PART IâTHE RIVAL DOCTRINES
CHAPTER IâTHE PROBLEM
To begin with, a few lines may be useful to mark out the topic which we are going to consider, and to indicate how this fits into the general order of things.
A person is aware of himself as existing in the midst of an external worldâor at least, so it seems to him. He not only perceives this world and himself, but also thinks about both. As a single word to include the processes of both the perceiving and the thinking, modern psychology employs âcognition.â
But what he thus perceives and thinks about the world and himself, as also about the relations between the two, excites in him activities and states of another kind, such as appetites, aversions, impulses, decisions, voluntary actions, pleasure, sorrow, and so forth. All these, to distinguish them from the cognitive processes, are called âconativeâ and âaffective,â that is to say, striving and feeling.
Take as an example the following description from Oliver Twist:
âSo you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?â said the Jew, taking up a jagged and knotted club which lay in a corner of the fireplace; âEh?â Oliver made no reply. But he watched the Jewâs motions, and breathed quickly. âWanted to get assistance; called for the police; did you?â sneered the Jew, catching the boy by the arm. âWeâll cure you of that, my young master.â The Jew inflicted a smart blow on Oliverâs shoulders with the club; and was raising it for a second, when the girl, rushing forward, wrested it from his hand. She flung it into the fire with a force that brought some of the glowing coals whirling out into the room. âI wonât stand by and see it done, Fagin,â cried the girl. âYouâve got the boy, and what more would you have? Let him beâlet him beâor I shall put that mark on some of you that will bring me to the gallows before my time.â
Here is a typical picture of human mental life in one of its most acute phases. Observe how readily and naturally it agrees with the foregoing classification of processes. Fagin sees Oliver, remembers his attempt to escape, thinks of punishing him, notices his club, marks the boy shrinking away and breathing quickly, perceives him stagger under the blow, hears his agonized whimper, foresees his better obedience in the future, and has the idea of enforcing the lesson with a second blowâall this and suchlike it is that the term âcognitionâ has been coined to include. But Fagin also becomes angry at what the boy has done, entertains a desire to punish him, relishes the anticipation of his writhing in pain, seizes voluntarily the club and actually uses itâall such processes as these characteristically involve conation and affection.
Now, the present volume is primarily concerned with a personâs ability to âcognise.â And we must at once demurâit is the chief reason for prefixing this little chapterâto an objection rather in vogue at the present day, which, if admitted, would cut the ground from beneath our feet. This consists in asserting that the processes of cognition cannot possibly be treated apart from those of conation and affection, seeing that all these are but inseparable aspects in the instincts and behaviour of a single individual, who himself, as the very name implies, is essentially indivisible.
To this protestâborrowed from metaphysicsâwe may reply that certainly an individual cannot be broken up into independent pieces. But no less certainly the various aspects of his behaviour can and must be submitted to separate consideration. Every science whatever, physical no less than psychological, is obliged to dissect its subject-matter, to deal with the different aspects of it in succession, and finally to bring each of these into relation with all the rest. Only by first dividing can the scientist eventually conquer.
In general, a personâs total cognitive ability may be regarded as an instrument or organ at the disposal of any of his conative activities. It is this organ, then, that we are principally about to examine, and with especial reference to its variations of efficiency from one individual to another. The conative activities will only be brought within our scope to the extent that is needful to explain the working of the organ. But even this much will involve treating these activities in a far more fundamental manner than is usual in books on human ability.
CHAPTER IIâMONARCHIC DOCTRINE: âINTELLIGENCE.â
PRESENT DOMINANCE OF THIS DOCTRINE.
Universal Acceptance in Popular Usage. Introduction into Science by Biologists. Adoption for Mental Tests. The Brilliant Outlook.
RISE OF DOUBT AND CRITICISM.
Repeated Recourse to Symposia. Increasingly Serious Attacks.
THE WORD âINTELLIGENCEâ CANKERED WITH EQUIVOCALITY.
Present Prevailing Chaos. Refuge taken in Obscurantism. Plea that the Current Procedure âWorks.â
ATTEMPTS AT REMEDY BY DEFINITION.
