue payments to
Caesar when Caesar shall first have recognized the
paramount claims of God.

For such a man to be delivered over once
again to the orthodox representatives of traditional
values, whatever the formula may be, is merely to
hand him over to his creditors. Before he can do
justice to traditional forms or fulfil his social task,
he must first submit himself unconditionally to the
fundamental law of his own being. This is his
stronghold, this his root in an enduring reality,
and with this security he can go out into the
world, not only to settle the old imperial demands,
but also, perchance, to reanimate the forms that
ire with the vision of what is to be.

To the critic then who charges Jung with
pedagogic interference, we would reply : Jung does
aot teach a man how he shall act or think or live,
but he gives him a technique by which he can
comprehend and finally submit to the laws of his
own nature. The basic principles of human development
are not vested in any faculty they
have no academic formula, for they embrace every
function of human activity. They are commensurate
with life. It is not surprising, therefore,
that it is from just those quarters where authority
reigns and where 4 truth '
is already congealed into
a dogma, that this particular .criticism usually
springs. It is easier to teach and practise a
formula than to try to interpret the meaning of
life; but a rational formula is doomed from the
outset, because it tends to seduce men to turn
away from the enigma of life by offering them a
formula in its stead : thus it opposes life, and its
inherent destructiveness determines its own fate.
No psychological formula can ever explain life.
At the best, it can only present the living process
in a thinkable form to our reason. As soon as it
claims to have explained a living process, its effect
is destructive, since it interposes an authoritative,
ready-made explanation between the individual
and the real problems life presents, thus apparently
relieving him of the need to seek his own individual
solution.

This is what Jung describes as negative, in
contrast to positive or creative, thinking ; for what
we call character is nothing but the measure of
sincerity with which an individual creates a positive
adaptation to the essential problems of life.
A formula is an artefact, a rigid and arbitrary
frame into which the plastic and changing forms
of life are impressed. The resistance of the unconscious
to this imposition is perceptible in the
impassioned dogmatism of the man who has
accepted a formula as an explanation of life.

A principle, on the other hand, acquires its
validity not from the authority of the man who
lays it down, but from life itself, whose manifold
processes it correlates and brings into abstract
form. Formulas live and die like their authors
one might almost say with their authors ; whereas
the validity of an abstract principle is just as
durable as the processes it embraces and comprehends.
It needs neither authority nor defence.
It bears'within it its own prerogative.
Jung's analytical interpretations are admittedly
based upon the principles established in the present
work, but practical application of them, i.e. their
translation again into life, rests wholly with the
individual subject.

The individuality is the alpha and omega of
Jung's system, not, however, as an expression of
personal power as the egoist would like to interpret
it, but essentially as a fimction of the whole.
This in itself sufficiently disposes of the pedagogic
critics, for a system which aims at individual
autonomy cannot justly, be described as pedagogic.
Naturally there could be no interpretation
at all without a standpoint. In practice, therefore,
the most that we can humanly demand is that the
standpoint of the analyst should constantly be
orientated towards the individual way, or "
greatest ought" of the subject. It is, of course, true that,
however genuinely an analyst may strive to realize
this aim, his interpretation will, to a large extent,
be subjectively conditioned. This is psychologically
unavoidable, but the very sincerity with
which he strives to interpret the fundamental
needs of his patient from the material at his disposal
must surely make for individual autonomy.
Whereas the opposite standpoint that would reduce
psychic experience into terms of arbitrary mechanisms
must inevitably tend to standardize mankind ;
because, in this case, the main criterion of judgment
is the relative measure of conformity with
the orthodox formula.

From the point of view of social economy,
there can surely be no two opinions that a
psychological technique whose aim it is to create
individuals is of greater value to society than a
system which aims at conformity. For an individual
who is at one with himself seeks a creative
collective expression from inner necessity, while
the dragooned neurotic is of as little service to
society as an unwilling conscript.

But how, it may be asked, can a physician
learn to forgo the customary collectivized view of
his fellow-man and train himself to an unprejudiced
view of his patient's individuality unobscured by
his own unconscious projections ?

It will, I think, be clear, that before a physician
can fully recognize and respect the individuality of
his patient, he must first have given allegiance to
this principle in himself. This does not mean to
say that only a differentiated individual is fitted to
practise analysis such a condition would disqualify
every candidate but it does demand that the
analyst shall himself have been analysed and shall
have made a sincere attempt to deal with his own
life problems before undertaking to deal with those
of his patients.

The aims of the individuality can never be fully
apprehended by exclusive reference to the biological
or instinctive life of the subject ; in fact, just as
little can they be explained in terms of instinct as
a work-of-art in terms of energy. One might
attempt to formulate the chief aim of the individuality
as the effort to create out of oneself the
most significant product of which one is capable.
On the biological plane this is clearly the child
but on the psychic level this must be interpreted
more broadly as something that bears for the
individual, in the fullest sense of the term, a
significance at least analogous to that of the
child. For the greatest individual value is
always pregnant with value for mankind.
Hence the budding personality with its potentialities
for good or ill is frequently represented in
dreams in the form of a child.

The whole symbolism of rebirth is quite unintelligible
from a purely biological standpoint;
hence a system that is blinded by its preoccupation
with purely instinctive interpretations presents
a definite obstruction to the whole transforming
or spiritualizing tendency of the libido. The
obvious prospective significance of the rebirth
symbolism in dreams is, to my mind, so apparent
that one is tempted to accuse the reductive school
of wilful blindness. But this would, of course,
be quite absurd, and one has to remind oneself
that the dream, like the lily of the field, is a
natural product unassisted by human intention,
and that it is quite as rational to regard the lily
as a fortunate accidental grouping of basic organic
elements as to conceive it as a symbol of purity.
The standpoint, therefore, eventually decides the
interpretation, as it also decides the manner in
which the interpretation is employed.

I have now revealed the very practical motive
which prompted me to bring this whole question
of the underlying opposition of standpoint into the
foreground of discussion. This attempt, although
foredoomed to excite controversy, will, I hope, in
spite of the obvious inadequacy of such a brief outline,
help to clarify the situation in a way that a more
cautious and non-committal statement would fail
to do.

The great value of the present work lies in the
fact that it is a mature and conscious survey of the
psychological field, viewed by a mind of unique
range and development whose astonishing wealth of
psychological experience illumines the whole work.
The range of Jung's thought has developed with his
experience. The Psychology of the Unconscious was
the shaft of the tree this work is its ample spread.
For practical psychologists it must assuredly
be regarded as the foundation of the science, for
in no other work do we find basic psychological
principles whose validity is commensurate with
the undeniable facts of man's historic development
and the realities of individual experience.
The actual translation of the work was a
task of such difficulty that often I despaired of
giving the book an adequate rendering into
English. Fortunately I had exceptional opportunities
of assistance from the author himself,
for whose unstinted patience and generosity in
listening to my translation week by week and
offering invaluable suggestions I cannot be too
grateful.

For most valued assistance in the various preparatory
stages of the work I wish to tender my
warmest acknowledgments to my wife, to Mrs
Lilian A. Clare, to Mr John M. Thorburn of
Cardiff University, and finally, to Mr W. Swan
Stallybrass (of Messrs Kegan Paul & Co. Ltd.,
my publishers) for whose friendly offices and indefatigable
care in the matter of punctuation and
typography throughout the book I offer my very
cordial appreciation.

H. G. BAYNES.
24 CAMPDEN HILL SQUARE,
LONDON, W.8.