The Diary of Sigmund Freud, 1929-1939: A Record of the Final Decade by Sigmund Freud;

Michael Molnar
Review by: Hannah S. Decker
Isis, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 410-411
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/236300 .
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410 BOOKREVIEWS-ISIS, 84: 2 (1993)
don Shepherd reports, Cajal's view had been
widely accepted; continuing debate seemed
acridand sterile. The conflict disappearedfrom
public view. Shepherd reviews the contro-
versy in order to enhance our appreciation of
the neuron doctrine, "one of the great ideas
of modern thought" (pp. 9, 10). Cajal, he
claims, ranks "among the modem pantheon
of Copernicus, Vesalius, Galileo, Newton and
Darwin" (p. 127). To support this hagio-
graphic perspective, the author relies heavily
on Cajal's autobiography, a tedious work
whose original readers found it "overbur-
dened with scientific detail." Not to worry,
however. The early papers in the network-
versus-neuron controversy abound in "a fer-
ment of vivid new ideas struggling for
expression, much as do Michelangelo's half-
finished figures in the Academia struggling to
free themselves from the granite" (p. 6). For
the full flavor of the conflict, promises Shep-
herd, nothing replaces these articles. Accord-
ingly, he presents them in their translated en-
tirety, in deadly-boring passages of up to ten
small-printpages. One 4,000-word section il-
lustrates how its author no longer wallows in
endless detail; a 3,600-word quotation pro-
vides a "snapshot of the author's mind" (p.
157); another demonstrates "a long stride out
of the muddle of imagined images that had
gone before" (p. 111). Most readers will take
Shepherd's word for it. He has "resisted the
temptation to make the documents more read-
able by smoothing over of awkward phrase-
ology or by using modem terms" (p. viii).
The debate, he claims, would be "meaning-
less if not rendered in the original language"
(p. 294). Numerous diagrams, their text as
mystifying to outsiders as the image, accom-
pany the translations. Shepherd includes re-
lated works by Franz Leydig, Sigmund Freud,
Fridtjof Nansen, Gustav Retzius, and Arthur
van Gehuchten.Their contributions,he claims,
will provide "a more accurate idea whence
came the bricks in the conceptual edifice" of
the neuron doctrine (p. 6). The metaphor of
a building is appropriate;few readers, how-
ever, will have occasion to visit it.
Cemented with secondary literature, the
facade of Shepherd's theoretical structure
benefits little from often awkward window
dressing concerning the mind-body contro-
versy (less than a sentence on Descartes), the
"fabric of nineteenth-century life," the im-
portanceof institutionsin research (he lets this
theme "emerge" through the reproduced ar-
ticles), the role of personalities, and current
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research. This frail documentary construct
provides scant shelter for granite angels or
significant theses.
Except as a source for translations, Shep-
herd's book will appeal to few. For historians
seeking a more engaging first acquaintance
with neurons and neuroscience, I heartily rec-
ommend Sandra Ackerman's Discovering the
Brain (National Academy of Sciences, 1992).
Patricia Smith Churchland's Neurophiloso-
phy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-
Brain (MIT, 1990) also provides a concise,
enjoyable account of historical and current
approaches to the role of nervous tissue in
thought.
WALTERJ. VANAST
Sigmund Freud. The Diary of Sigmund
Freud, 1929-1939: A Record of the Final
Decade. Translated and annotated with an in-
troduction by Michael Molnar. In associa-
tion with the Freud Museum of London. xxvi
+ 326 pp., frontis., illus., index. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons; Toronto: Maxwell
Macmillan Canada, 1992. $50, Can $65.
In October 1929, when he was seventy-three
years old, Sigmund Freud began to make
sporadic notes in a sort of diary he labeled
"Shortest Chronicle." It started and ended in
a negative tone. The first entry was "Passed
over for the Nobel Prize" (p. 44), and the
final one, in August 1939, was "War panic"
(p. 264). And then, in a month's time, Freud
was dead.
Freud's "chronicle" has just been pub-
lished as a handsome, profusely illustrated
book, a companion piece to the earlier Sig-
mund Freud: His Life in Pictures and Words
(HarcourtBrace Jovanovich, 1978). The sparse
entries have been excellently annotatedby the
research director of the London Freud Mu-
seum. The new work's lavish format is a
strainedcounterpartto its majortheme: Freud's
wearying fight with the mouth cancer from
which he was to die. Since 1923 Freud had
been suffering from his cancer and the al-
ways-problematic prostheses with which he
was fitted following the excision of his right
palate and right upper and lower jawbones.
The diary entry of 11 February 1931-
"Lockjaw" (p. 94)-is emblematic of his
torment. His surgeon wrote two days later:
"Pain with prosthesis inserted was intolera-
ble. Have to urge patient to tolerate pros-
thesis nevertheless since removal would in-
 BOOKREVIEWS-ISIS, 84 : 2 (1993) 411

