4 PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS OP TESTING INTELLIGENCE 



pendence of the performances upon external factors, 

 on the problems and demands of life, and thus dis- 

 tinguishes intelligence from genius, whose nature is 

 to create the new spontaneously. 



Finally, the fact that the capacity is a general 

 capacity distinguishes intelligence from talent the 

 characteristic of which is precisely the limitation of 

 efficiency to one kind of content. He is intelligent, 

 on the contrary, who is able easily to effect mental 

 adaptation to new requirements under the most 

 varied conditions and in the most varied fields. If 

 talent be a material efficiency, intelligence is a formal 

 efficiency. 



I trust that these distinctions may serve to lessen 

 the confusion that has been current. It is not so long 

 ago, indeed, that in psychiatry ' information tests' 

 were carried on as ' intelligence tests, * thereby con- 

 fusing memory and intelligence. And we often, even 

 nowadays, find intelligence and talent confused in 

 everyday life. In the school, for instance, a teacher 

 of a special subject like mathematics, who perceives 

 the special gift of a pupil in that field, may easily 

 come to believe without further evidence that this 

 pupil has general ability, or in other words, to rate 

 him as an intelligent pupil. 



But we should not interpret this delimitation to 

 mean the erection of sharply distinct faculties, as in 

 the old faculty theory. Intelligence, for instance, 

 does not function by itself and memory by itself; 

 rather, every operation of memory is more or less 

 impregnated with intellectual functions and vice 

 versa: the extent of this interconnection can be indi- 

 cated only by the correlation of the tested symptoms. 



