On the Relation of Intelligence to Efficiency
The Psychological Clinic Copyright, 1915, by Lightner Witmer, Editor. Vol. IX, No. 3. May 15, 1915 :Author: Lightner Witmer, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania.
An important chapter in ex-President Eliot’s recent book, “The Road toward Peace,” treats of the diverse character of “national efficiency” under free and autocratic governments in a manner which tempts me to contribute, not as so many have done to the polemics of the current European war, but to the differential diagnosis of efficiency and of a mental trait, intelligence, on which efficiency in part depends. While Dr Eliot’s book gave the immediate impulse to the preparation of this article, my subject matter and treatment are the outcome of experimentation with so-called intelligence and efficiency tests.
At some points my analysis compels me to propose a revision of Dr Eliot’s terms, but I intend only the constructive criticism of admiration. The acumen and insight with which he presents the psychological factors of success in war and peace, put to shame the work of some professional psychologists in the field of social and individual diagnosis. Consider for example, this differential diagnosis of Professor Miinsterberg’s:?”The southern peoples are children of the moment: the Teutonic live in the things which lie beyond the world, in the infinite and the ineffable.” No wonder we think of Harvard’s department of psychology as virtually an “outpost of Kultur,” and only incidentally a psychological laboratory. Dr Eliot considers the present war to be a supreme test of British, French, and German efficiency. “The real issue this war is to decide,” he tells us, is “the question of civilization developing under the forms of free government rather than under the forms of autocratic government,” and he continues, “it becomes a very interesting study for all the freer peoples how German efficiency is going to turn out in competition with such efficiency as the freer nations develop.” While Dr Eliot’s treatment of the difference between German efficiency on the one hand, and British or French efficiency on the other, has reference to national interests of imme(61) diate concern, a penetrating analysis of the nature of intelligence and its relation to efficiency is essential to a satisfactory treatment of many other problems. Efficiency is now a popular catch-word in the criticism, not only of public administration, industrial organization, and productive processes, but also of educational procedure, where it has even been put forward to measure the value of the scientific output of university laboratories. Efficiency, its causes and its differentia, is a field of direct inquiry within the science of psychology.
Clear thinking and precise expression are difficult when we lack the necessary words to indicate differences which we know exist. A vocabulary develops more slowly than our apprehension of differences. This is eminently true of the science of psychology, which has not as yet been able to produce a technical vocabulary that shall be both precise and adequate. In the present instance I believe that under the term efficiency are indiscriminately grouped two very different kinds of human performance. For the one I propose the word competency, for the other I would reserve the word efficiency. Dr Eliot differentiates clearly enough the two kinds of performance. Thus he speaks of “the German method of efficiency all the way through industrial life ? giving instruction and training enough to produce the amount of skill needed for the daily task, and then enforcing that subjection of the worker which results in thorough co-ordination and co-operation in the complex processes of production. The efficiency of the military system is obtained in like manner ? by thorough training which leads to the instinctive cooperation of the individual with a mass of his comrades, and to an absolute obedience unto death.” Of the “freer nations” he says, “The efficiency of all these nations is based on a high degree of personal initiative and of political and industrial freedom, not on the subjection or implicit obedience of the individual, but on the energy and good-will in work which result from individual freedom, ambition, and initiative.” This is the kind of efficiency that I suggest we now call competency, a term which I have chosen after a careful consideration of other terms having a similar meaning, such as capability, aptness, etc. In one passage Dr Eliot himself has not been able to dispense with the use of this word. In discussing the German system of education and government, he tells us that “under free governments and in communities which have a fair amount of social mobility, the rare men are surer to come forward into vigorous action,” and continuing, he speaks of these men as “the men who are competent, not only to invent or imagine the thing or the method that is next wanted, but to put their inventions into practical form, and to make them useful in the actual industries of their nations and the world.” Here and elsewhere he suggests what is to be my express contention, that competency will tend to develop and use efficiency, but that efficiency does not necessarily produce competency.
The Problem
The issue thus presented is a fundamental problem in psychological diagnosis, for the differentia of efficiency, competency, and intelligence, inevitably arise and require analysis, whenever we carry forward any series of mental tests. For purposes of illustration, let the test be the adding of a column of figures. Different persons will add up a column of figures with different degrees of accuracy and at different rates of speed. After many repetitions of the test, most individuals will add a column of figures of equal length with greater accuracy and speed than at the first trial. If two individuals, A and B, start with the same initial efficiency, measured in terms of accuracy and speed, and after an equal number of repetitions attain an equal efficiency, A having been given the best instruction and training known for acquiring accuracy and speed, and B having been left to his own devices, we have some ground for diagnosing B as a more competent person than A. B has acquired efficiency by the exercise of his own intelligence, while A has employed imitation, memory, and perhaps other mental faculties, to acquire and use the results of his teacher’s knowledge, which itself is a product of the collective intelligence of the community relating to this special problem. The source of efficiency is therefore of diagnostic importance if we would interpret the significance of different degrees of efficiency in different persons.
If I call C more efficient than D, I affirm an efficiency difference without expressing any opinion as to the origin of this efficiency. We can call machines and persons efficient or inefficient, but we do not speak of a machine as competent. If, then, I call a person competent after having observed some efficient performance of his, I am ascribing to him a certain measure of intelligence which is assumed to be an active agent in producing his efficiency.* I may call him * Competency and intelligence are teleological concepts, while efficiency as I define it is a mechanical concept. Whether competency and intelligence may ultimately be resolved into mechanical concepts, I do not propose to discuss. For my present purpose, it is unnecessary to decide upon one attitude or the other. With respect to efficiency, however, I believe it must be used restrictedly as a mechanical concept. If we explain an efficient performance as the product of inherent efficiency in the performer, we shall make no progress in our treatment of this problem. To say that efficiency causes efficiency, is like saying that a log floats because it has the property of flotation. To say that efficiency is a product of intelligence, doubtless affords only a partial explanation, but at least we are on our way, and after we have taken the first steps of our analysis, we may proceed to analyse intelligence itself.
