Intelligence and Mental Tests

Author(s): J. R. Kantor
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods , May 6, 1920,
Vol. 17, No. 10 (May 6, 1920), pp. 260-268
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

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260 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

the leading principle of that book, leads inevitably to a static instead

of a dynamic view of life, no matter how earnestly we try to trans-
cend the immobility of the logical essences by introducing into them
the idea of a self-repeating reflection, which can neither create any-
thing new nor change anything old. It leads to a non-moral view of
life; which is natural enough, since it begins by annihilating life.
It can find no real room for either the possibility or the actuality of
error, or of evil. And it reveals its fundamental absurdity in the
final astounding equation of the logical order with the invisible
church universal, a community instinct with the life of the Holy
Spirit; than which no confusion could be more profound.
The logical order is valid and necessary; the actual order, for
which the logical order furnishes in part the framework, is at one
and the same time a beneficent gift and a moral task for the highest
energies of free men.
DAVID F. SWENSON.
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA.

INTELLIGENCE AND MENTAL TESTS'

GRATIFYING at least it is to observe that psychologists are be-

ginning to weigh the results of work in mental tests, and to
deplore in these results the almost complete absen,ce of returns pos-
sessing permanent psychological value. And hopeful indeed is the
discovery that the cause of the failure of mental testing to contribute
to the development of psychology is the failure to arrive at an under-
standing of the nature of the materials with which the mental tester
works.$ At this point one is moved to comment upon the unhappy
divorce between the labors of those working with mental tests, and
the interpretations of the theoretical psychologist.
The writer fears that we do not carefully enough distinguish be-
tween the traditional speculative psychologist, who based his work
upon assumptions, very remotely, if at all, related to concrete facts,
and the theoretical psychologist who does critically evaluate concrete
psychological facts, and suggests the direction of further observation
of them.3 Essentially, the theoretical psychologist pe-rforms the
funcetion of a consulting scientist. To deny that the theoretical
scientist is a scientist because he does not himself conduct an experi-
1 The thesis here presented constitutes the substance of a paper read before
the Psychological Seminar in the University of Minnesota, 1916-17.
2 Cf. Ruml, this JOURNAL, XVII., p. 57.
3 For a statement concerning the relative position of the theoretical and
practical scientist cf. Rignano, Scientific Synthesis (1918), Ch. 1.

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 PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 261

ment, provided he is possessed of laboratory training, is exactly like

denying that the consulting engineer is an engineer because he does
not himself hold the contract to build a bridge.
The unfortunate consequence of the early assumption of the
applied psychologist, namely, that it was unnecessary to define intel-
ligence clearly, was the uncritical acceptance of the view that intelli-
gence was a permanent entity or a complete faculty. Individuals
were looked upon as analogous to chemical elements, and just as the
latter were each presumed to possess a given chemical affinity for
some other elements, so intelligence was conceived as a metapsycho-
logical property of the person.4 In general, intelligence was looked
upon as a mental force in some manner related to a body, and which
adjusted the body to certain objects in contact with the body. Mis-
guiding in the extreme appears the analogy referred to, since the
valence of a chemical element is not an occult power, but a fact ob-
served in the combination of elements, that is, the multiple of unit
charges of positive or negative electricity which an element holds.
Unfortunately, however, the infelicitous anthropomorphic attitude
with which psychologists approached both the data of physics and
psychology was responsible for the adoption of a completely unsatis-
factory view concerning the character of intelligenee. Now when we
study intelligence as an observed fact we never find any absolute
essence or faculty performing unique kinds of activities. Traces of
such a view in current psychology are probably vestiges of the theo-
logical influence upon science, from the complete rejection of which
psychology would greatly benefit.
Intelligence is really a name or a scientific category which denotes
certain specific forms of definite reactions. Thus, an intelligent act
or intelliaent behavior is comparatively a more effective adjustment
response than are other sorts. Justifiable then appears the view of
some psychologists who consider volitional, voluntary, and even habit
acts to be intelligent, while reflexes and original instincts are not.5
In such a view, the fact of performing an act conditioned and per-
haps improved by past experience constitutes an important factor in
intelligence.
Possessing intelligence is, then, the fact of having acquired suit-
able reaction systems for the purpose of carryin,g out definite re-
sponses. Expertness is precisely the possession of intelligence in
this sense, and expertness is a product of the interaction of an indi-
4 No doubt the social psychologist would interpret the doctrine of perma-
nent intelligence as a philosophical reflection of divine and natural rights, of
accidentally invested special interests, which developed as a theoretical justifica-
tion of some pecuniary, political or social status quo.
5 This is not to say that reflexes and instincts are unconscious.

