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RIDDLE OF PERSONALITY. By Harold Addington Bruce.
Moffat, Yard & Company, New York, 1908. pp. xiii, 247.

        IN “The Riddle of Personality," Mr. Bruce has contributed a volume which will be of value to those who wish to lay a foundation for the study of personality and also to those who read with a general interest in the subject. A large part of the present work was published originally in Appleton's Magazine.

        Though the author is neither a medical man nor a professional psychologist his book indicates wide and intelligent reading and a comprehensive grasp of his subject. He avoids phraseology and expresses himself in language which the least scientific can readily understand. He treats of the work of the psychical researcher as well as of that of the psycho­pathologist, showing in what respects the one supplements the other.

        Discussing the nature of "Self," he touches upon the evolutionary theory of Darwin and the later investigations along psychical lines, and comes to the "still debatable phenomena," which he divides roughly into "spiritistic and hypnotic." Reviewing briefly the so-called spiritistic manifestations since the early part of the nineteenth century, he turns to hypnotism and outlines the history of its use from the time of Mesmer, making clear the varying methods employed, and the points of difference between the adherents of the Nancy school and those of the Salpêtrière. It is to be regretted that the author confuses, in his terminology at least, hypnotism with suggestion, a confusion which is common in popular language and medical literature. He speaks of various cases as having been cured by hypnotism, a phrase which tends to perpetuate an erroneous conception of psychotherapeutics and to do harm. By the use hypnotism the cause of psychical illness may often be discovered, but the cure is always effected by suggestion or some education.

        Considerable space is devoted to the work of the Society for Psychical Research and F. W. H. Myers' theory of the subliminal self is clearly explained. In this subliminal self the author, applying the theory of universal or multiple telepathy, finds an explanation of the so-called spiritistic manifestations of mediums like Mrs. Piper, which to some minds can be accounted for only by spiritism. Telepathy he calls the "Nemesis" of spiritism and, while admitting the absence of scientific proof,  says: ". . . . it is the writer's conviction that once the psychologists, as a body, seriously attack the problem of apparitions and auditions, the case for telepathy as against spiritism will be definitely proved." To the mind of the scientific reader the theory of universal telepathy is quite as difficult to accept as that of spiritism. While we agree with the author in rejecting the latter we still believe that Dr. Hodgson, Dr. Hyslop and Professor Lodge are right in rejecting the telepathic hypothesis as inadequate to explain these phenomena. That telepathy has ever occurred yet awaits proof by experimental methods and remains only a working hypothesis."

        The writer attempts no explanation of multiple personality except in so far as he applies to it the law of dissociation or "the much debated theory of neuron motility," and it is perhaps as well that he does not, as even the explanations of the most skilled neurologist or psychopathologist seem somewhat inadequate to one who has experienced a dissociation of personality, as has the writer of this review. To thoroughly appreciate the intricacies of such a life a man must live it himself and get what comfort he can from the fact that he has a knowledge of the subject to be obtained in no other way.

        A chapter is devoted to the "American Explorers of the Subconscious," in which tribute is paid to the work which has been done in psychotherapeutics by Dr. Morton Prince and Dr. Boris Sidis, and some of their cases cited.

        The book is well written, instructive and entertaining. A bibliography is given which will be of service to those who wish for further and deeper reading.

X. Y. Z.

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