efficient and yet know nothing about his intelligence. An efficient person may or may not be intelligent, for even stupid persons can be trained to be efficient. In a given situation the competent person will probably employ his intelligence to acquire efficiency, but on the other hand, he might reveal greater intelligence by refusing to become efficient. It is not an unusual experience to find in schools and elsewhere, individuals who are inefficient in the simpler performances of life, and yet competent in fields of higher endeavor. An inefficient college student may show himself competent as a lawyer or doctor. An inefficient bank clerk may make a competent bank president. An inefficient junior officer in the army may make a competent commanding officer. General Grant refused the training of West Point, not being able to graduate, but showed his military competency in the supreme test of war. The resistance which is encountered in the introduction of civil service examinations, and of efficiency tests in industrial organizations, in schools and colleges, is based to some extent on the implicit recognition of this significant distinction. Our big industrial plants have just been welded into shape. The men at the top, who have performed this task, were competent men who did the thing themselves. They have compelled their subordinates to become efficient. We must be careful that in compelling efficiency we do not destroy natural competency. Who will fill the positions at the top in the next generation? Is a path being kept open for the competent, though inefficient, person to rise to the top? Do German government officials, perhaps even the military organization of Germany, suffer from an excess of efficiency? If the British nation is competent enough, it will “muddle through” again. The efficiency expert, who observes the inefficiencies of a none the less competent person, forgets that after all the main issue is the accomplished result, and the muddler who just gets through may count for as much as the best exponent of the specialized efficiencies.
The uses to which words are limited in ordinary language often reveal subtle differences in meaning, which are obscured by their definitions, for the definition is a formula, and in language as well as in science the proper formula can be developed only after observation and analysis. We speak of an efficient accountant or even an efficient teacher, but we do not speak of an efficient poet, unless it might be the poet laureate, whose function it is to produce poems to order. We do not call an artist efficient, although we may perhaps speak of an efficient illustrator. We do not characterize a great composer as an efficient musician. This limitation in the use of the term efficiency bears witness to the fact that production is an art as well as a science. We can and do analyze complex human behavior into simple elementary performances, and we measure the efficiency of these performances. When we discover and measure the efficiency of a performance, we rightly diagnose the performer as efficient, but if we go further and diagnose the performer as competent, or grant him intelligence, perhaps even ” genius,” we do something more than discover or measure the efficiency of his performance. We interpret the performance as a manifestation of intelligence.
Suppose we set out to test a class of children, and employ for the purpose some problems in arithmetic. Certain members of the class solve the problems, others do not. If the problems were designed to test the elementary operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and the children are, say, in the seventh or eighth grade of public school, however much the children may be shown to differ in efficiency, the resultant efficiencies will not serve to indicate differences of intelligence. If the problems, however, are sufficiently difficult, especially if they require the pupils to employ their knowledge of the elementary processes in some new field of application, we may be able to interpret differences in the performances of the children as differences of intelligence. Take two different children?the same test with identical results may reveal the intelligence of one child, and yet tell us nothing about the intelligence of the other. A three year old child may play with blocks in such a way as to reveal the fact that he has been endowed by nature with intelligence. A lecturer may talk for an hour and display little or no intelligence. We see a chimpanzee sit down at table, eat and drink, ride a bicycle, use a key to unlock a door, and we marvel at the animal’s intelligence. Do we really observe the intelligence of a child or animal? As a matter of fact we observe it no more than we feel some one else’s pain.
It is all a matter of interpreting behavior, or using the seen performance to diagnose an unseen quality of the performer. The only intelligence of which you can be directly aware when you observe the performance of another, is your own intelligence. In observing and interpreting a child’s performance, you doubtless believe that you are exercising this intelligence. What you think of your own intelligence is as liable to error as what you think of the child’s performance. Your opinion of yourself and of your intelligence may be subjected to diagnostic criticism; your opinion may reveal intelligence or not, for your interpretation of your own or another’s performance is also a performance. We have a natural predilection to impute intelligence to ourselves and to think that our actions flow from this. The timid woman who fears a thunder66 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. storm and shuts the window and then gets beneath the feather-bed, interprets her performance in terms of intelligence. She says that she is afraid of the lightning, although careful observation shows that her real fear comes more from the noise of the thunder. She says that she shuts the window because a draught may carry the lightning in, and that a feather-bed is a nonconductor. No amount of scientific explanation will assist her in overcoming her fear. Offer her statistics which demonstrate that she stands a greater chance of being killed every time she takes a train than she does during a particular thunderstorm, and your dissertation will leave her cold. She is wrong in interpreting her behavior in terms of intelligence. It should be interpreted in terms of instinctive and emotional reactions.
What do we observe in a performance which causes us to call the performer intelligent, to look upon his performance as in part at least due to hfs intelligence? In unfolding my analysis of what we mean by intelligence, I find it necessary first to distinguish between intelligence levels and intelligence grades. For example, we speak of a chimpanzee as being more intelligent than a sheep, but less intelligent than a human being. We distinguish the intelligence of an imbecile from the intelligence of a normal child. We are all agreed that in some sense of the word, a normal child has less intelligence than a normal adult, and that a savage differs in intelligence from a man of science. In all the cases just enumerated, we are distinguishing intelligence levels, which are determined by the average day in and day out performances. * When, however, I say of my college students that one is more intelligent than another, I am employing the term intelligence in an entirely different sense. Intelligence differences in this sense of the word I propose to call intelligence grades, and I measure or estimate the grade of intelligence from something I observe in the performance, as this is related to something which is not observed, but which I affirm to exist in the performer. Intelligence in this sense I define as the ability of the individual to solve what for him is a new problem. Before I proceed to consider what I mean by the words, “what for him is a new problem,” let me point out certain unjustifiable uses of the word intelligence. Psychology is a science of behavior, but not of all behavior. It does not, for example, concern itself with the behavior of plants, but only with those performances for whose * If you ask, is Philadelphia a hotter place than New York??I can only answer this question by ascertaining the average daily temperatures of the two cities for a year or a longer period. The average of average daily temperatures I may call the temperature level. When we assert that the college professor is a man of higher intelligence than an unskilled day laborer, do we mean anything more than that the average level of daily performances is higher in the one group than in the other? adequate explanation we are compelled to posit the existence of conscious states like pain, sensations of color, aesthetic feelings, emotions, thoughts, and ideas. These conscious states are not merely posited as existing entities, but in many cases are assumed to be causes or active agents in the production of behavior, as when I say my friend struck me because he was angry, or the child cries because he wants his dinner. Science calls this kind of explanation teleological, and there has alwajys been a tendency in science to unify the diversity of conscious states in a single teleological concept. At one time this is ‘psyche, from which we get our words psychic and psychological. At another time it is mind, from which we get such words as mental and mentality. At another time it is reason, as when we say that man does by reason what the animal does by instinct. At another time it is the understanding, or memory; and now the current fashion in psychological terminology shifts to the word intelligence. When, for example, a psychologist entitles his course of lectures, “Non-conscious Factors in Intelligence,” and considers under this caption such topics as “The Simpler Expressions of Intelligence, Memory and Sensorial Functions,” or “More Complex Forms of Control, Reasoning and its Components,” or again “Language,” and “Inherited Expressions of Intelligence,” he appears to be using the word intelligence to mean what others have meant by consciousness or mind. Entitled “The Non-conscious Factors of Consciousness,” the course would appear what it really is, a conservative treatment of a familiar theme in physiological psychology. The touch of fresh paint to the old sign board is the word intelligence, which today is the central problem in clinical psychology. This problem is not directly concerned with consciousness at all, but with the analysis and abstraction of a particular quality of behavior, to which quality I would limit the meaning of the word by precise definition.