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 262 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

vidual with some particular kind of thing or condition. It is for

this reason that we are willing and unashamed to be unintelligent or
even stupid concerning facts and conditions in which we do not spe-
cialize or in which we are not interested. Says James:" "I, who for
the time have staked my all on being a psychologist, am mortified if
others know much more psychology than I. But I am content to
wallow in the grossest ignorance of Greek."
But here the problem arises why it is that, of two individuals who
stake their all upon being lawyers and who receive the same train-
ing, one becomes a better lawyer than the other. Is it because the
one possesses the better innate capacity? Observations of this type
require always extremely careful analysis. In the first place, when
we say a better lawyer we must be careful to keep our psychological
problem clear of the entangling thicket of social conditions and social
judgments. We must remember that, while it may be a mark of
intelligence to enlist the aids necessary to become a good lawyer and
to seize upon every expedient working for social success, such facts
are beside the specific problem of attaining proficiency in the under-
standing and the administration of legal tradition and legal enact-
ments.
That we can not, in such a case, completely avoid this thicket of
social conditions makes us pause. Nothing is more pertinent than
the question as to whether it is not precisely the surrounding condi-
tions which really make, not only for betterness in the social scale,
but also for greater intelligence of any specific sort, since the sur-
roundings offer the occasion to develop more and more relevant re-
sponses for legal situations. Moreover, is it possible to speak of
intelligence at all excepting in terms of definite forms of response
which have been naturally acquired in concrete interaction with defi-
nite forms of stimulating objects? As a matter of fact, when study-
ing concrete behavior the notion of an absolute general ability be-
comes dissipa.ted.
And, further, what can be meant by the same legal training? Is
training merely a casual contact of a person with things producing
an indifferent effect upon him? Rather, is it not true that any pres-
ent training is a definite characteristic function of a given person
because such training depends upon previous acquisition of reaction
systems? For this reason it is almost impossible for two individuals
to undergo the same training. This fact is clearly apparent when
we consider the numerous differences in what is commonly miscalled
the same environment of two people, for instance of two members of
the same famrily. It follows then that if two persons are to have
a Principles of Psychology, I., 310.

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 PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 263

the same training they must have previously acquired the same type
and quantity of reaction patterns which are relevant to the present
situation. In point of fact when we have separated the normal from
the abnormal or feeble-minded person, that is to say, the person of
poor biologica.l stock, we can readily convince ourselves that intelli-
gence is entirely the product of a long series of cumulative trainings.
Nor is it possible to minimize the subtlety and the effectiveness
of our acquisition of reaction patterns. Perhaps this is indicated
most clearly by the fact that much of such acquisition passes for
inherited talent. Confusion of acquired response systems with hypo-
thetical inherited talent is exemplified in the following case. A
child from early infancy is exposed to a musical environment, in
which music and its cultivation are glorified, and as a consequence
develops interests, technique, sentiments, and other forms of reaction
patterns making for musicianship, but, in spite of this development,
is looked upon as an inheritor of musical talent.
And so if talents are essentially acquisitions we must rephrase
some popular expressions so that they will more exactly conform
with the facts. Actors and other men of talent are made more
readily when they are born into a theatrical or other characteristic
environment, than when they are brought into such an environment
after having developed in some alien milieu which made them into
anything but actors. Much light is thrown upon the intricate prob-
lems of intelligence by the consideration that certain of the factors
which contribute to the making of a good actor are common to other
occupations. Clear it is then that the individual previously a ma-
chinist can not receive the same training from an identical law
course as the individual who spent the corresponding time in the
study of political and social history.7 And so while the machinist
is inferior in legal intelligence we have no indication that he is defi-
cient in native ability.
Turning for a momenIt to the criterion of intelligence which is
probably most prevalent, namely, that intelligence enables us to ad-
just ourselves to new situations, let us examine what is here meant
by new. Is it not an obvious fact that we are entirely helpless in
the face of a totally new situation? Psychologists unanimously
agree upon this in the dictum that we can not even conceive any-
thing absolutely new. What our intelligence criterion really means,
then, is that, having developed many forms of reaction systems by
contact with surrounding objects and conditions, we can now adapt
ourselves to similar situations without additional learning. The im-
plication here is of course that the intelligent individual is one who
has acquired many of these necessary reaction patterns.
7 WVe assume of course that the stiudent of history has profited by his study.

