INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO‑ANALYTICAL ASSOCIATION

«FR»6 July 1936  London W1

«FL»Dear Professor,

«IP4,0»Please accept my warm congratulations.  You have achieved the highest scientific honour in England and, I should suppose, in the world.

Harold Jeffreys is a Cambridge professor ‑‑ I think of geo‑physics.«FN1.××Sir Harold Jeffreys (b. 1891), Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, since 1914, distinguished scientist with professional interests in astronomy, mathematics, and geophysics.  For amusing comments on Jeffreys by James Strachey, see Meisel and Kendrick (1985, pp. 219, 223‑224).»  He was in analysis with me for a couple of years, and later with Miss Sharpe.  The remarkable feature of his case was a combination of the highest intellectual capacities with a very low degree of ordinary social capacities, such as «MDUL»savoir faire«MDNM», common sense, etc.  I think the success of the analysis was only moderate.  He has an astounding facility for rapidly acquiring the profoundest knowledge of any subject, e.g. botany, higher mathematics, physics, etc., and has made himself world famous through his mathematical researches into physics and the structure and movements of the earth, on which he has written some heavy books.  He is himself a F. R. S., an honour also bestowed a couple of years ago on Trotter for his experimental work on sensation, so now psycho‑analysis has received the highest possible recognition as a branch of pure science.

With kindest regards  Yours always  Ernest Jones