Precision of thought will never be reached in psychology if intelligence as a tferm is thus confused with mind or consciousness. Nor can we omit to discriminate between intelligence and intellect. The learned man, the university professor, exercises his intelligence almost exclusively within the intellectual sphere. Consequently, he likes to measure intelligence in terms of intellectual activity. It may or may not be true that the highest grades of intelligence are revealed only in the intellectual sphere, but it is important to distinguish one thing from the other, and to recognize the possibility that a man or a child may be intelligent without being at all intellectual. When, therefore, a recent writer says of universities that they are “the very citadels of intelligence, the guardians in trust of the higher intellectual life of our nation,” he apparently considers the sphere of intelligence to be co-extensive with that of the intellect. If he is employing intelligence in the sense in which I define it, his statement is false. I do not believe that universities are any more citadels o,f intelligence than is Congress, or the board of directors of some large corporation. The members of a college faculty are, it is true, guardians of the higher intellectual life. The performance level at which they manifest their intelligence is higher than the performance level of, say, the students whom they teach, but I should look with despair upon my task of instructing college students, if I did not think that even the freshman class contained more than one student of greater intelligence than fifty per cent of the college faculty. I could entertain no hope for the future of this country, if I did not think that just as intelligent young men go into the industries as go to college.
Again, we must avoid using the term intelligence when we mean reason or the understanding. Reasoning is only one kind of performance, the material being facts. Intelligence is not exclusively a manifestation of the reasoning process, although reasoning, like every other kind of performance, may be employed to grade intelligence. Understanding is also a specialized performance, a prerequisite for which is a stock of information. If I read you a difficult passage, let us say, in psychology, and discover that you have not understood it, I do not necessarily obtain any information as to your intelligence. I may have read the passage in Russian, and you may not have learned Russian, and if I read it in English you may not have studied psychology. I may indeed use your understanding of a passage to ascertain the grade of your intelligence, but I must make my selection with reference to your level of acquired information and accomplishments. The only way in which you can manifest intelligence in understanding, or in reasoning, or in the intellectual field, or in business, or as a college student, or as a school child, is from a relation which must be established between the result of the test, that is to say, the solution of some problems which are set you, and your momentary level of information and training. A particular problem may serve as a test of your intelligence once. If you are very intelligent and have also a good memory, it will rarely serve its purpose a second time, for as I have said, intelligence is the ability of an individual to solve what for him is a new problem. The mere solving of problems, then, is not the criterion of intelligence. Take a college class in some subject, let us say, psychology. I teach this class for a year, and at the end of the year I employ a test, i. e. an examination paper consisting of a number of questions or problems which the student is required to solve. Those who give a certain proportion of correct answers, that is to say, solve a certain proportion of the problems, I pass. Have I any information as to whether the students passed have advanced in grade of intelligence during the year? They may have entered my class with a certain ability to solve new problems. They may leave me with the same ability to solve what are for them new problems. I shall have taught them during the year?such is my pedagogical optimism?to solve more problems than they could have solved at the beginning, but all I can learn from the ordinary examination is that they have retained certain quantities of information and been trained to employ the proper methods of solving problems. In one sense of the word, I suppose I may be said to have increased their intelligence. I have raised their intelligence level, more specifically their information and training level?their intellectual level if you please?but in my terminology their performance level. A college graduate should have a higher performance level than a high school student. Every college professor should have a higher level than any college student, but it would be foolish to say that every college professor has a higher grade of intelligence than any college student, or that every college student has a higher grade of intelligence than any high school pupil, or that every high school pupil has a higher grade of intelligence than any elementary pupil. There is no proof that grade of intelligence is increased by education, but the level of performance is undoubtedly raised by education. As a matter of fact, I do not know how to compare grades of intelligence in individuals who differ greatly in performance level. How, for example, does the grade of intelligence of a college professor compare with the grade of intelligence of a chimpanzee? If intelligence is, as I have defined it, the ability of the individual to solve what for him is a new problem, it is conceivable that a particular chimpanzee at his level may exhibit a higher grade of intelligence than a particular college professor at his level. Your performance level is doubtless higher than your butler’s, if you have one. But do not rashly boast of your superior intelligence before it has been put to a real test. Remember the “Admirable Crichton”!
Diagnostics
A performance level is defined by the average day in and day out performances of an individual or group of individuals. To define this level it may or may not be necessary for us to study individuals over a protracted period of time. The performance level of the chimpanzee can be precisely distinguished from the per70 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. formance level of the human being. The one possesses articulate language, and the other does not. But the performance level of the chimpanzee cannot be distinguished in detail from that of the gorilla or the orang-outang, because the behavior of these animals has not been sufficiently studied. The performance levels of feebleminded and of normal children can be adequately stated for many scientific purposes. There exist recognized groupings of feebleminded children, classified with reference to their performance levels, such as morons, imbeciles, and idiots, and among normal children, the so-called mental age levels of children of five, eight, ten, twelve, and fifteen years. In defining the differences of level which are due to education, the ability to read, write, and cipher, separates the level of the illiterate from levels which lie above.
When differences can be arranged in a series of grades or levels, we establish a scale. The use of such terms as more or less, greater or less, higher or lower, implies that we have a scale and that the component grades and levels can be measured, or more or less accurately estimated. Whfen grades of intelligence and levels of performance are confused with one another, it is assumed that both may be graded on one and the same scale. If I am right in recognizing that there is a distinction between grades of intelligence and levels of performance, then it follows that at least two scales are necessary. I propose to show that we need twelve scales in order to arrange in graded series all the differences in behavior under consideration. I shall first define the eight scales of performance level. There are two growth scales of performance level: (1) the species scale; (2) the age scale.