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 264 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Paradoxical as it may seem, intelligence is so decidedly not an

entity or a faculty, that we may look upon it as being precisely as
much a function (in the mathematical sense) of the environment8 as
of the person. What is meant is this, that so little in our intelligent
behavior can be traced to an original unacquired factor that we must
accredit the environing circumstances with their full share in the
development of intelligence. And so while it is fundamentally false,
on the surface it yet seems true that women have less intelligence
than men. For you can not find women who are capable of doing
many kinds of work which men can do. 'The rapidly decreasing
number of such examples offers good evidence that what the lack of
intelligence means in such cases is the absenice of opportunity to
develop intelligence, that is to say reaction patterns to perform cer-
tain adaptations to particular kinds of stimulating objects and situa-
tions. Immigrant women are notoriously less intelligent and less
able to adjust themselves to their surroundings than their husbands,
provided always that the former do not become wage earners and
thus embrace the opportunity to develop more intelligence. To the
credit of mental tests be it said that to a considerable extent it was
through them that the superstition of male superiority was exploded.
And let us not forget that it was through the definite study of actual
environmental opportunity for development that the metaphysical be-
lief in the preeminence of the civilize-d mind was dethroned.
Also we must note that the inferiority of intelligence in women
and in so-called primitive people was not a fact observed, but a reli-
gio-politico-economic pronouncement concerning the relative values
of souls. The writer ventures the opinion that with the passing of
a subjectivistic psychology and its replacement by an extensive study
of concrete human reactions the need for a native intelligence, whether
omnicompetent, multicompetent or merely unicompetent, will disap-
pear.9 Such an intelligence, whether described as a general faculty
or a multiplicity of specific abilities, belongs with those mysterious
elements, the instincts, to the class of psychological impedimenta
which not only do not add to our understanding of psychological
phenomena, but actually prevent a factual study of them.
And now we must consider what light the work on psychological
tests throws upon the problem of intelligence. A study of the actual
procedure and results of mental tests proves conclusively that such
tests are and can only be designed to measure some performance
whose achievement is the result of a previous interaction of a person
8 In the sense of conditions offering opportunity for developing reaction
systems.
9 One of the unique products of a soul theory of intelligence is the concep-
tion of innate mental weakness with some specific superior ability.

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 PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 265

