Genius and Creative Intelligence. By Nathaniel D. M. Hirsch, Ph.D. Cambridge, Mass.:  Sci.-Art Publishers, 1931. Pp.  339.

The author offers his book as a “Psychological Foundation for Twentieth Century Political and Sociological Theory and Action.” The text is presented in three parts. The first part deals in general with the different types of adaptation, and in particular with creative adaptation. In this thesis adaptation or adjustment is emphasized as the key principle of the life process: “There is no life unto itself. From cell division until death the one continuous factor in a living being's career is its endless adaptation. Each variegated response, impulse, and motivation of the living being is an instance of some form of adaptation.”

The human animal differs from the lower types in that man is “essentially psychological rather than biological,” and his actions are governed more by desires than by needs, and are driven by special mechanisms. Several pages are devoted to a general discussion of adaptation from the evidence accumulated in theories and studies in heredity and environment, from the viewpoints of psychology, biology, ethnology, and anthropology; to serve as a background for the rest of the text.

In part two, the psychological constitution of man, with the various theories of the relationship of instinct and intelligence and the “three dimensions of intelligence,” are set forth in considerable detail. The author's “First Dimension of Intelligence” is the cognitive or perceptual aspect of instinct which is manifested by all animals in varying degrees, including man, and is thus not different from or independent of instinct. This theory is not in accord with any of those propounded by Bergson, Hobhouse and Holmes, Myers and McDougall, or of the extreme Behavior-ists. This First Dimension of Intelligence is also the emotional subjective or affective intelligence and functions as a means to an end, the goal being the conative aspect of the particular instinct involved. Its motor mechanisms