When we say that a chimpanzee is more intelligent than a sheep but less intelligent than a human being, intelligence here means only relative complexity, variety, and number of the daily performances of these three species of animal. At the highest points on the species scale stand the various sub-species of human beings. Below man is the chimpanzee or gorilla, and immediately below this level the orang will probably be placed. Far below these range the horse, the cow, the sheep, the ant, the bee. Students of animal behavior will in time establish the relative position of all animals on the species scale.
An entirely different series of performance levels is obtained from the behavior of the infant, the child, the adolescent,^the adult, and at the end of the series, the senile. This series of performance levels constitutes the age scale. The result of a Binet test is to assign a child his position on the age scale. This is called his “mental age”. It gives no clue as to the grade of a child’s intelligence, although an experienced observer may estimate it from his behavior in solving some of the tests.
There are two sex scales of performance level: (1) the scale of masculinity; (2) the scale of femininity.
We speak of the manly man and the womanly woman, of effeminate men and of masculine women. Exactly what is meant by these terms, and whether performances have a sex quality or not, I confess I do not know. Nevertheless, we must take cognizance of the fact that feminism, meaning effeminacy, is a not infrequent clinical diagnosis. The two sex scales range from a zero point to the maximum of male and female sex characters. Most men and women will be assigned a position on both scales. The ordinary man will have, let us say, 95 per cent or less of masculinity and 5 per cent or more of femininity, and the ordinary woman will have 95 per cent or less of femininity and 5 per cent or more of masculinity. The diagnosis of feminism in the case of a man, means that we assign him relatively a lower position on the scale of masculinity, and a higher position on the scale of femininity. The value of these scales in clinical diagnosis lies in the fact that they enable us to make clear what we mean by feminism, and to distinguish it from infantilism. Thus it is a matter of common belief that women frequently manifest a high degree of infantilism. Infantilism means a lower position on the age scale of performance than the actual age would lead us to expect. It has no necessary connection with either femininity or masculinity. Infantilism is seldom diagnosed in the case of a man, for the simple reason that when it is discovered in the male, it is called feminism. The performances of a male may exhibit either infantilism or feminism, both or neither; the performances of a female, either infantilism or masculinism, both or neither.
There are two culture scales of performance level: (1) the civilization scale; (2) the education scale. At the lowest point of the civilization scale stands primitive man; at a higher level, the existing savage races; next in rank the barbarian, and then the civilized races, nations, social classes, and families, in the order that our prejudice or the results of investigation may place them. At the top stands the German nation,?in its own estimation. The civilization scale measures the effect of the organized social environment into which the individual is born and in which he is reared. It is the Kultur scale. If there are biological differences of race and family stock, these will be represented on the species scale. Germans may place the German race at the top of the species scale, even as they place their Kultur at the top of the civilization scale.
At the lowest level of the education scale stand the illiterate. The performances called reading, writing, and arithmetic, are at a very significant point on this scale. Another significant point is that which marks the level attained by the eighth grade pupil of the elementary school system, or by the laborer who in addition to the three R’s has acquired some training in a trade. A higher point on the scale indicates the level of the high school graduate, and at the same level I think we must place the business man who has not been to high school but who has obtained some measure of information and training in his special occupation. At this level we may also place the skilled mechanic. A higher point on the scale indicates the level of the college graduate, and not to be distinguished from him in level is the professional man and the man of fairly large business affairs. Near the top of the scale will come those whose accomplishments rest upon a lifetime of education and training, i. e. men of science, statesmen, and the foremost representatives of every art.*
There are two normality scales: (1) the deficiency scale; (2) the insanity scale.
At the lowest point on the deficiency scale must be placed the idiot, above him the imbecile, and then the moron at the level which separates the imbecile, who is clearly subnormal, from the normal. The insanity scale, proceeding from the normal, passes through those whom we call unbalanced, borderline types, to those who are clearly insane.
The significant levels in both these scales are determined by social behavior. The line between the normal and the feebleminded child is not drawn with reference to grade of intelligence. Feebleminded children are those whose performances indicate the necessity of a peculiar social treatment, namely segregation. They doubtless have deficient intelligence, but this is not the reason why they are placed in institutions. They must be segregated because they cannot be educated with other children or safely granted an equal measure of independent action in association with other children. Most normal children will manifest deficiency in some performances. The level of the normal child will be an average of many per* Education alone should not be expected to provide what English speaking persons call “culture,” nor will the social environment, ?. e. being born into a good family, nor yet heredity, i. e. being born of a good family, necessarily equip the individual with culture. In distinguishing the culture levels of different persons, it is well to bear in mind that a given culture level may be determined either by relatively higher position on the civilization scale and lower position on the education scale, or vice versa.
formances, in some of which he will be normal and in others subnormal. An average of sufficiency in performance establishes normality, as an average of deficiency establishes subnormality. The normality point on the scale can be defined only as the average performance level of all the children who remain in the ordinary social environment.
The level of those we call normal is therefore to be distinguished from the level of those we call subnormal, by a patho-social criterion. On the insanity scale also, at a point which indicates the level of those we call unbalanced, we distinguish by a patho-social criterion those who lie nearer the normality level from those who lie nearer the level of maximum insanity. The insane are placed in institutions, not because they have insane ideas?for many persons whom we call normal have insane ideas?but because their performances render them dangerous to themselves or a menace to society. I have called these scales normality scales rather than abnormality scales, because the study of the feebleminded and the insane, whereby we establish different degrees of abnormality, is of less concern to the science of psychology than the study of so-called normal individuals. For instance, we would like to know how many deficiencies an individual may exhibit and how unbalanced he may be, and yet pass for normal.
If the diagnostician will bear in mind that each of the several performance scales represents a different series of facts, he will avoid some interpretations of behavior which give rise to misunderstanding and confusion. The Binet testers assume not only that they are testing intelligence, in which assumption they are mistaken, but also that they can employ one and the same test in order to distinguish the feebleminded from the normal child, and to distinguish the ten year old child, whose mental age is eight, from the ten year old child whose mental age is ten. Feeblemindedness is not backwardness, although the feebleminded child is undoubtedly backward. A ten year old feebleminded child, who has a “mental age” of six years is not at all like a normal child of six. The diagnosis of feeblemindedness will be based upon more than the mere fact of four years’ retardation. The performances of the feebleminded are qualitatively and quantitatively different from the performances of normal children. Every child, normal or feebleminded, can be assigned a level on both the age scale and the deficiency scale. The deficiency scale cannot be superimposed upon the age scale to make a single scale.
