NEW BIOLOGICAL BOOKS 



The aim of this department is to give the reader brief indications of the character, the con- 

 vent, and the value of new books in the various fields of biology. In addition there will usually 

 ^appear in each number one longer critical review of a book of special significance. Authors 

 \ tnd publishers of biological books should bear in mind that The Quarterly Review of 

 Biology can notice in this department only such books as come to the office of the editor. The 

 \absence of a book, therefore, from the following and subsequent lists only means that we have not 

 received it. All material for notice in this department should be addressed to Dr. Raymond 

 i Pearl, Editor of The Quarterly Review of Biology, ipoi East Madison Street, Baltimore, 

 Maryland, U. S. A. 



HUMAN SAPIENCE 



Being a review of The Abilities of Man: 

 their Nature and Measurement. By C. 

 Spearman, Ph.D., F.R.S. New York 

 (Macmillan), 1917. 5! x 8f; x -f- 415 

 -f- xxxiii. $4.50. 



By Charles P. Winsor, Institute for Biological 



Research, The Johns Hopkins 



University 



In this book Professor Spearman sets 

 forth his theory of the nature of mental 

 abilities and their variation. This theory 

 was originally put forward by him in 

 1904, and has been the subject of much 

 debate and controversy ever since. The 

 present work is an exposition of the doc- 

 trine and of its present status, intended, 

 one gathers, primarily for the general 

 reader, although there is an appendix 

 giving the principal mathematical demon- 

 strations involved. There is no bibliog- 

 raphy. 



Professor Spearman begins with a survey 

 of the different theories of mental ability 

 heretofore popular. The most important 

 of these is probably that which "assumes 

 mental ability to lie under the sovereign 

 i^rule of one great power named 'intelli- 



gence.'" Unquestionably, in ordinary 

 life we classify people as clever, stupid, or 

 otherwise, exactly as we call them tall or 

 short. But where we can refine our judg- 

 ments of height by measuring stature in 

 inches or centimeters, such refinement in 

 the matter of intelligence is less simple. 

 However, mental tests were devised and ap- 

 plied and the results were considered as mea- 

 suring intelligence. These tests, in one form 

 or another, have been and are being used 

 for all sorts of purposes, and some of their 

 more enthusiastic advocates consider that 

 their possibilities are almost unlimited. 

 For instance, I quote the following from 

 Goddard (Goddard, Human Efficiency and 

 Levels of Intelligence. 192.0, p. 1x7): "The 

 intelligent group must do the planning 

 and organizing for the mass, that our 

 whole attitude toward lower grades of 

 intelligence must be philanthropic. . . . 

 Democracy is not impossible even in a 

 group with a large mass of people of rela- 

 tively low mentality, provided that there 

 is a sufficiently large group of people of 

 high intelligence to control the situation. ' ' 

 Such quotations could be multiplied in- 

 definitely; the feeling has been general 

 that we might shortly expect a set of 

 tests which would place everyone in his 



