Febeuabt 4, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



181 



matching of blocks and holes by their 

 shape; and the part of intelligence is to 

 hold firmly to this obvious necessity, wast- 

 ing no time in trying to force a' round 

 block into a square hole. The demand on 

 intelligence certainly seems slight enough; 

 and the test would probably not differen- 

 tiate between a Newton and you or me; 

 but it does suffice to catch the feeble- 

 minded, the young child, or the chimpan- 

 zee, as any of these is likely to fail alto- 

 gether, or at least to waste much time in 

 random moves and vain efforts. This test 

 was tried on representatives of several 

 races, and considerable differences ap- 

 peared. As between whites, Indians, Es- 

 kimos, Ainus, Filipinos and Singhalese, the 

 average differences were small, and much 

 overlapping occurred. As between these 

 groups, however, and the Igorot and Ne- 

 grito from the Philippines and a few re- 

 puted Pygmies from the Congo, the average 

 differences were great, and the overlapping 

 was small. Another rather similar test for 

 intelligence, which was tried on some of 

 these groups, gave them the same relative 

 rank. The results of the test agreed 

 closely with the general impression left on 

 the minds of the experimenters by consid- 

 erable association with the people tested. 

 And, finally, the relative size of the cra- 

 nium, as indicated, roughly, by the product 

 of its three external dimensions, agreed 

 closely in these groups with their appear- 

 ance of intelligence, and with their stand- 

 ing in the form test. If the results could 

 be taken at their face value, they would 

 indicate differences of intelligence between 

 races, giving such groups as the Pygmy and. 

 Negrito a low station as compared with 

 most of mankind. The fairness of the test 

 is not, however, beyond question; it may 

 have been of a more unfamiliar sort to 

 these wild hunting folk than to more settled 

 groups. This crumb is, at any rate, about 



all the testing psychologist has yet to offer 

 on the question of racial differences in in- 

 telligence. 



In the absence of first-hand study of the 

 mental powers of different races, folk psy- 

 chology resorts to a comparison of their 

 civilizations and achievements. This is the 

 method by which we habitually compare 

 the intelligence of individuals, judging 

 capacity by performance, the tree by its 

 fruits; and such judgments, though sub- 

 ject to occasional error, are probably in the 

 main reliable. Why should we not extend 

 the method to the comparison of groups, 

 and say that a group possessing a high 

 civilization has probably a high average 

 intelligence, while a wild savage race is 

 mentally poorly endowed? The first diffi- 

 culty in employing the method is to obtain 

 a just estimate of the cultures to be com- 

 pared. First impressions regarding alien 

 folk, derived from the reports of travelers, 

 are usually wide of the mark. Only the 

 patient and prolonged labors of the ethnol- 

 ogist can inform us as to what a tribe does 

 and thinks; and where such studies have 

 been made, it is found that a baelrward 

 culture, sueh as that of the natives of Aus- 

 tralia, has much more substance, and af- 

 fords much wider scope for mental activity, 

 than the early reports indicated. 



The difficulty of inferring the mental 

 endowment of a group from its stage of 

 culture is well brought out by applying 

 this method to the comparison of different 

 epochs in the history of a nation. German 

 culture to-day is much advanced from the 

 days of CEesar; shall we infer that the 

 mental endowment of the Germans has ad- 

 vanced in like measure? Biologically, the 

 interval, measured in generations, is not 

 long, and from all biological considerations 

 it is improbable that any advance in mental 

 endowment has occurred. The difference 

 in material civilization does not mean that 



