The Physical Basis of Personality

Abstract

ALTHOUGH Dr. Charles Stockard, professor of human anatomy in Cornell University, has given the title “The Physical Basis of Personality” to the book under review, it is in reality an important contribution to our knowledge of the physiological and developmental processes concerned in the shaping of the human body. Under the action of these processes human types are moulded, and new races and species are ultimately produced. The author explores the machinery of evolution from a new angle. His primary purpose is to explain, not the resemblances which link one man to another, but the differences which distinguish every individual born into the world from all other births—past, present, and future. It is an explanation of the ‘uniqueness’ of every birth and of the manner by which every human being comes by his or her ‘individuality’, ‘personality’, or ‘constitution’ that is Prof. Stockard's quest.

The Physical Basis of Personality.

By Prof. Charles R. Stockard. Pp. 320. (London: George Alien and Unwin, Ltd., 1931.) 12s. 6d. net.