In a later contribution I shall seek to render this point of view more emphatic by designating
these two normality scales:?(1) the sufficiency scale, and (2) the equilibrium scale. At the present moment I cannot stop to consider the merits of this proposed terminology, and therefore I adhere to terms which are more nearly in accord with common usage.
By comparing mental age with actual or chronological age we derive such diagnostic categories as infantilism and ‘precocity. The terms backwardness and retardation also are employed with reference to the age scale, although backwardness in my judgment should be used only with reference to the education scale. When the Binet tests are adversely criticized on the score that they favor those children who have been well trained at school, we see the necessity of clearing up the current confusion in the use of the terms retardation and backwardness. The Binet tests may indeed serve to indicate a retarded or arrested growth process, but on the other hand, they may indicate only backwardness in education. The terms retardation and arrested development came into the literature as the result of a partial and perhaps mistaken explanation of the cause of feeblemindedness. Itard and Seguin, in effect, placed the feebleminded on the species scale below the human being, or at least below what was assumed to be the highest biological type of human being, the Caucasian. Thus were secured such diagnostic categories as the mongolian, the aztec, etc., of which but one survives today, and even the term mongolian has been stripped of all etiological reference to that race. Atavism is a diagnostic category which has reference to the species scale, for an atavistic trait is one that characterizes the behavior of a species lower on the scale than the more highly evoluted modern man. Primitivism on the other hand has reference to the civilization scale, and indicates performances standing at a low level on this scale, i. e. the behavior of men in less highly organized social environments than ours. infantilism has reference to the age scale, and backwardness to the education scale, although the latter term is commonly employed to refer to the age scale, for which reason I have found it necessary to define it more precisely as pedagogical backwardness. A feebleminded person may exhibit atavism, primitivism, infantilism, and pedagogical backwardness, but his feeblemindedness is not to be diagnosed from this symptom complex but only by employing the patho-social criterion to measure the sufficiency or deficiency of his behavior. The terms retardation and arrested development have a general signification. Retarded or arrested development, referred to the species scale, is atavism; referred to the age scale, it is infantilism; to the civilization scale, primitivism; and to the education scale, backwardness. There are two scales for grading intelligence: (1) the invention scale; (2) the resource scale.
I have defined intelligence as the ability of an individual to solve what for him is a new problem. A problem must be solved, and it must be new. In the relative newness of the problem for each individual will reside its relative difficulty. The more difficult the problem the greater originality will be required for its solution. A given test may present no difficulties at all, for the way to solve the problem may already have been learned. On the other hand, the test may provide a problem too far above or otherwise too remote from the individual’s performance level. A problem which is new may consequently not be a problem at all, as if we should employ a problem in algebra to test a person who does not know algebra, or should test an animal with a puzzle box which provides conditions for which his performance level is not at all adjusted. We can not test the intelligence of a horse by requiring it to climb trees. The ability to solve a new problem is invention. It is a creative act. The invention scale measures the degree of originality displayed in producing a required result.
Invention may be limited to a single field, or be manifested in many fields. Whenever intelligence is tested, it can be tested in only one field at a time, in a problem of arithmetic, let us say, or in business, or in writing a poem, or in delivering an address. General intelligence cannot be tested. It may be inferred from the particular resource tested, or from the variety of invention displayed in solving a number of problems. The generalness of intelligence is measured by the number of resources through which the individual manifests his invention. The grade of intelligence, therefore, is not to be measured on a single scale. We cannot call anyone intelligent whose invention is limited to a single resource. The scale which measures the generalness of intelligence or its range of distribution I call the resource scale. A line representing intelligence differences increasing from lower to higher intelligence will be determined by two coefficients, the one on a scale of invention grades, and the other on a scale of resource grades.
Men of great intelligence are not distinguished from men of small intelligence by possessing more or less of a single unit character, i. e. intelligence, but by virtue of the fact that their performances indicate a high degree of invention combined with a high degree of resourcefulness. These scales have been in practical use for a long time. When Mr. Gosse inquires whether America has produced a poet equal to the twelve greatest English poets, he decides that Edgar Allan Poe alone has a claim to this rank, but he finally excludes him on the ground “that his song has but one motive, sorrow for the irrecoverable dead.” Nevertheless he admits that within the range of this one motive Poe’s invention is creative genius of the first rank. Aristotle, Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, are examples of an intelligence which ranks high, both in invention and resourcefulness.
There are two scales for grading proficiency: (1) the efficiency scale; (2) the operation scale.
Mr. Courtis has contributed results of great value to the scientific treatment of efficiency, because he has so clearly distinguished between the efficiency of an elementary operation in arithmetic, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and the number of operations which are involved in solving problems. He shows us that a child may have a high grade of efficiency in addition but a low grade of efficiency in subtraction. The proficiency of the pupil in arithmetic rests upon his knowing an adequate number of operations and having acquired an adequate efficiency in each operation. He suggests that an operation may be made too efficient, for the number of operations will decrease, becoming ultimately less than adequate, if an effort is made to acquire an excessive, i. e. more than adequate, grade of efficiency in any one operation. Efficiency is a scientific term, and should be reserved in scientific discussion for a single use. Efficiency in arithmetic is to be measured in terms of the accuracy and speed with which each specific and component operation is carried on. The great problem in education, therefore, is not merely to increase the grade of efficiency of the pupils and of the school system, but also to increase the number of efficiencies. We should grade efficiency on a single scale, the scale of efficiency, and distinguish this from every other scale, especially the operation scale. If we wish to grade individuals with respect to efficiency combined with the number of operations, we need a separate term for this complex, for which I propose the word ‘proficiency. It is already in common usage, and science should attempt to be at least as discriminating as the man in the street. Training schools give certificates of proficiency. I do not happen to know of any training school which gives a certificate of efficiency.
When I restrict the term efficiency to a single phase or element of an operation, I do not mean that efficiency is unimportant, but that invention, and resourcefulness, and the number of operations, are also important, and in some cases may be even more important than efficiency. Which may happen to be most important for an individual or nation to acquire will depend upon the circumstances and conditions of the moment. Until I have looked into the matter I cannot tell whether it would be more important for me to develop efficiency in a particular student or to extend the number of his operations, to strive to encourage the development of creative originality or to add to the number of his possible resources. The nations are struggling blindly forward. What may be most important for the development of each nation?to strive for efficiency, or to encourage invention,?who can tell? I only know that for science the immediate task is to study and measure efficiency. Science must begin with elementary processes. It must learn how to measure by measuring first what can be measured. Efficiency may be measured with some precision. Intelligence grades and performance levels can only be approximately estimated.
