Abstract

POTENTIALITIES.(New $6.00.)York:Books,This book poses the central problems of our time, and promises answers. It asks the question “Where is mankind headed ?“ with the clear implication that the reader will be handed a time table, a map, and a set of directions. “One of America’s foremost psychologists,” thetimes dilemma, “there but to activejacket proclaims, we can, by our“dramaticallysparkles. Describing mankind’s present for instance, Murphy remarks that appears to be no escape for any of us hide in the hills in the hope that radiofallout will somehow not drift into our caves.” In his chapter on “rigidity” he tells us that “there is such a thing as being battered down, either dramatically or just quietly and steadily year by year, until one no longer looks up.” In a chapter on creative phases ofhistory, we read: “We must demand alwayschoices,generations Unfortunately,destinies, to come.”It is doubtful whether we, generations to come,” can derive more from this volume than an interesting statement of Gardner Murphy’s views on the nature of human evolution. It is his central premise that human nature has changed and is changing. Should we become aware of the nature of ongoing changes, and of our role in determining them,