July 29, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



143 



Lane and not one to the masterly descriptions 

 of youth by George Meredith; or when he 

 brushes aside James's ' Varieties of Religious 

 Experience ' as the work of a ' brilliant lit- 

 terateur ' who ' lays on colors with a trowel ' 

 and ' throws scientific caution to the winds.' 



It was to be expected that the author woidd 

 use, at their face value, the replies to printed 

 questions written by children . and normal 

 school students and those interested enough 

 to reply. Although he is probably the only 

 one of the score of most eminent psychologists 

 who put any trust in such replies. President 

 Hall's confidence is serene and he does not 

 even deign to justify his choice of a method 

 so universally rejected by his peers. 



The second chief aim of the book, to show 

 how human life in general and adolescent 

 mind in particular demand a comparative and 

 genetic psychology as their explanation, is 

 fulfilled ta the extent of demonstrating and 

 richly illustrating the fact that human nature 

 in mind as in body bears traces of its long 

 savage and animal ancestry. Although the 

 author is, perhaps, brutal in his reproaches 

 against the mere analysis of mental states, 

 he is surely right in asserting the need of a 

 true natural history of mind and in seeking 

 to base theories of human behavior upon a 

 dynamic rather than a static psychology. So 

 much is irrespective of the particular connec- 

 tion which he believes to exist between human 

 mental life as we know it to-day and the men- 

 tal history of the long line of our ancestors; 

 namely, the recapitulation by the individual 

 of his phylum's evolution. It is impossible 

 for the reviewer to discover just what the 

 recapitulation theory means to President Hall. 

 At times he seems to agree with the thorough- 

 going parallelism stated by G. H. Schneider 

 a score of years ago; at times the logical out- 

 come of his concrete illustrations can bo 

 hardly more than a general continuity be- 

 tween human and animal instincts and capaci- 

 ties. In general he may fairly be said to ex- 

 plain any similarities between present and 

 ancestral conditions by a recapitulatory tend- 

 ency rather than by similarity in conditions 

 and to seek constantly for such similarities. 

 Many of his explanations are so purely specu- 



lative as to weaken his argument. One is 

 amused more than edified by reading that the 

 ' candle-light fever,' the excitement of children 

 before bed-time, may be ' the reverberation 

 in modern souls of the joy that in some pre- 

 historic times hailed the Prometheus art of 

 controlling fire and defying night.' And 

 what can he mean by oiiering as evidence of 

 mental recapitulation of a piscine stage the 

 fact that the whales and others have changed 

 from terrestrial to marine life (see Vol. II., 

 p. 195) ? And does not the argument become 

 a trifle intricate when the fear of water and 

 the love of water and the sitting ' by the hour 

 seeing and hearing the movements of water in 

 sea and stream' all prove recapitulation? 



President Hall's educational recommenda- 

 tions will be read by many who will skip his 

 summaries of facts and misunderstand such 

 of his psychological speculations as they do 

 not forget. They are the most personal and 

 heartfelt portions of the book, with the excep- 

 tion of the eulogy of adolescent love, and will 

 refresh many a student wearied by modern 

 pedagogy. His fundamental principles are 

 sufficiently startling. The tendency of evolu- 

 tion, in other words, the probable future, 

 should be the goal of human effort. Morality 

 is simply being up to and ahead of the times. 

 The survival of a race proves the moral fitness 

 of the individuals composing it; therefore, 

 educate people to survive and propagate. You 

 thus improve them. Delay the age of nubil- 

 ity, because the germs inherit the acquisi- 

 tions of the individual, nay more, inherit the 

 natures of previous ancestors only as the in- 

 dividual reacquires them. The latest stage in 

 evolution is your goal, but omit no one of the 

 earlier stages, for each is a sine qua non for 

 the next. To be rid of a trait , in later life 

 cultivate it for a time in youth. But if you 

 don't dare to let children be cruel and quarrel- 

 some, at least let them contemplate these traits 

 in literary or dramatic presentations. 



In concrete recommendations the influence 

 of this amazing creed is outweighed by that 

 of President Hall's great practical wisdom and 

 sharpest insight into the follies of our present 

 traditionalism. The readers of this journal 

 deserve, in the case of his comments on sci- 