To one who has followed my analysis with understanding, it will be evident that most so-called intelligence tests are not tests of intelligence at all. Some of them are tests of efficiency, while others afford data for establishing a differential diagnosis with respect to the species or the age level, the deficiency or the insanity level, or the education level. No one has devised as yet a satisfactory test of intelligence. Intelligence differences are based upon estimates, which are for the most part as crude as popular estimates of civilization level.*
Application.
Dr Eliot speaks with admiration of the “wonderful efficiency” of the Germans. They have conceived and carried forward a policy in government, industry, and military organization, whose aim has been the acquisition of efficiency in a large number of operations. Have they neglected to include all the essential operations? “If we include in the definition of military efficiency the management of supporting industries,” as well as other operations enumerated by him, the outcome of the war?victory for the Allies? will, according to Dr Eliot, demonstrate that “German efficiency” is inferior to “British and French efficiency.” Why not admit the Germans are more efficient whether they win or lose? If Dr Eliot means that victory for the Allies will prove that the Germans have * Summary.?The differential diagnosis of intelligence requires twelve performance scales for grading and levelling individuals and groups: Grades f 1. The invention scale Inte lgence j 2. The resource scale _ _ . 13. The efficiency scale ro ciency j 4 The operation scale Growth | Sex | Levels 5. The species scale 6. The age scale 7. The masculinity scale 8. The femininity scale 9. The civilization scale 10. The education scale Culture .. I 11. The deficiency scale (or the sufficiency scale) orma y ? jg. The insanity scale (or the equilibrium scale) neglected to acquire efficiency in some essential operations, he would have clarified his argument if he had used some term like ‘proficiency to indicate the combination of efficiency with the number of operations concerned. The outcome of the war may prove German proficiency inferior to British and French proficiency, but it cannot show Germany’s efficiency to be inferior to what it really is. It may indeed be questioned whether the Germans have not developed. efficiency beyond the point where it has maximum effectiveness.
If grades of efficiency can be measured on an efficiency scale, then the terms higher and lower should be restricted to mean relative position on this scale. Greater care in the use of these terms would remove a possible source of misunderstanding,?as when in his final paragraph Dr Eliot concludes that for the “highest efficiency” both discipline and co-operation should be consented to in liberty. We discover from other portions of Dr Eliot’s discussion that he does in fact believe the Germans have omitted some essential operations from the total number of operations in which they have already acquired efficiency. Throughout the discussion, however, he confuses higher and lower, which indicate relative grades on the efficiency scale, with greater and less importance, which refer to facts and conditions other than mere efficiency. Efficiency is not the only desideratum for the successful ventures of a nation or individual. To arrive at a sound conclusion as to whether one operation is more important than another involves issues of fact and theory, which I can barely touch upon in this article. We are apt to consider that operations are more important when they are complex than when they are simple or elementary. Take for example, arithmetic. Everyone will admit that the child who can add or subtract with a satisfactory efficiency has taken only the first step toward learning how to employ arithmetic in his daily life. He must next learn how to use these elementary operations in solving problems, employing for the purpose not only his acquired proficiency in arithmetic but also the reasoning faculty. In time it may be possible for psychology to analyze the complex processes of reasoning into simple operations, and thus place us in a position to measure their efficiency. At the present moment, however, a child’s efficiency and reasoning cannot be measured so as to be compared on equal terms with his efficiency in the elementary operations. We must be able to do this before we can arrive at a precise estimate of the relative importance of reasoning and ciphering as elements in an education.
Another difficulty in estimating relative importance arises from lack of agreement as to the purpose or aim of a process, such for example, as the educational development of an individual or the progress of a race or nation. The value, and hence the importance, of an operation, is determined with reference to the conceived end or object of the total process. We often raise the question whether vision or audition is the more important sense. This question can be debated because vision and audition are of nearly equal complexity, and the purposes which these two senses serve are sufficiently alike to allow us to estimate their relative value. When, however, we ask which is the more important, the sense of vision or the sense of hunger, we have asked a question very difficult to answer, because vision is a complex of many different processes and hunger is an elementary sensation. When we inquire, to what end??the difficulty is increased, because vision would seem to have greater value than hunger in our daily affairs, and yet as a matter of fact children born blind are easily reared to a fairly normal adult age, while children born without the sense of hunger would probably die in infancy. For these and other reasons, I think that questions of relative importance will remain for a long time matters of opinion rather than problems in scientific measurement.
Dr Eliot’s “highest efficiency,” by which he means the efficiency of the more complex and socially important operations, rests upon intelligence, will, and moral purpose. Thus he considers a volunteer soldier more effective than a conscript, “because he has more personal initiative, more power of independent action, more sense of individual responsibility.” “Personal initiative” is will. “Independent action” is a product of intelligence and will. “Individual responsibility” is a moral quality. The part which intelligence plays in developing proficiency concerns my present discussion more directly than the will or differences in moral quality. In Dr Eliot’s estimation intelligence is a “power in free institutions which leads to efficiency.” “Germany,” he says, “has adopted, adapted, and used with great skill all the inventions of the free nations.” The German has seen that applied science makes for efficiency, and he has taken and used whatever he found wherever he found it. He has therefore developed efficiency in a large number of important operations, displaying thereby his “will to efficiency,” and that modicum of intelligence which is necessary for gaining information, and for adopting and adapting methods. “Under free governments,” however, and “in communities which have a fair amount of social mobility, the rare men are surer to come forward into vigorous action?the men who are competent, not only to invent or imagine the thing or the method that is next wanted, but to put their inventions into practical form and to make them useful in actual industries of their nations and the world.” The issue with respect to intelligence is clearly and justly presented by Dr Eliot, but when he goes on to assert that free institutions may also be expected to develop greater efficiency in industry and in governmental administration than autocratic governments, in my opinion he seeks to prove too much. Let us give the German nation its due, and grant the German more efficiency in a larger number of operations and a greater will to efficiency. We come then to Dr Eliot’s real argument, which is that autocratic nations are neither so inventive nor so resourceful as the freer nations. The development of individuals and nations, and I may add of science also, proceeds along two entirely different paths. One is the road to greater efficiency in an ever larger number of operations. The other leads to greater productive originality in an ever expanding field of resources. If the two paths are conceived to be parallel like the tracks of a railroad, we shall make the most progress under ordinary conditions by keeping on both tracks. An invention, or a new idea, a new hypothesis or discovery in science, however, may suddenly make all the old operations and their efficiencies unnecessary. The man who cut the Gordian knot made efficiency in untying knots superfluous. The submarine may send the superefficient dreadnought to the scrap heap. At moments when new* inventions are being offered, our very efficiencies may make us less effective. For example, psychology as a science is just now at this stage of development. The theories and methods which underlie my treatment of the subject matter of this article, and which are leading many to define psychology as a science of behavior, find some efficient psychologists unable to adjust themselves to these inventions. Their very efficiency holds them fast to the old operations and unfortunately empowers them to block the progress of the science, placed as many of them are at points of vantage in institutions of learning. Our estimate of the relative merits of scientific men changes as time enables us better to distinguish the relative value of efficiencies and inventions. At the moment, Wundt is justly acknowledged to be the greatest living psychologist. He belongs to the new school, and yet he was trained in the old; his monumental work is characterized more by persevering efficiency than by creative originality. He has employed many resources and shown the highest proficiency, but seldom in his work do we see the invention which leaps up to us from every page of William James. In Fechner, the Germans have produced a scientific intelligence of the first rank in psychology. The influence of Fechner’s invention upon the science already transcends the influence of Wundt, whose greatness lies in the skill with which he has elaborated and diffused the ideas of Fechner and other men. Darwin and Galton have done more to determine the character of modern psychology than Helmholtz.
