SCIENCE 



Friday, March 31, 1911 



CONTENTS 



The Beginnings of Intelligence: Propessoe 

 S. J. Holmes 473 



The Galton Chair of Eugenics 480 



.Scientific Notes and News 481 



University and Educational News 485 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



The Air we breathe: William Kent, 

 William J. Crowell, Jr., Louis Cleve- 

 land Jones. University Fellowships: Pro- 

 fessor GuiDO H. Marx, Dr. C. V. Burke . . 486 



^Scientific Boolcs: — 



Kiehel and Mall's Human Embryology : 

 Professor H. McE. Knower 493 



.Special Articles : — 



The Origin cf Nine Wing Mutations in 

 Drosophila: Professor T. H. Morgan ... 496 



The National Conference Committee on 

 Standards of Colleges and Secondary 

 Schools : Professor Frederick C. Perry . . 499 



Anthropology at the Providence Meeting: 

 Dr. George Grant MacCurdy 500 



The Fifth Annual Meeting of the Entomolog- 

 ical Society of America: Professor Alex- 

 ander D. MacGillivray 507 



.Societies and Academies: — 



Section of Biology of the Netv Yorlv Acad- 

 emy of Sciences: L. Hussakof. The Neiv 

 YorJc Section of the American Chemical 

 Society : C. M. Joyce. The. Selmintholog- 

 ical Society of Washington : Maurice C. 

 Hall 507 



HSS. intended for publication and books, etc., utended for 

 •review should be se^t to the Editor oi' Sciknck, Garrisoa-on- 

 'EodsoB, X. Y. 



^ THE BEGINNINGS OF INTELLIGENCE ' 



Nothing shews more the force of habit in 

 reconciling us to any phenomenon, than this, 

 that men are not astonish'd at tlie operations 

 of their own reason, at the same time, that they 

 admire the instinct of animals, and find a diffi- 

 culty in explaining it, merely because it can not 

 be redue'd to the very same principles. To con- 

 sider the matter aright, reason is nothing but a 

 wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls, 

 which carries us along a train of ideas, and endows 

 them with particular qualities, according to their 

 particular situations and relations. — David Hume, 

 ' ' Treatise on Human Nature. ' ' 



We all have a certain curiosity regard- 

 ing the evolutionary history of our various 

 powers and attributes, but from many 

 points of view an unusual interest attaches 

 to the first development of intelligence. 

 The word intelligence is used in a variety 

 of senses by writers on comparative psy- 

 chology and any discussion of the origin of 

 intelligence would be fruitless unless the 

 meaning in which the term is employed be 

 understood. One of the foremost of com- 

 parative psychologists, the acute Father 

 Wasmann, defines intelligence as " the 

 power of conceiving the relation of con- 

 cepts to one another and of drawing con- 

 clusions therefrom. It involves abstrac- 

 tion, deliberation and self-conscious activ- 

 ity. ' ' Intelligence, according to Wasmann, 

 is the God-given attribute of man alone; 

 its possession separates man from brute by 

 an impassable barrier. 



Many comparative psychologists, among 

 whom we may mention Lloyd Morgan, 

 Forel and Loeb, adopt as a criterion 

 of intelligence the power of forming asso- 



' Read before the meeting of the Sigma Xi of 

 the University of California, December 7, 1910. 