and objects (machines-materials). It is for this reason that "no

test has any significance for employment purposes until it has been
tried out on employees doing exactly the same kind of work as that
for which new applicants are to be tested later on.10 Illuminating
in the extreme in this connection is the study of the limitations of
mental tests. What must one conclude from the fact that mental
tests are of no service in selecting executives? Should we say that
mental tests do not attempt to measure intelligence? For surely, if
they did, they could not be applied to any more directly functioning
intelligence than is found in the work of an executive. But to accept
this conclusion would mean giving up the whole problem of measur-
ing intelligence, and this is impossible, for the genuine usefulness
of the tests indicates that there may be degrees of intelligence, the
lower ones of which may be very readily determined. Or should
we say that intelligence is an unknowable thing, at least so far as
tests are concerned, since tests are only useful for acts which have a
definitely standardized form? To the writer it seems that the diffi-
culty is entirely factitious and based upon the misconception that
intelligence is native.
What the inapplicability of tests to the selection of executives
really teaches us is, that all tests are performance tests based upon
definite reaction patterns and not measures of connate capacity.
Now since executive intelligence means the possession of innumerable
and complex reaction systems it is entirely to be expected that the
present development of tests should be still inadequate to meet the
situation. And, further, the student of tests must be always unable
to meet this situation if he persists in the belief that intelligence is
innate, since such a view precludes the investigation of the actual
contributing conditions which make possible complex human adjust-
ments. To mention just one difficulty, the applied psychologist
makes too wide a difference between moral and mental qualities, as
though it were possible completely to separate these when an employ-
ment problem is under investigation. In this connection it is re-
markable to observe upon what slender threads are sometimes huna
the belief in an absolute intelligence factor. Thus the positive corre-
lation between tapping, letter crossing, and other tests is presumed to
be evidence of the presence of such a general intelligence factor.
To differentiate between mental tests and trade tests because the
former measures native ability while the latter measures acquisition
is to make an assumption not warranted by the facts of mental tests."t
10 Link, Employment Psychology, p. 19.
11 The writer finds encouraging the inclination of psychologists toward a
concrete behavior view as manifest in the tendency to give up the term
''mental tests" in favor of "psychological tests" to cover all work in this field
of psychological application.

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266 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

The fact is that the only difference between the two types of tests
lies in the simplicity and definiteness of the latter. It is because the
behavior investigated by the mental as over against the trade tests
shows a greater complexity and variety, and is in general more diffi-
cult to study, that we may draw a definite line between the tests.
One might say, then, that the difference between the intelligence of
an executive and that of a machinist for a student of behavior lies in
the comparative ease with which one can get an objective measure
of the productivity of the latter. The writer is firmly convinced
that with a larger conception of mental tests their value for the selec-
tion of executives may be vastly enhanced.
It may still be urged that the prominent individual differences to
be found in persons must be sought in some unacquired quality in
the person. We have already indicated that the probable source of
such a view is to be found in some metapsychological prejudice rather
than in observable facts. But the study of individual differences, it
must be admitted, is fraught with grave perplexities, since in actual
practise it is extremely difficult to ascertain clearly the precise points
at which certain reaction systems constituting personal traits are
actually acquired. Just how an individual has acquired a mathe-
matical or a general scientific or a religious cast of mind is not an
easy matter to determine. For the sake of science, however, we
mugt plead for perseverance contempered with caution.
Nothing is less doubtful than that there are wide differences in
initelligence, and nothing is more certain than that not every one is
capable of mastering a given problem; but is this saying more than
that intelligence once developed gives one an advantage in that it
now can be employed? Certain it is also that the advantage one has
over others in the possession of intelligence is due only to a series of
concrete empirical events, once it is admitted that the persons under
discussion are all of normal stock.
When once we determine to abjure the quick and easy way of
accounting for the complex facts of psychological phenomena by re-
ferring them to occult causes or analogical symbols'2 and insist upon
the study of concrete reactions, our way lies open to investigations
which promise satisfactory solutions to our genuine psychological
problems. In the consideration that the psychological reaction pat-
tern is a mode of response of a living organism to complex surround-
ing conditions, we find the suggestion that the prepsychological'3
problem of individual differences lies precisely in the character of