Definitions distinguished from Mere Statements. Favourite Definition on a Biological Basis. Pedagogic and Kindred Definitions. Recent favour for âShape-psychology.â The Call Back to Mediaeval Scholasticism.
DOUBT AS TO POSSIBILITY OF MEASUREMENT.
CONCLUSION.
PRESENT DOMINANCE OF THIS DOCTRINE
Universal acceptance in popular usage. In considering the scientific doctrines on human ability, exceptionally great importance must be attributed to the popular view of the matter. For this view has become ossified into current language, and thus has come to constitute a rigid shell within which the layman and the expert alike seem to be fixedly encased.
Now, paramount among the lay beliefs is that which assumes mental ability to lie under the sovereign rule of one great power named âintelligence.â In distinction from other doctrines which will be discussed in later chapters, this credence in a single ruling power may be characterised as âmonarchic.â{2}
Judgments about intelligence conceived in this manner are made everywhere and by everyoneâfor the most part with much fluency and confidence. In degrees of it we habitually rate all the persons with whom we come into contact. Nothing else than such degrees do we mean when we call one man âclever,â âbright,â âsharp,â or âbrainy,â whereas another is said to be âstupid,â âdull,â and so forth.
Such estimates are formed with peculiar abundance and emphasis in the sphere of education. From the kindergarten up to the university, the pupil is continually being subjected to ratings of this nature, whether set forth in official reports, or reserved for private guidance. But hardly less prominent is the part played by similar estimates in connection with industry. Hardly an employee is selectedâfrom the office boy up to the general-managerâbut that the chief motive (as regards ability) consists in an opinion as to whether he is or not intelligent.
Here, then, is an outstanding fact by which even the expert psychologist does not and cannot escape being profoundly influenced; all the more so, perhaps, when this influence remains subconscious. Any doctrine put forward will sooner or later be faced by the choice between docilely accepting this popular belief so firmly entrenched in current speech, or else hardily attempting to tilt against it.
Introduction into science by biologists. This ascendancy of popular over scientific psychology has in its support, not only the prestige always attaching to the vox populi, but even, it would seem, a priority of authorship. For at least as far back as the fifteenth century, we find that estimates were commonly made in ordinary life about a manâs âintelligyens.â Whereas in the systematic psychology of modern times, the concept does not seem to have attained to prominence earlier than the work of Herbert Spencer. By him, as might have been expected, it was brought in for the purposes of biology, at the period when this latter was being immensely stimulated by the then novel theory of evolution. Life was taken by Spencer to consist essentially in âthe continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relationsâ; and to âintelligenceâ it was that he credited the making of such adjustments in so far as these are mental.{3}
This work of Spencer was truly a surprising achievement. Besides having deep foundations in a theory whose scope envisaged the whole universe, it could boast of a fullness of elaboration, and above all a preciseness of expression, compared with which the greater part of the biological psychology now current is apt to appear nebulous and superficial.
From Spencer, who took into consideration animals in general, it was but a short step to those authors who were interested in differentiating the human from the lower species. The essential distinction between the respective powers of these two was now declared to lie in the fact that man alone is gifted with the prerogative of being intelligent. In order to explain how, nevertheless, the lower animals manage their affairs in such an effective manner as they undoubtedly do, the further power of âinstinctâ was brought forward as their endowment instead. Man also, indeed, was credited with some of this instinctive kind of knowing, but only for employment in such actions as had (with the human species) become mere routine. For new and individual emergencies he has recourse, it was said, to his sovereign power of intelligence.
In truth, however, the preceding doctrine was not so much a novelty as a revival. It really represented the most ancient of all known views about cognitive ability. After long ages of neglect, it had now been rummaged out of the psychological lumber-room and hastily furbished up to meet the latest scientific requirements.
Adoption for mental tests. High as was this status attained by the concept of intelligence in biological territory, it later on became quite eclipsed by the reputation which the concept won for itself in the domain of mental tests. During a prolonged incubatory period, these had been cultivated in the seclusion of several psychological laboratories. Then, suddenly, Binet transformed such theoretical work into live practice. The success was astounding. Teachers found in tests of intelligence something that they could handle; and the public got what it believed it could understand.
In a very fe...