“redeemed” inherit Beulah land, wherenall passionately held imaginative visionsn—even contrary ones—^are equally true.nAs one of the very few contemporarynscientists who read Blake, Peter Medawarnadmires the beauty of Blake’s verse, butndetests the illogic and subjectivity of hisnepistemology. (For Urizen, beauty is notntruth.) Himself a Nobel laureate in medicine.nDr. Medawar lucidly answers thenantiscientific “literary propaganda of thenRomantics” in the essays collected innPluto’s Republic by clarifying the naturenof the scientific endeavor. Pure induction,nadvocated by Bacon (another ofnBlake’s enemies), is a myth, he explains.nIdeas -Simply do not inhere in facts themselves,nno matter how numerous, nor isnit ever possible to view bare fects, totallynunmasked by the observer’s preconceptions.nHence, Dr. Medawar paints out,nimj^ination is as essential to scientificninquiry as it is to poetry. A researcher alwaysnformulates his initial hypothesis inna manner which is “imaginative or logicallynimscripted.” He then does everythingnhe can to test the correspondencenof that hypothesis to measurable reality,ntrying especially to contrive experimentsnwhich might disprove the hypothesis. Ifna single ugly fact contradicts the beautifulnhypothesis, it must be discarded ornmodified. If a hypothesis does demonstratenpredictive value and is not contradictednby any known evidence, it maynthen be accorded provisional faith as an”theory” or even “law,” but absolutenproof of its validity remains humanlynimpossible.nIn Dr. Medawar’s view, it is this tentativenessnand this constant testing ofnimaginative construct against empiricalnevidence which distinguishes scientificndiscourse firom poetic and which makesnit fatuous to compound the two. Indeed,nhaving rescued the scientist fi-om thendepths of Blake’s cosmology, Dr. Medawarnconsigns to his “intellecmal underworld,”nthe Pluto’s Republic of the title,nthose students of human affiiirs who trynto pass oflF Beulah-land fentasizing as science.nHe especially indicts psychotherapists,nnot because their theories arenChronicles of Cultarenhighly imaginative, but because theirn”doctrines are so cunningly insulatednfrom the salutary rigours of disbeliefnInstead of subjecting their speculativenparadigms to systematic testing, thesenpseudoscientists offer “a lava-flow of orfhocnexplanations pour[ing] over andnaround all difficulties.” By claiming “anprivileged access” to the psyche, theynpretend to help the deranged “understand”ntheir condition, while deprecatingnthe importance of “the notion of cure.”nIt is hard to imagine a book whichnmore fully illustrates the psychotherapeuticninanities Dr. Medawar discussesnthan Arthur Janov’s Imprints. Dr. Janovn(Ph.D., not M.D.) styles himself as a scientist,nand occasionally even quotes fromna medical journal or two, but his wildlynspeculative book is ludicrously unscientific.nIt proposes the simplistic notionnthat psychological abnormalities—evennsusceptibility to cancer, epilepsy, andnsuicide—derive fi-om the traimia of beingnbom, the “Primal Pain” imprinted deepnin our subconscious and recoverablenonly through a special psychic “rebirthing”nprocess developed by Dr. Janov andncompany. We may largely ignore the influencenof bad femilies, child abuse, ornincest, since the infellible Doctor hasn”seen every possible combination andnpermutation of mental illness” and hasndiscovered that “birth and pre-birthntrauma are prepotent over almost anynlater kind of trauma.” Naturally, thoughnDr. Janov provides lengthy rebirthingntranscripts firom his patients and interpretsnthem for the reader, he makes noneflfort to test the factual accuracy of thesentranscripts by systematically comparingnthem to actual medical records of thenspecific pregnancies and deliveries involved.nAnd, of course, the treatment henadvocates (done exclusively by therapistsntrained by his Primal Institute) is expensivenand “involves months and years ofntherapy, and even then may not be totallynefiiective.” For the sake of unborn generations.nDr. Janov argues that the primitiven”stoop-squat-deliver method” ofnchildbirth would eliminate the PrimalnnnPain and the resultant neuroses andncancer. (“It’s that simple.”) He offers nonstatistical evidence to supf)ort such anview, but then he was probably too busyncollecting fees to collect data.nIn answer to the many in the “psychologicalnand psychiatric sciences” who henadmits are skeptical about his theory.nDr. Janov avers that his concept “did notndevelop as a theory to be superimposednover reality, but rather evolved out ofnobservation, and measurement of thatnreality.” Here, in other words, we haventhe pretensions of the purely inductivenmethod which Dr. Medawar demonstratesnto be impossible. Here, too, wenhave the conflision of scientific and creativenliterature, for Dr. Janov elsewherenstates that his theory harmonizes withnimages “found in poetry”—^at least in thenwretched do^erel written by his patients.nvine of the dangers of such foolishnmythologizing masquerading as science.nDr. Medawar warns, is that physical problemsnamenable to medical treatmentnmay be neglected. There is anotherndanger, though, that is ignored by bothnDr. Janov and Dr. Medawar. Many “mental”nproblems are spiritual problemsnwhose resolution can only be efiectednthrough repentance, love, and faith. Dr.nJanov dismisses “religious conversion”nas a spurious substitute for his therapyn(Christianity has its own “rebirthing”nprocess), while Dr. Medawar, havingnrescued the scientific half of Urizen,njoins Blake in damning the religious halfnThis is most unfortunate, for the samenJudeo-Christian heritage which madenscience possible in the first place couldnnow give it the context of meaning andnmorality it often lacks.nDr. Medawar does see the need fornsuch a context: “Moral judgements,” henwrites, “should intrude into the executionnand application of science at everynlevel.” What is to form the basis andnground for these moral judgments? Dr.nMedawar is not at all clear on this issue.nAt one point he suggests that “a certainnnatural sense of the fitness of things, anfeeling that is shared by most kind andn