APPRECIATION OF INTELLIGENCE ii 



Here are a few examples of groups of categories extracted 

 from Dr. Warner's report : 



II. External Ear defective in its parts, size, or form. 

 Abnormality in size, proportioning, absence of parts, texture 

 of skin are here recorded. The ear may be outstanding 

 with great convexity posteriorly and concavity in front ; 

 the helix or portions thereof and the antehelix may be 

 absent ; the skin over the cartilage may be tight and adhe- 

 rent, coarse in texture with varicosities. The ears may be 

 asymmetrical, and the lobes may be adherent to the face. 

 {Report, p. 73.) 



The ear may be red or bluish. The helix may be absent 

 or contracted, forming a cavelike ear, or may be absent par- 

 tially as in the middle part of the margin or for the whole 

 rim. As to the adherent lobe of the ear, it was often seen 

 but not specially in ears otherwise defective, and no reason 



mental activity — associated with some small and ill-nourished children, but in 

 these cases there are, as a rule, other features which seem to indicate that both 

 mental defect and ill-nutrition have a common origin, and are not necessarily 

 cause and effect. This note may suggest two points : (i) that if Dr. Warner's 

 data were really reliable, they would not lead to correlations comparable with 

 those based on schools from which the mentally defective have been removed. 

 It would be as profitable to compare correlations between intelligence in the 

 general population and other characters, say ill-nutrition itself, before and after 

 the insane had been removed from it. And (2) that Mr. Yule does not appear 

 to have taken any advice, since he wrote his original memoir, as to the current 

 medical opinion as to mental defect, nor do his criticisms allow us to suppose 

 that he in the least appreciates the evidence for the hereditary character of this 

 defect. Those who have had experience of insanity know how in a normally 

 developed individual the appearance of insane tendencies may be heralded and 

 accompanied by ill-nutrition. There is no reason to doubt that a similar 

 association, which must not be interpreted as a causation, may occur in the 

 case of mental defect. Further, it is almost impossible to examine a large 

 number of mentally defective or imbecile children without at the same time 

 recognizing the prevalence among them of associated physical defects of all 

 kinds, and these occur not only in the defectives themselves, but in their 

 relatives. This general degeneracy, expressible in terms of the failure of a 

 control determinant, suffices to explain much that Dr. Warner observed, without 

 compelling us to the conclusion that mental defect flows from ill-nutrition. 



