RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 49 



garded as the supreme educational end, and to protect that 

 ideal against both the misprision of its critics and the incautious 

 advocacy of some of its friends." The clarity of outlook and 

 intellectual honesty, which render it easy for friend and foe 

 alike to appreciate or criticise the defence of this thesis, 

 are sufficient to raise it above the ordinary level. But 

 there is a second reason for seeing in the book something of 

 permanent value. The great development of psychological 

 science in recent times has almost wholly consisted in advance 

 in our knowledge of the non-cognitive aspects of human be- 

 haviour. We need only mention Prof. S. Alexander's fruitful 

 " Slcetch-Plan " of a conational psychology ; the work of 

 Dr. McDougall on instinct and emotion ; and the increased 

 insight into normal behaviour which has followed the regarding 

 of mental abnormalities, not as wholly unique and incalculable, 

 but as expressions of the over-development of factors already 

 present in the normal. This replacement of the older, too 

 exclusive concern with the cognitive side of human behaviour 

 by a psychology based more closely on the biological aspects 

 of the living creature has often, however, been seized upon as 

 an excuse for an entirely gratuitous irrationalism. It is an 

 outstanding merit of Prof. Nunn's book that it sifts the grain 

 from the chaff, and embodies the results of modern advances 

 cleared of such irrelevant accretions. Moreover, by the use of 

 certain new terms Prof. Nunn is able to effect a most convenient 

 grouping of those results ; and so to provide the means both 

 of bringing out the common characteristics of behaviour at all 

 biological levels, and of building his treatment of educational 

 questions on firm and wide foundations. 



