158 BOOK REVIEWS [Aug.

techniques,” since most would admit the importance tion.” This was of course the hell-fire period of
of appropriate active testing in life as the patient Puritanism and Edwards was therefore not out of
advances in therapy. They will cringe at transfer- harmony with contemporary preaching. Even so
ence being seen as only a pathological phenomenon, it is not easy to conceive of a man of his intelligence,
a bastard form of “tele.” Others will wonder wide knowledge, and social standing indulging in
whether and why the author must use so many new such frightful and sadistic ranting-it can be called
words and whether they are all as necessary and as nothing else-and it is difficult to avoid the conclu-
different in meaning from our familiar jargon as sion that the preacher enjoyed the effect he pro-
the author asserts or implies. duced in his audience, the anxiety and terror that
Who Shall Sur7JiveP has come a long way since found vent in “moans and cries and shrieks.” Quite
1934 and so have its author and his movement. The possibly, however, the audience derived pleasure too
adoption of action techniques by psychoanalysts from these emotional orgies with a kind of maso-
using group therapy (such as Serge Lebovici in chistic satisfaction. Both preacher and audience
Paris) may bring it closer to psychoanalysis. Per- would seem to have been interesting subjects for
haps someone adept in the philosophy, techniques, psychopathological study.
and verbiage of both fields can show how much Edwards out-Calvined Calvin. He was apparently
closer together they really are than either knows. a humorless man and the ridigity of his doctrine
This book is certainly a potential milestone and and the narrow conformity and submissiveness he
guidepost along the pathway toward that goal. demanded of his followers were at length too much
EARL A. LooMIs, JR., M. D.,
to be endured. His Northampton congregation
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinics, finally told him to go. It was at Northampton
University of Pittsburgh. that Edwards sounded the opening notes of the all-
American revival, the “Great Awakening” that
THE CLINICALLY IMPORTANT REFLEXES. By Fried- swept through the American colonies like a spiritual
rich Wilhelm Bronisch. First American Edi- epidemic during the 1740’s. In his farewell sermon
tion. Revised and enlarged by Clemens E. to his congregation here (1750) his tongue-lashings
Bends. (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1952. continued. Self-justification was carried to great
Price: $4.75.) length. His people, he declared, had publicly re-
This booklet is a “must” for anyone practicing jected him and he bade them remember that they
psychiatry, neurology, or the organic applications of would one day have to meet him before the Great
neurophysiology. The author has brought the long Tribunal and answer for their conduct toward him.
list of practical and significant reflex responses into That would be “the day of infallible and of the
sequence and order. Any careful examiner who may unalterable sentence.” He left no doubt as to who
be interested in their clinical significance, will wel- would be the sufferers under that sentence. North-
come this aid. ampton’s reply was by vote to proscribe him from
Each important deep and superficial reflex is preaching again in that community.
briefly described and the method by which the re- The purpose of this book is not to recount the
flex is to be obtained carefully noted. Large line life history of Jonathan Edwards but to exhibit
drawings and illustrations accompany the important the mind of the man, his beliefs and purposes, by
responses, indicating exactly how the reflex should reproducing in whole or in part 27 of his writings
be taken, the result of the stimuli, and its clinical beginning with 2 short essays on insects and the
significance, as well as its author, or current name rainbow, at the age of 10. But even there “the
and classification. natural world was set squarely in the middle of the
As a small handbook on the desk of any neuro- supernatural.” And presently the supernatural with
psychiatrically minded clinician, not only is this edi- a decidedly mystic quality overshadowed everything
tion a convenient source reference, but it is a con- else. In his late ‘teens Edwards drew up a set of
stant pleasure to see how simply and well organized “Resolutions”-there were 70 of them-which were
the many difficultly named manifestations can be to be the guide of his life. At the top he wrote:
presented, clearly demonstrated as to technique of “Remember to read over these Resolutions once a
procedure, and clinical significance. week.” While these resolutions, written in youth,
TEMPLE FAY, M. D.,
naturally reflect an adolescent outlook on life, they
Philadelphia, Pa.
did set the pattern from which seemingly he did
not depart. They exacted the strictest regulation
PURITAN SAGE. Collected Writings of Jonathan of every thought and action, including eating and
Edwards. Edited by Vergiius Ferm. (New drinking, and sleeping, and aimed at nothing less
York: Library Publishers, 1953. Price: $7.co.) than perfection, not without self-glorification, “un-
Jonathan Edwards is probably best known to the conscious,” shall we say? “On the supposition that
generality through one famous (or infamous, ac- there never was to be but one individual in the
cording to one’s remoteness from fundamentalism) world, at any one time, who was properly a com-
sermon: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” plete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp,
This sermon was preached in 1741. Edwards was having Christianity always shining in its true lustre,
an itinerant evangelist at this time traveling about and appearing excellent and lovely. . . . RESOLVED,
New England as God’s self-appointed “ambassador to act just as I would do, if I strove with all my
ordained to proclaim the fleeting chance of salva- might to be that one, who should live in my time.”