NATURE AND PROBLEM OF INTELLIGENCE TESTING 



evidently that the examination of immediate mem- 

 ory, of ability to learn, of range of information, of 

 fidelity of report, or of discriminative sensitivity is 

 just as much a constituent part of intelligence testing 

 as the examination of ability to apprehend, to syn- 

 thetize, of capacity to judge, to conclude, to define, 

 to criticize, etc. Again, a question that is very im- 

 portant for us, viz. : to what extent intelligence really 

 enters into these first-named activities, and whether 

 and in what way it shows signs of its presence in 

 them, becomes absurd. But the advance made in the 

 recent development of intelligence testing, in con- 

 trast to the uncritical determination of mental level 

 by any sort of questions and tests, consists in the 

 fact that we not only limit intelligence by setting it 

 over against the emotive and volitional nature of 

 an individual, but also ascribe to it a definitely re- 

 stricted place within the mental functions. 



This delimitation of the sphere of intelligence that 

 is even now essential cannot be effected, in my opin- 

 ion, from a phenomenological, but only from a tele- 

 ological point of view. In fact, my definition is this : 



Intelligence is a general capacity of an individual 

 consciously to adjust his thinking to new require- 

 ments: it is general mental adaptability to new prob- 

 lems and conditions of life. 



This definition differentiates intelligence clearly 

 from other mental capacities. 



The fact that the adjustment is made to the new 

 distinguishes intelligence from memory whose fun- 

 damental teleological feature is the conservation and 

 utilization of conscious contents already given. 



The fact of adaptation, again, emphasizes the de- 



