1960]

work

BOOK

REVIEWS

1053

established itself as the leading arbeit of its kind, and now, with the assistance of Arthur Hughes, lecturer in anatomy at Cambridge, the work has been brought up-to-date and enlarged. It is a most welcome revival of a book that has been too long out of print, for it is one of the most readable of books, and certainly the most informative on the subject with which it deals. It is not only a valuable contribution to the history of science, but quite as eminently so an illuminating history of the force with which culture conditions thinking.
ASHLEY MONTAGU,

PH.D.,
N. J.
FROM

Princeton,
THE GROWTH CHILDHOOD OF TO LOGICAL ADOLESCENCE. THINKING

By Barbel Inhelder and I. Piaget. (Translated by Anne Parsons and S. Milgram.) (New York: Basic Books, 1958, pp. 356. $6.75.)

The
series

first
of

part

of

experiments

this by

book consists Inhelder, each

of a fol-

lowed
analyses attempt rather,

by a theoretical

analysis

by Piaget.

The

and the final 3 chapters represent an to interpret the experimental (or, observational) data in terms of Piagets theory of the development of thinking from childhood to adolescence.

The

book

is not

easy

to follow

for several

reasons. In the first place, it presupposes some knowledge of Piagets earlier work on cognitive development, some acquaintance with his views on the relationship of psychology and logic, and some familiarity with the symbolism of formal logic. There is a helpful introduction by one of the translators which briefly sets the stage for the reader; even so, readers unfamiliar with Piagets writings will find this a difficult book. A second difficulty arises from Piagets use of familiar technical terms in unfamiliar ways. For example, in Piagets system the term operation-a key concept in Piagets presentationhas a specialized meaning quite unlike that assigned to it in current North American psychology. For Piaget, concrete operations are actions that are internalized, integrated with other actions to form general reversible systems, and accompanied by an awareness on the part of the subject of the techniques and coordinations of his own behavior. The focus of the book is on the transition from reliance on concrete operations, characteristic of children between 7 and 11 years of age, to the utilization of formal operations, apparent in the thinking of adolescents. Whereas concrete operations are related to the logic of classes and relations, formal operations are related to propositional logic. Ability to think in terms of

propositional logic (for example, to recognize what conclusions may be drawn from certain premises) appears, according to the authors, only at about the age of 12 years. A third difficulty facing the reader is primanly a methodological one. A psychologist accustomed to statistical analyses of experimental findings is likely to feel dissatisfied and baffled by the authors presentation of data. Each of the first 15 chapters describes an cxperiment in which the subjects are set a task, the solution of which is based on a simple scientific principle, e.g., the equality of angles of incidence and reflection, the conservation of motion in a horizontal plane. A description is given of the behavior of subjects at various stages of development, illustrated by sample protocols. One cannot tell, however, how many subjects were tested at each age level; nor is there any clear indication of the amount of variability found among children of any one stage of development. Consequently, there are problems in interpretation. One may suspect, for example, that differences between Piagets stages of development are not as dear-cut as the book sometimes seems to suggest. The data, as presented, do not allow the reader to check suspicions of this kind. The importance of the book resides largely in Piagets presentation of a set of logical schemata to assist in the study of thinking as a psychological process. Since it concentrates on the stage of development at which formal operations first appear, the book allows Piaget to expound and illustrate his system more fully than he has done elsewhere. Moreover, the ingenious series of studies by Inhelder can hardly fail to stimulate further research and to lead to an increased interest in Piagets attempt to provide a theoretical framework for the study of thought processes. RICHARD H. WALTERS, PH.D., University of Toronto.
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. By Edited by Morse Peckham. University of Pennsylvania pp. 816. $15.00.)

Charles Darwin. (Philadelphia:

Press,
centennial

1959,
of the

This

year,

1959,

is

the

publication of Darwins Origin of Species, a centennial which is being celebrated all over the civilized world. During Darwins lifetime 6 editions of the work were published, and while it was known that the author had made many changes between the first and the sixth edition no one really had an idea as to how extensive these changes were. This lacuna is now filled by Professor Peckhams prodigious industry. We have now, for the first time, a