S.
BRITISH PSYCHO‑ANALYTICAL SOCIETY
22 July 1921 London W1
Dear Professor:
First my best thanks for your letter and the copy of Massenpsychologie which I am devouring with the greatest interest. If I can find [time] to write a paper for the Edinburgh meeting of the Brit. Assoc., which is very doubtful, it will be an exposition of your book, entitled "The Psychology of the Herd Instinct".[1] It is, by the way, curious how steadily Le Bon has deteriorated in the 25 years since he wrote his interesting work.[2] Each successive one has been weaker, till he is now a pure journalist. I enclose a review of his last production,[3] a harsh one, it is true. I also enclose a cutting that will interest you in regard to the Jenseits.
The Stracheys came to lunch here yesterday. They have greatly improved since their analysis and should prove to be valuable people. I will of course bear well in mind what you say in regard to them. I could give them enough work to keep them fully occupied, but have a hesitation about overdoing this, as I imagine they also want to earn a livelihood and do work that is remunerative. Later on, when they settle in London, I hope to be able to help them in this respect. In the meantime I gave them an interesting book to review (a Psa of Strindberg).[4] They are both very attractive and cultured people, and I expect to see something of them still this month.
I had most satisfactory interviews with Frink, and we have arranged all manner of details about the Journal. He seems very easy to work with, and if only he keeps his promises we shall get great assistance. I suggested that he should be, practically if not officially, the chief American editor, acting as a centre to arrange the abstracting and reviewing of the American literature. I am keeping in good touch with America, and have had the latest news from some Americans passing through London, people interested in Psa. But all this takes time, as does everything else. If only H. G. Wells' Time Machine were available I should find things more satisfactory.[5] I once had a slight impotency complex on the subject of insufficient "time", and must take care it does not return under very real provocation!
I was very interested in your re‑grouping of the Sammlung articles, and wonder if it is definitive or whether I may make a couple of suggestions from the point of view of the English reading public. The main one is this: that there exists here, for some reason that I do not know, a strong association between small books and dilettantism, as though the larger the book the more important its contents; it is a very infantile mode of estimation, but it exists widely. I cannot imagine an Englishman issuing such weighty matter as there is in the Jenseits and the Massenpsychologie in brochure form; it would be either an essay in a journal or else expanded to a larger book. Thus I cannot see why the Krankengeschichten should be issued in two small volumes instead of in one respectably large one (still 200 pages less than my Papers); no one would ever want to buy one half of them. But perhaps I should begin by recalling to your memory your division, which was: 1. Einleitungsarbeiten. S. 194. 2. Theoretische Abhandlungen. 287. 3. Krankengeschichten. 280. 4. Ditto. 262. 5. Technik und Metapsychologie. 260. 6. Angewandte Psychoanalyse. 185. Will you allow me to suggest the following modifications? To take two small articles on technique from the Einleitungsarbeiten and transfer them to the other technical articles, which could thus be all read chronologically together. To join the Metapsychologie with the angewandte Psa, for it is largely Psa applied to pure psychology, and the technical to the introductory. The result would then run: 1. Introductory and Technique (which everybody would want to read first). 318. 2. Theoretical. 287. 3. Krankengeschichten. 542. 4. Applied and Metapsychology. 321. I shall be anxious to get your opinion about these points. As you know, the work of producing them in worthy form lies near to my heart.[6]
There are endless scientific matters I should like to ask you about, but I will spare you, especially when you are just beginning your sorely needed rest, which I hope you will greatly enjoy. Have you Anna with you? If so, please give her my kindest regards.
As you will guess, I am still in a working mood. Holidays begin with me only on August 13th. We shall probably stay at Elsted until we go to Germany in the middle of September, as I cannot aford the cost of travelling to Edinburgh (if I can write a paper, Flügel will read it there).[7]
With my very kindest regards yours truly and affectionately Ernest Jones
[1] The article was not written.
[2] Gustave Le Bon (1841‑1931), medically trained social psychologist, best known for his La psychologie des foules (1895), which is extensively quoted in Freud (1921c, pp. 72‑81).
[3] Possibly [Review of Gustave Le Bon, The World in Revolt: A Psychological Study of Our Times, trans. Bernard Miall. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1921.], 18 June 1921, New Statesman 17:310.
[4] Strachey reviewed three books on Strindberg, which appeared in the Journal, 4(1923):231‑233 and Zeitschrift, 9(1923):107‑109: Alfred Storch, August Strindberg im Lichte seiner Selbstbiographie: eine psychopathologische Persönlichkeitsanalyse (Munich: Bergmann, 1921); Axel Johann Uppvall, August Strindberg: A Psychoanalytic Study with Special Reference to the Oedipus Complex (Boston: Badger, 1921); and Karl Jaspers, Strindberg und Van Gogh: Versuch einer pathographischen Analyse unter vergleichender Heranziehung von Swedenborg und Hölderlin (Leipzig: Bircher, 1922).
[5] Herbert George Wells (1866‑1946), novelist, journalist, and popular historian, wrote Time Machine, an Invention (New York: H. Holt, 1895).
[6] Jones's suggestion refers to the structure of the first four volumes of Freud, Collected Papers.
[7] Jones and Flügel did not attend the meetings of the British Medical Association, 8‑14 September 1921 in Edinburgh (British Medical Journal, 2(1921):456‑459).
