ABSTRACT
The Organization of Behavior was published in 1949, when Donald Hebb was 45 years of age. In his appraisal of the history of psychology in America, Ernest Hilgard (1987) credited the appearance of Hebb’s book with reversing the flagging interest of psychologists in brain mechanisms. Hilgard also observed that this was a matter of style as well as of content:
The qualities of Hebb’s Organization of Behavior (1949) that appealed were a combination of great originality in both breadth and specificity, his willingness to examine arguments on their merits, and an ability to dispose of them with incisive criticisms that were without polemic. Hebb was considerate of those he was attacking, while always sticking to his guns. The capacity and style required to achieve his results are difficult to define, but they are unusual in revolutionary scientific writing and Hebb represented them well (Hilgard, 1987, 435–436).
