TEE NATURAL HISTORY OF ADOLESCENCE. 459 



Quite apart from the more physical investigations, where statistical 

 methods yield more concrete and definite results, he has utilized direct 

 experimentation where that has been possible, has cited the larger 

 records of history, of literature, and of the more technical portions of 

 psychology and biology. It must forever remain true that advance in 

 this field of comparative psychology must make use of arguments by 

 analogy, of parallelisms, assisted by direct reinforcement of evidence 

 from the investigations of animal life, from the study of the abnormal, 

 from the lessons of history. Method here is not a matter of theoretical 

 preference, but of judgment ; and the ability that can turn method into 

 account, not subordinating the chief end to its requirements nor dis- 

 torting method to strengthen favorite conclusions, is the equipment 

 which the investigator in this field must possess to an unusual degree. 

 Appreciating the difficulties of this undertaking, students of psychology 

 and education, unless they believe that Dr. Hall is fundamentally fol- 

 lowing a false clue, have reason to be deeply grateful for so much of 

 this work as constitutes an encyclopedia of adolescence. They have the 

 privilege, which many will doubtless exercise, of discrediting this or 

 that group of data; but they can hardly help recognizing that the 

 general perspective of importance and bearing based upon the material 

 thus made available, has on the whole been ably reproduced. 



The chapters that best represent this encyclopedic feature are 

 those that deal (the first two) with the varied and detailed factors of 

 physical changes of growth; the fourth, which deals with the disorders 

 of immaturity; the ninth, that treats of changes in the sense endow- 

 ment and in the voice ; and again the later chapters, recounting from a 

 more historical point of view the recognition of adolescence in custom 

 (Chapter XIII.) , in religion (Chapter XIV.), in society (Chapter 

 XV.), together with the racial problem of adolescence, which must be 

 treated both theoretically and practically whenever higher races come 

 in contact with lower ones (Chapter XVIII.). A second group of 

 chapters takes up more specifically those questions that are central 

 to adolescence, and in which the element of sex predominates. 

 Chapters VI. and VII. consider the more physiological portions of this 

 problem; Chapter XL is devoted to adolescent love; while Chapter 

 XVII. contains a resume of the entire topic of the feminine side of 

 adolescence in psychology and education. A third group of chapters 

 includes those in which the philosophic basis is uppermost and which 

 together constitutes in some measure a statement of the author's 

 philosophical and psychological point of view. Chapter X., on evolu- 

 tion and the feelings and instincts characteristic of normal adolescence ; 

 Chapter XVI. ; on intellectual development and education ; Chapter 

 VIII., which considers adolescence in literature, biography and his- 

 tory, represent the more distinctively philosophical contributions ; while 

 Chapter III., on the development of the motor powers, represents the 



