338 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Amorist agonist man, that, immortally pining and striving, 

 Snatches the glory of life only from love and from war ; 

 Man that . . . 

 Seemeth so easy to shatter, and proveth so hard to be cloven ; 



• • • • m 



Man whom Fate, his victor, magnanimous, clement in triumph, 

 Holds as a captive king, mewed in a palace divine. 



Those restorations which avail to turn an abstract into a concrete science are 

 impossible in the " human sciences," where, in some degree, each man is a law to 

 himself. Not without reason has someone — was it not Dr. Schiller? — suggested 

 that the desideratum is " as many individuals, so many metaphysics." 



Further, is Prof. Terman justified in implying the existence of a fixed standard 

 of correctness and error ? Handling replies to " test-questions " ; he labels them 

 right or wrong. Yet, belauded for their definiteness, they seem, not seldom, to 

 admit of a variety of shades and differences in reply. The test for an "average 

 adult," whatever that may be, is — " What is the difference between laziness and 

 idleness ? '' Prof. Terman judges the reply on strictest etymological lines. But 

 words, long used, acquire meanings : dictionaries, not alone English ones, admit 

 these as synonyms. It may be inaccurate, but it is not " unintelligent," to say 

 " So-and-So is an idle fellow," meaning that he could work, but won't. Moreover, 

 words do not abide alone ; theories grow round them. What delicate enter- 

 tainment might accrue from a symposium on laziness and idleness, say by 

 Mr. Bertrand Russell, Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Smillie, and the Duke of Northumber- 

 land, with perhaps Mr. Bernard Shaw as Official Critic. It comes to this, man is 

 a live creature, not an equilateral triangle, and the science of him is inexact ; 

 very useful in capable hands, but inexact. Between abstract and concrete is a 

 great gulf fixed. Doubtless, costeris paribus, 2 + 2 = 4; but in the concrete what 

 sort of " four " can one make of two elephants and two stars ? Can genuine 

 Science afford to watch the establishment of methods whose affinity seems closer 

 to some noisily-advertised systems of "Wisdom while you wait" than to serious 

 Psychology ? It is difficult to believe that it can. 



Theory-mongers often write as if they were pioneers, and not all share Pesta- 

 lozzi's frankness in boldly eschewing all forerunners. Prof. Terman warns us 

 against the deceptions of superficial quickness, which Ascham had done inimitably, 

 centuries ago, in his famous comparison of "quick wits" and the "staffish." 



A philosopher should not generalise rashly — e.g., "the ability to comprehend 

 and use language is one of the most reliable indications of the grade of mental 

 intelligence " (p. 143). Is it ? Some of us are naturally glib ; more acquire 

 fluency by training and practice ; some, quite able people, never attain to it. 

 Again, " All of us in early childhood lacked moral responsibility. We were as 

 rank egoists as any criminal" (p. 11). All ! Were we all really as bad as that? 

 A famous sentence about the difficulty of "drawing up an indictment against a 

 whole people " flits through the mind. Of humanity, Burke, like Talleyrand, 

 might have said " I know the beast." 



Why, being a psychologist, does Prof. Terman care, apparently, so little for 

 " Interest " ? These tests, flung suddenly at children wrenched from their familiar 

 surroundings, hardly to be reassured by "a reasonably small room," furnished 

 simply with " a table and two chairs" (p. 122), lack interest of any sort : mostly, 

 they are as flat as ditchwater, monotonous in their avoidance of any effort to gauge 

 literary or aesthetic power ; tedious in their diurnal utilitarianism. 



