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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 788 



allow him to present a liasty conclnsion. 

 His tests must be varied and thorough be- 

 fore we can accept his results as a serious 

 contribution to this difSeult subject. The 

 psychologist may as well admit at once that 

 he has little to ofifer; for, though the "psy- 

 chology of peoples" has become a familiar 

 phrase, and though books have been written 

 on the subject, actual experimental work 

 has so far been very limited in quantity. 



One thing the psychologist can assert 

 with no fear of error. Starting from the 

 various mental processes which are recog- 

 nized in his text-books, he can assert that 

 each of these processes is within the capa- 

 bilities of every group of mankind. All 

 have the same senses, the same instincts and 

 emotions. All can remember the past, and 

 imagine objects not present to sense. All 

 discriminate, compare, reason and invent. 

 In all, one impulse can inhibit another, and 

 a distant end can be pursued to the neglect 

 of present incitations. Statements to the 

 contrary, denying to the savage powers of 

 reasoning, or abstraction, or inhibition, or 

 foresight, can be dismissed at once. If the 

 savage differs in these respects from the 

 civilized man, the difference is one of de- 

 gree, and consistent with considerable over- 

 lapping of savage and civilized individuals. 

 The difference of degree calls for quanti- 

 tative tests. But besides the traditional 

 classification of mental powers, there is an- 

 other of perhaps greater importance in 

 studying differences between men. One 

 individual differs from another not so 

 much in power of memory, or of reasoning, 

 or of attention, or of will, as in the sort of 

 material to which he successfully applies 

 these processes. One gives his attention 

 readily to mathematics; he remembers 

 mathematics easily; he reasons well on 

 mathematical subjects; his will is strong 

 in excluding distracting impulses when he 

 is in pursuit of a mathematical goal. He 



may show none of these powers, in a high 

 degree, in relation to music, or business, or 

 social life; whereas another, totally inefS- 

 cient in mathematics, may show equal 

 powers of mind in another subject. The 

 capacity to handle a given sort of subject 

 matter is in part determined by native 

 endowment, but is very responsive to train- 

 ing, and therefore is hard to test, because 

 only individuals with equal training in any 

 subject can be fairly tested and compared 

 as to their native capacity to handle that 

 subject. Thus it becomes hard to contrive 

 a test for musical or mathematical or me- 

 chanical endowment which could fairly be 

 applied to races having diverse trainings in 

 these lines. This difficulty, moreover, in- 

 fects our tests for such general powers as 

 memory or reasoning, for a test has to deal 

 with some sort of material, and success in 

 passing the test depends on the familiarity 

 of the material as well as on the power of 

 mind which we design to test. We may 

 suppose, indeed, that all of our tests, 

 founded as they are on material which is 

 familiar to us, will be more or less unfair 

 to peoples of very different cultures and 

 modes of life. The results of our tests 

 need to be discounted somewhat— exactly 

 how much we can not say — in favor of the 

 primitive peoples tested. 



"We are now, it would seem, sufficiently 

 entrenched in precautions and criticisms to 

 admit the psychologist to our councils, and 

 hear the results of his tests. 



First, as to the senses. The point of 

 special interest here is as to whether the 

 statements of many travelers, ascribing to 

 the "savage" extraordinary powers of 

 vision, hearing and smell, can be substan- 

 tiated by exact tests. The common opinion, 

 based on such reports, is, or has been, that 

 savages are gifted with sensory powers 

 quite beyond anything of which the Euro- 

 pean is capable; though Spencer explains 