crease later troubles. Agrees finally" (p. 94). Helmut Hildebrandt. Zur Bedeutung des
Yet, in spite of numerous operations over the Begriffs der Alltagspsychologie in Theorie und
years, Freud continued to smoke, feeling his Geschichte der Psychologie: Eine psycholo-
life could not go on without cigars. giegeschichtliche Studie anhand der Krise der
A secondary and equally ominous theme of Psychologie in der Weimarer Republik. (Eu-
the chronicle is the growing might and en- ropiische Hochschulschriften, Series 6: Psy-
croachment of Nazi Germany. Freud, like chologie, 327.) 326 pp., bibl. Frankfurt am
many other Jewish Viennese, clung to the be- Main/Bern: Peter Lang, 1991. (Paper.)
lief that the Western powers and the Austrian
Catholic Church would save his country fromHelmut Hildebrandt tries to contribute si-
multaneously to historical scholarship on
a Nazi takeover. For that reason he and oth-
ers were willing to support the homegrown psychology in Weimar Germany and to con-
fascist government until the German annex- temporary debates in cognitive science. Tak-
ation of Austria in March 1938. After his ing Jerry Fodor's concept of "everyday psy-
daughter, Anna, was arrestedby the Gestapo,chology" as his foil, Hildebrandt claims that
Freud decided to emigrate. such a constructed notion of "commonsense"
thinking cannot be the primary explanandum
If there was an upbeat side to Freud's last
for cognitive science, for two reasons. First,
years, it lay in the antiquities he steadily pur-
chased and in his close and dependent rela-while contemporary cognition theory (which
he confusingly calls "classical") is based on
tionship with Anna. Her name is mentioned
in the chronicle more than any other; her a linguistic paradigm, all of the leading cog-
nitive theories of the Weimar era, some of
birthday is the only one always recorded; and
when father and daughter were apart they which have been claimed as direct ancestors
to current "classical" concepts, acknowl-
corresponded daily by cards, letters, or tele-
grams. edged the importance of perception and other
One must ask, Does this book have any- pre- or noncognitive processes. Second, he
agrees, what counts as "everyday" or com-
thing new to offer Freud scholars? The an- monsense psychology is historically contin-
swer on the whole is "no"; yet there are a
gent. The leading challenges to then-domi-
variety of known aspects of Freud's life that
nant psychological approaches in Weimar
the annotatorbrings into sharperfocus. Some
Germany all claimed that these views failed
examples: In his last decade, Freud and histo do justice to the demands and the richness
family led a very comfortable, upper-middle-
of ordinary mental life; but none of the con-
class life; one does not usually think of Freud
ceptions of "everyday" psychology in ques-
in such a privileged setting. We see clearly
tion resembles what is called by that name in
the two opposite sides of Freud's personal-
cognitive science currently.
ity-the hard side that evinced no sympathy Hildebrandt supports the first claim with
with the human predicament, and the gener-
lengthy summaries of 1920s debates on top-
ous side that spared no expense when it came
ics such as the perception of relations. He
to helping professional colleagues and family
distinguishes three leading "paradigms"of the
members. Although Freud let his seduction time: the "constellation theory" of G. E.
theory lapse, it is surprisingto see the strength
Miiller, Gestalt psychology, and the Wiirzburg
of his antipathy to it when Sandor Ferenczischool, by which he means the work of Karl
tried to revive the notion that childhood sex-
Biihler and his student Egon Brunswik, much
ual trauma led to neurosis. The extent of of which was actually done in Vienna long
Freud's and his family's Jewishness is always
after his Wiirzburg school had ceased to ex-
a subject under debate, so it is tantalizing to
ist. These accounts are clear enough, indeed
read that in April 1937 Martha Freud wrote quite sophisticated in places. But it is not un-
to their son, Ernst, about the "Pessach [Pass-
til midway through the book that Hildebrandt
over] festivities." Finally, a little-emphasized
finally draws out the analogies he claims to
aspect of Freud's poor health in his final years
see between current positions in cognitive
was his bad heart;by 1934 he could no longer
science and those of the past. The similarities
climb stairs. between the "classical" cognitive theory of
The scientific value of this book is limited,
the 1960s and that of the Wtirzburg school
but perhaps it has a different kind of worth
are clear enough and have been acknowl-
in helping us to confront our own mortality.
edged by at least some cognition researchers
HANNAHS. DECKER (e.g., George Mandler)for nearly thirty years.

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