From many fields of art and science Dr Eliot gathers the data from which he justly concludes that the British and French exceed the Germans in creative originality. I agree also with Dr Eliot’s opinion that this more productive and resourceful intelligence of the British and French is due to greater political freedom and greater freedom in education. I cannot, however, believe that it is Germany’s very efficiency in education, “which has prevented the last two generations of Germans from knowing anything about freedom.” Heine said the French loved liberty like a mistress, the English loved her like a wife, but the Germans, like a grandmother. Even though Germans have not cared for freedom, we need not follow Dr Eliot in denying them nearly all of the elements of national greatness. The Germans recognize the value of efficiency in all individual and collective activities, and seek to acquire it through discipline. If efficiency is worth while, then discipline in education, in industry, and in social life, is worth while. So far as efficiency is concerned, it probably makes no difference whether discipline originates from without or from within. Intelligence, however, does not come from without. It is a congenital endowment of the individual or race. I cannot make my students more intelligent; I can only present my subject in a manner calculated to exercise the intelligence of which they are possessed. On the other hand, I may present my material in a way which will restrict the free play of their intelligence in invention. By insisting too much upon external discipline, training in method, and the acquisition of information, the conditions may be provided?perhaps are provided in school, high school, and college?which eventuate in the atrophy of intelligence through disuse. We cannot give a child eye-sight if he is blind, but we can destroy his vision if he has it.
“A man will develop greater mental capacity and greater force with freedom than without,” says Dr Eliot. If he means by “greater mental capacity,” greater intelligence, I can agree with him; but if he means by “greater mental capacity,” greater efficiency in a larger number of operations, I cannot agree with him. A measure of freedom is a necessary condition for the full exercise of intelligence, and I believe with Dr Elliot that intelligence may be expected to develop both resources and efficiencies. Whether, as a matter of fact, intelligence or external discipline will develop the larger number of resources and efficiencies, can only be determined after an adequate test. The least known element in Dr Eliot’s problem is will. The Germans recognize the supreme importance of will. They even think the “will to victory” will bring victory. They may be asking too much of the “will to victory,” but certainly the “will to efficiency” will bring efficiency, and that, too, without calling for a high grade of intelligence. I am not prepared to analyze the will as I have attempted to analyze intelligence, but we can at least distinguish two contrasting modes of developing will through discipline: the one is freedom, the other is constraint. The British and French cry for individual and collective freedom; the Germans demand constraint. The antagonistic forces which may be employed to develop will, are not freedom and discipline, but freedom and constraint, for the proximate object of all training of the will is self-discipline. It may be secured by constraint from without, as when we compel the obedience of a child and train him to modes of behavior which he then adheres to, as a matter either of habit or of choice. On the other hand, if we are wise, we permit a certain measure of freedom even to children, for the child then learns from his successes and mistakes to choose the right course of conduct for himself. An equally welldisciplined school or home may be the product of either the discipline of constraint or the discipline of freedom. The problem of military or social discipline is therefore a universal problem in the development of will. Both freedom and constraint appear to be neccessary to develop the individual’s self-discipline. The child who has not been taught obedience through the exercise of sufficient constraint, is apt as an adolescent or adult to display his liberty in the form of license. Our relatively undisciplined but free cities are an offense to the Germans. In both German and Anglo-Saxon communities the individual is put under some measure of constraint by the “collective will,” and both communities are in a measure free. The German has displayed his freedom once and for all by agreeing to submit to a large measure of constraint, enforced by the power of the State. The Anglo-Saxon likes to be free to decide “on the spot” whether the “collective will” or his own will shall control his action. The German’s self-discipline causes him to obey without question the posted order, “Keep off the grass.” Long ago he made his choice with respect to that order and others of like nature. The Anglo-Saxon considers each time the situation arises, whether his desire to walk on that particular plot of grass or his appreciation of the reasonableness of the mandate of the “collective will” shall determine his choice of action. In view of the diverse development of constitutional government in England and in Germany, the objection may be offered that a large number of Germans, perhaps even a majority, have never had the opportunity to decide whether to accept or reject the collective constraint. It must be admitted, I think, that there is less political freedom, as well as less individual liberty, in Germany than in England. The development of political freedom in Germany abruptly terminated with the success of the greatest modern exponent of autocratic ideals, Bismarck. Nevertheless, in the light of the apparently unanimous opinion of the Germans on the justice of the war and on the value of their military organization, it would be hazardous to assert that the State Socialism of Germany, with its emphasis upon the discipline of constraint in school, army, and social life, has not been accepted as a matter of choice by the German people.
