178 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



satisfactory to the ordinary person (a host of problems are covered by the 

 word ' complacency '") but provoking to the genius. 



Such analysis '' may involve recall in memory (visual, muscular, and 

 verbal) of various skilled feats, comparison and discrimination between 

 them, selection of their relevant aspects, re-comparison with some aim 

 in view, re-combination, and as a result, an unanalysed — perhaps un- 

 analysable — polish which fuses the movements into a dazzling new unity. 



This is inventive creation in skill residting from analysis. It is seen 

 and will be seen oftener in the world of play and art. It may increase 

 in the world of industry, if industry desires and deserves it. 



Intelligence, Intellect and Skill. 



It is necessary to consider the place, in this scheme, of intelligence. 

 What is its relation to skill ? 



Writers have observed that it is easier to_^say who is intelligent than 

 what is intelligence ; to agree upon what intelligence does than upon 

 what it is. It seems possible for our purpose to describe intelligence by 

 its fruits. 



Acknowledging the value of certain recent writings which expound a 

 different view, I still feel that for practical purposes intelligence may be 

 described as the individual's capacity for adaptation to a new situation. 

 Summarising Dr. P. B. Ballard's description,'" we may say that 

 intelligence is more fully manifested in the higher mental processes than 

 in the lower. It is specially employed in situations- which present points 

 of novelty, i.e. the solution of problems. It is concerned more with the 

 dissection, planning, and rearrangement of the data of experience than 

 with the mere reception of impressions. 



None of these assertions conflict with the possibility of a muscular or 

 ' kinaesthetic ' intelligence.'' 



Intelligence is clearly a capacity, not an ability nor a skill. In 

 particular it is not the ability to learn, though the two may be closely 

 related. A learner may supplement low intelligence by the skilful use of 

 various devices and of good tutors. But to choose the devices, or the 

 tutors who supply them, is often a sign of great intelligence, though not 

 necessarily in the learner himself. 



It may be useful to summarise the mental powers which operate along- 

 side and are often confused with intelligence. It is not habit, knowledge, 

 the ease which comes with practice, interest, capacity for taking pains 

 or for application.'" 



Skill and Intellect. 



The use to be proposed of the term intellect is less orthodox. Yet 

 those who believe that the real meaning of a word necessarily exists in a 

 dictionary may be reminded that dictionaries occasionally grow out of date. 



^* Cf. Baup, Complacency, London, 1928. 



*5 It may follow the lines of analytic thinking in general. Cf. Pear, British Journal 

 of Psychology, 1921, vol. xi., pp. 72-80. 



'^ The New Examiner, London, pp. 116 ff. 



" Cf. W. F. Dearborn, Intelligence Tests, Boston, 1928, pp. 112 ff. 



18 Reasons for this fairly orthodox view are given in Fitness for Work, pp. 53 j^. 