12 Such as Stern's illegitimate comparison of intelligence and electricity.

13 By "prepsychological" is meant any phase of biological functioning at
the basis of the specific reaction pattern.

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 PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS 267

the biological stock of the individual. Thus, for exam

glandular organization of the person is of enormous influence in the
determination of his psychological conduct. But although there is
an inexhaustible source of such material, it is, as yet, practically un-
touched by scientific investigation. The same importance for the
study of individual differences of action is attached to the perfection
and degree of development of the receptor systems, as for example
the role played by a specific condition of the auditory apparatus in
the total complex of musical ability, or the qualities of the visual
apparatus in mechanical or esthetic drawing. Not only does such
information concerning the biological stock of the individual throw
light upon the differentiation of persons into normal and abnormal,
but it also illuminates the only possible source of inherited individual
traits and differences. Undoubtedly, the complex and complete or-
ganization of the actual human individual when once known to a
satisfactory degree will clear up many important problems of tem-
perament, character, capacity, traits, and genius. The gain involved
in awaiting such factual development is no less, let us repeat, than
the acquisition of definite scientific information as over against un-
founded and useless speculation.
In sum, the failure of the work of mental tests to yield principles
leading to a wider extension of knowledge concerning psychological
phenomena is due to the acceptance of the assumption that intelli-
gence, or what is measured by the tests, is a mental factor and not a
specific mode of adjustmental response. Thus scant attention is
paid to the precise facts upon which the tests have their actual bear-
ing. In consequence the work of mental testing merely leads to more
work, but to no organized accomplishment of definite nmerit. To
place emphasis upon the actual response as it can be studied will
mean not only the avoidance of necessarily unfruitful attempts to
seize upon a hypothetical faculty, but a positive understanding of
actual psychological phenomena. The new direction which psy-
chology would thus take would make superfluous such speculations
as to whether the organization of the "mind" is such that its acts
are related or unrelated. Instead, we would learn what the facts
seem clearly to indicate, namely, that intelligent acts, as all psycho-
logical acts, must be specific; for our reaction patterns are definite,
concrete responses. But, since our environment is more or less uni-
form and homogeneous, the acquisition of many response patterns
must mean that our general capacity to respond to things is in-
creased. Changes and improvements in the mode of responding to
our surroundings are induced by variations in the objects and their
relations, to which we find it necessary to adapt ourselves. In the

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268 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

acquisition of numerous response patterns the person ipso facto takes

on the qualities of general intelligence, among which are variety,
independence, agility, and rapidity of response.
J. R. KANTOR.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

DR. WIHDON CARR'S THEORY OF THE RELATION

BETWEEN BODY AND MIND

R. CARR'S consideration of the relation between mind and the

body in his presidential address to the Aristotelian Society"
places the problem in an original setting, and renders still less ten-
able any parallelistic explanation; I should like to offer, however,
a few notes on certain difficulties which still seem to remain in spite
of his thoughtful treatment.
Dr. Carr regards the interaction as occurring between two sys-
tems which are existentially completely disparate" there is no
common factor in psychical and physiological process" (p. 7). At
the same time I do not think that his view of mind as independently
organized, and as responding therefore always as a whole, is as new
as he takes it to be,2 although I feel convinced that to regard the
interaction as taking place essentially between wholes is the truest
method of approaching the subject.
1. But the specific arguments advanced by Dr. Carr in support
of this general position seem in several respects to lack cogency.
"Consciousness" he affirms, "is the manifestation of an immaterial
object-the soul" (p. 9); his reason being that "to be conscious or
aware of an object is not to contemplate but to recognize it.
Recognition implies precognition, presupposes memory and con-
structive imaginationa" (p. 10). But if recognition thus implies
precognition, plainly this again requires a cognition still prior, and
so ad infinitum; nor does this view again agree with the basal as-
sumption as to knowledge which is made by Croce, and which has
received, as is well known, Dr. Carr's own endorsement.8
Then in rejecting the suggestion that psychical activity is as
such merely a function of the brain, Dr. Carr appears to me to be
unconsciously rather dogmatic; his arguments certainly go a cer-
I Proc: 1917-18. p. 1.
2 Cf., e. g., Bosanquet, Principle of Individuality, pp. 114, 168, 182
further references there. But does not Dr. Carr misinterpret Dr. Haldane 's
view of the body as a "perfect machine" (p. 6)1 We have only to turn to p.
422 of the same volume to find him asserting that "a living organism differs
from any mechanism which we can construct or conceive. "
8 Cf. The Philosophy of Benedetto Croce, ch. III.

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