Questions of relative value are now apparently to be settled by the test of war. Whether the Germans win or not, they have already shown the value of efficiency and constraint. If the Allies win, it will prove that we may still rely upon intelligence and freedom to develop efficiency when it is needed. Whether or not Dr. Eliot is right in maintaining “there is a power in free institutions which leads to efficiency/’ certainly it has been demonstrated that there is power in at least one autocratic institution which has led to efficiency. Which is really the greater power, the war itself must decide. I hope that Dr Eliot is right in thinking that proficiency, even in war, may be brought to a higher condition in a republic than in an autocratic government, for I like intelligence and freedom more than I like efficiency and constraint. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, the progress of the war has already shown how dangerous it may be to over-estimate the value of intelligence and freedom, to under-estimate the value of efficiency and constraint. I prefer intelligence and freedom, especially for myself, but I appreciate the value of efficiency and constraint, especially for others. Nevertheless, I do not want to see intelligence and freedom compelled to accept the yoke of efficiency and constraint. I appreciate, and even admire, the efficiency of the ant and the bee, but I am reluctant to take these insect communities as a model of organization and co-operation for human society. Intelligence and proficiency, freedom and constraint, are not the only factors of competency. They are the general expression of particular mental capacities and traits, which constitute the congenital endowment of the individual. Thus, as I have already pointed out, articulate language is a congenital capacity of every normal human being, which he uses intelligently or proficiently as the case may be. When a capacity is present in more than average amount, it is called a talent. Thus we speak of a talent for music, and rightly call the Germans more musical than the Anglo-Saxons. When a trait is excessively developed, it may seriously interfere with the individual’s progress or success. It is then called a defect. Thus conscientiousness, or curiosity, or obstinacy, which have social and educational value, act, when excessive, as defects to retard progress and handicap success. If a capacity, ordinarily present in the human being, either does not exist in an individual, or is present in a very small amount, this constitutes a defect. Thus tone-deafness, or color-blindness, or insensibility to pain, is a defect. A mental trait which makes for progress and success, I call an asset. The total mental capacity of an individual, then, is the algebraic sum of his assets and defects.
The competency of an individual or nation is a complex of many elements. It includes intelligence, which we measure in terms of invention and resource; proficiency, measured in terms of efficiency and the number of operations; the disciplined will; and finally the algebraic sum of multifarious assets and defects. In this complex, the variables I have had under consideration are invention, efficiency, and the discipline of freedom or constraint. The British and French, I conclude, have more invention, less efficiency, and more of freedom than constraint. The Germans have less invention, more efficiency, and more of constraint than freedom. Relative competency will appear only when the competition is over and we know the result. The lessons we may then draw for the guidance of nations and individuals will depend in large part upon the soundness of our analyses and interpretations. Psychology will contribute not only to the analysis and interpretation, but also to the exact measurement of efficiency and such other factors as may prove to be measurable.
The relative value of mental traits, however, can never be established by psychological investigation alone, and for an indefinite period we may expect the determination of the relative value of different mental qualities to remain mere expressions of opinion and more or less at the hazard of fortune. What we shall consider an asset, and what a defect, necessarily depends upon the end or purpose we have in view. Obstinacy in the mule is a defect from the man’s point of view, but an asset from the mule’s if it prevents his being overworked. Obstinacy in a child, parents usually consider a defect, but it is one of the means whereby the child preserves his personality from being too much affected by external constraint. Success in war may not reveal but obscure the relative value of qualities like intelligence and love of freedom. The Germans may have a greater talent for war than the English or French, and the value of this asset may be enhanced by another asset?the determination to drive forward to success in war, regardless of the opinions and sympathies of others. What are virtues in time of peace may play the role of defects in war, retarding progress and handicapping success. So thought the German who announced as a general proposition that “necessity knows no law”. He forgot that general principles which appear to admit of no exceptions are dangerous, for the end may indeed justify the means, but only in so far as “a very good end” may justify some “doubtful means”. For example, it may perhaps be open to debate whether the Germans were justified in invading Belgium, in torpedoing merchant vessels of the enemy, and in using poisonous gases; but could they justify, even to themselves, an attempt to poison wells, to organize assassination, or to disseminate disease germs in an enemy’s country? Moreover, war is only a single incident in a nation’s history, a single element of her civilization. No one can predict how much Germany will eventually lose and England gain, in the estimation of the world, because of a different appreciation of the inviolability of a contract. I think we may assume that established moral principles are those which the world has found by experience to be assets. For the moment, particular moral principles may act as defects to retard progress and handicap success, but the individual or nation who will not abide by accepted principles of law and morals must beware lest his ultimate loss exceed his immediate gain. With the progress of civilization, there have been established certain canons of national and international law, applying even to the conduct of war. To those who have thus raised the level of our civilization, the world owes a debt of gratitude, and none of them stands higher for intelligence and courage?such is the irony of history?than a German professor. Driven from the University of Leipzig because he sought to free education from sectarian influence and control, Thomasius, with the aid of the first king of Prussia, established at Halle an institution of learning so definitely committed to freedom of thought that a historian of education calls it “the first really modern university.” Thomasius affirmed principles of law and morals which mitigated the horrors of religious wars in Europe, did away with prosecutions for witchcraft, and eliminated torture as a recognized procedure in law. In peril of his life, he wrote for the world’s enlightenment: “I now saw that any being gifted by God with reason sins against the goodness of his Creator when he allows himself to be led, like an ox, by any other human being,” and he adds, “I determined to shut my eyes against the brightness of human authority and to give no more thought to the question, who supports any doctrine,?but only to weigh fairly the grounds for and against it.” These views were no more popular in Germany then than they are today. The University of Halle was called in derision the University of Hell. In speaking of his earlier work at Leipzig Thomasius says, “I was left alone in my lecture room with my Grotius,”?the founder of international law, and another advocate of freedom and fair dealing even in war. In the preface to his great work, De Jure Belli ac Pads, Grotius pleads for humanity, “I saw in the whole Christian world a license of fighting at which even barbarous nations might blush. A declaration of war seemed to let loose every crime.” It is said of Grotius that he “first awakened the conscience of governments to the Christian sense of international duty.” The difference between the level of civilization before and after the appearance of Grotius’ book is represented by the difference between the sacking of Magdeburg by Tilly, which horrified all Europe, and Richelieu’s humanity toward the inhabitants of La Rochelle, which earned for him the title of “The Cardinal of Satan,” bestowed by the astonished fanatics of his own church.
Many brave comrades of Grotius and Thomasius paid with their lives to create the beginnings of international law, and thus raise our civilization above the moral level of Machiavelli. To throw overboard what we have acquired of international morality, is the kind of reaction we diagnose as primitivism, meaning thereby a reversion in manners, customs, and principles to what is characteristic of a lower level of civilization. In modern society segregation is the treatment prescribed for those who think and act like Huns. Will an indignant world unite to segregate those whom our advancing civilization has come to recognize as a menace to the intelligence, freedom, and morality of nations?
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