192 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
maintained it in battle with the mountainous waves that have been raised by the idea of social evolution and the social organism, and what not. His genetic standpoint, adopted by him at the out- set for the purely logical reasons of distinction and command of subject-matter, has a future in the sense that it may be adopted as affording real ground, real terra firma, to the teacher of ethical science, as well as to the expounder of psychology and philosophy. It is positively healthful for people to be told that there is no reality about their personality unless they continue to progress, and that they cannot possibly progress alone, withottt taking others along with them; for without the jjrogress of others they will be devoid of any possible confirmation of their own progress, and without any of the possible stimuli to new efforts and new actions, resulting in a new organization of their own personality, in which alone their reality consists.
This last remark leads us to repeat deliberately what no care- ful reader of the volume can fail to perceive — a thing that Profes- sor Dewey also strongly emphasizes — that Mr. Baldwin's book has a vitality that is altogether broader and deeper than that of any special study, however penetrating. It is one of the most impor- tant constructive works that have appeared in the psychology and
philosophy of the last decade.
W. Caldwell. Northwestern U.niversity.
